Ego splitting

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Ego-splitting (also I cleavage, Eng. Splitting of the ego , Fri du clivage moi ) refers to the coexistence of two mental attitudes in the self, which manifest themselves in relation of the ego to reality when they come with their own instincts and desires in conflict : One accepts reality, the other questions it and replaces it with a production of wishes. The two settings exist separately from each other and do not influence each other.

The term goes back to Sigmund Freud , who took over various ideas of psychopathology at the end of the 19th century, which dealt with a split or doubling of personality in the context of schizophrenia , hysteria , in particular hysteria of the dissociative type . He used the term in his analysis by Daniel Paul Schreber (1911) with the description of the simultaneously existing psychotic and non-psychotic personality components as well as in connection with the description of fetishism in the Outline of Psychoanalysis (1938). Freud uses the term descriptive and not explanatory. He does not see a separate defense mechanism in the splitting of the ego, but rather the result of complex defense processes, the price of which is a “tear” in the ego that never heals again, but instead increases over time. So z. For example, overly strong and contradicting experiences with early relational objects are attempted to be overcome by splitting the ego, which can also explain phenomena such as multiple personality.

The term is not limited to psychoanalysis , but generally denotes a possibility of human experience and behavior that has also been presented again and again in the literature, e.g. B. in the novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson or the poem Das Spiegelbild by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff . In “The Elixirs of the Devil” (1814/15) ETA Hoffmann described a split in the ego for the first time. From Hoffmann, this topos continued into cultural history. Freud goes into several of Hoffmann's works in his writings, and on this point in particular the “elixirs of the devil”. Hoffmann got his knowledge from neurologists like Dr. Marcus in Bamberg, and obtained from the psychiatric literature of the time.

The fear that there would be a second person within the self, about which the self knows nothing, is also found in the old Germanic myth of the werewolf and its modern descendants.

The phenomenon is also described in the context of psychological trauma theories and in recent neuroscientific research under the formulation of the split personality.

The therapeutic splitting of the ego

Freud also used the term splitting the ego in a positive sense in the sense of the doubling of the ego into a part that observes and a part that is observed by it while it is experiencing something. The term therapeutic ego splitting ties in with this meaning, as a term with positive connotations from the context of the psychoanalytic treatment setting. It affects both the analyst or therapist and the patient or client and is often seen as a prerequisite for the functioning of the psychoanalytic treatment method. Both those involved in the process must be able to allow regressive experience on the one hand and to adopt an observing point of view on the other. The ability of the patient to therapeutically split the ego enables him to experience past and current feelings intensively in therapy and to view and understand them from a greater distance in other phases of treatment. The therapeutic ego-splitting of the therapist enables him on the one hand to experience the patient's feelings empathetically and, through interpretations based on this experience, to give him access to an understanding of what has been experienced and, on the other hand, to maintain the necessary therapeutic abstinence .

The term originally comes from Richard Sterba , who saw the core of analytical treatment in an alliance that is based on this therapeutic splitting of the ego and leads to a we in treatment: therapist and patient join forces to work together against the neurotic parts of the patient. The therapeutic splitting of the ego makes it possible to recognize transference phenomena as such and to distinguish which feelings have their cause in the current event and which come from earlier relational contexts. The conception of the working alliance in psychoanalysis also ties in with this.

In other psychological concepts a comparable idea emerges, something in the various ego states in transactional analysis of Eric Berne on and in working with the inner child with John Bradshaw .

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  • Freud, Sigmund: Psychoanalytic Remarks on an Autobiographically Described Case of Paranoia (Dementia paranoides) (1911). Collected Works VIII, pp. 237-320. Available online in the Gutenberg project
  • Sigmund Freud (1938): The splitting of the ego in the defense process (1938). Collected Works XVII, pp. 59–62. Available online in the Gutenberg project
  • Sigmund Freud: Abriß der Psychoanalyse (1938), Collected Works XVII, pp. 63-138. Current paperback edition: Reclams Universal Library 2010. ISBN 978-3-1501-8689-3
  • Jean Laplanche and J. B Pontalis: The Vocabulary of Psychoanalysis. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main, 1992, 11th edition, pp. 207-210. ISBN 3-5182-7607-7
  • Günther Reich: split into Wolfgang Mertens; Bruno Waldvogel: Handbook of basic psychoanalytic concepts. 3. revised and exp. Edition, Verlag Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2008, pp. 701–704. ISBN 978-3-1701-8844-0
  • Thomas Müller Schizophrenia in Wolfgang Mertens; Bruno Waldvogel: Handbook of basic psychoanalytic concepts. 3. revised and exp. Edition, Verlag Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2008, pp. 663-671

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jean Laplanche and J. B Pontalis: The vocabulary of psychoanalysis . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main, 1992, 11th edition, p. 207 ISBN 3-518-27607-7
  2. ↑ Sigmund Freud: The splitting of the ego in the defense process, p. 60
  3. ^ Günther Reich: split in Wolfgang Mertens; Bruno Waldvogel: Handbook of basic psychoanalytic concepts. 3. revised and exp. Edition, Verlag Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2008, p. 702
  4. ↑ Annette von Droste-Hülshoff: Das Spiegelbild , accessed on January 1, 2017
  5. ^ Spiegel online Wissenschaft from January 10, 2004 , accessed on February 6, 2016
  6. ↑ Michael Ermann: Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy. A textbook on a psychoanalytic basis Verlag Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2007, 5th edition, p. 404f ISBN 978-3-1701-9664-3
  7. ↑ Richard Sterba: The fate of the ego in the therapeutic process. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 20, 1934, pp. 66-73