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Disavowed action can be viewed as a psychological attempt to retain lost agency. Kohut described the vertical split of disavowal by contrasting it with the horizontal split of repression. In The Analysis of the Self, Kohut (1971) writes that the vertical split is “a specific, chronic structural change….” In this state, he argues, “the ideational and emotional manifestations of a vertical split in the psyche—in contrast to such horizontal splits as those brought about on a deeper level by repression and on a higher level by negation (Freud, 1925)—are correlated to the side-by-side, conscious existence (italics added) of otherwise incompatible psychological attitudes, in depth” (Kohut, 1971, pp. 176-177).
The development of Kohut's thinking about the vertical split arose out of his work with the narcissistic behavior disorders. The overt motor acts that label these patients are familiar as the shoplifter, the adulterer, fetishist, exhibitionist, embezzler, and other more subtle variations on the theme. Goldberg (1999), in his book Being ofTwo Minds: The Vertical Split in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, and Goldberg (2001), in his book Errant Selves: A Casebook ofMisbehavior, points to the distinct, side-by-side personality that carry out these misdeeds.
This “other” personality, one that is conscious to the patient and yet simultaneously foreign, is usually cast as (1) misbehaving and (2) as being driven by a narcissistic need in the deepest sense. There are significant reasons to disagree with the first contention and to concur wholeheartedly with the second. In both neurosis and psychosis, the vertical split may be seen to display unusual or foreign actions not immediately recognizable