11th June 1953.

Dear Mrs. Bick:

While I have your paper1 in mind I would like to write you a word or two. I do hope that you will give a lot of thought to this idea of splitting and not take for granted that you are right. In your answer you talked about this woman's splitting mechanisms and used the word “she.” She, by various means, cut and split objects. If the personality of this woman were split, you would not be able to use the word she in this simple way. It would almost seem as if you have not yet met someone fundamentally split. The gentleman who invented the word schizophrenia really did believe in the splitting of the personality, whereas it seems to me that you have got as far as seeing that a person who is whole can be concerned with dissociated elements in the inner and external world. I think this is rather an important point in view of the fact that in