Splitting Is a Problem With Ambivalence

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"Borderline" means on the border between neurosis and psychosis. The term borderline personality disorder was first introduced by psychoanalyst Otto Kernberg in 1967 to describe a mental health disorder that impacts the way one thinks about oneself and others. The condition often entails an intense fear of abandonment and difficulty tolerating being alone. It causes problems functioning in relationships and everyday life.

Borderline personality disorder refers to a personality structure based on certain psychological operations that function to protect a person from anxiety. These defense mechanisms are usually unconscious unless the individual has received mental health treatment to bring them to awareness.

Splitting

In borderline personalities, "splitting" predominates as a defense against anxiety. This emotional and cognitive distortion warps the perception of oneself and others. We all do it from time to time, and it’s part of what makes us human. Yet it’s a matter of awareness and degree. Splitting is also a common defense for those with narcissistic personality disorders.

Splitting is a mental operation that makes a rigid and absolute division in the world between good/bad and right/wrong. This is a cognitive distortion of "black and white" or "all or nothing" thinking.

Such thinking is a relic of an earlier developmental stage first used by all of us as infants and children when we were not yet capable of integrating polarized viewpoints. Instead, what is thought about oneself and others is two extremes of a spectrum such as good vs. bad, innocence vs. corruption, and victimization vs. oppression.

According to psychoanalysts Melanie Klein and Kernberg after her, this state of mind results from a developmental inability in early childhood to integrate contradictory feelings of love and hate. Rather than integrating these qualities, they are split into all-good and all-bad representations of self and others. There is no middle ground of “grey” and scant tolerance of uncertainty or what Keats called "negative capability," the capacity to doubt or be uncertain.

Splitting is commonplace behavior easily attributed to any number of individuals when we are regressed. How do you know if you’re splitting? Are you thinking in absolute categories or only seeing one side of a person or narrative about them? Here's some language (always binary) to look out for:

• Right/wrong
• Fair/unfair
• Male/female
• Us/ them
• Always/never

Splitting is a way of experiencing the world that protects one from inner conflict and uncertainty but ignores the shades of grey that more accurately portray the complexities of people and reality. This state of mind makes it hard to see subtly and in-depth in oneself and others. The ability to understand contradiction and unconscious motivation is impaired.

Instead, a person's behavior is attributed to an essential goodness or badness of character rather than seeing another as a multi-faceted person with in-between qualities. Putting a person in one category or the other is an oversimplification. Realistically, all human beings are capable of good and evil and fall somewhere on a spectrum.

Splitting can also be directed against oneself and leads to simplified self-understanding. It reduces anxiety by protecting a person from emotional conflicts that might otherwise emerge in self-reflection or feelings around a relationship. Such a tendency to divide the world up into absolute categories makes it easier to manage overwhelming emotions, which on the surface seem to be incongruous. Kernberg claims that splitting is a defense against aggression and underlying hostility.

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Idealization

Splitting allows one to tolerate difficult and contradictory emotions by seeing someone as either idealized or devalued. In fact, it often involves a rapid shift between idealization and devaluation.

Idealization is the tendency to see other people, places, or ideologies as all-good. It's common to idealize a friend, family member, religion, or loved one. Idealization can quickly and unpredictably change to ferocious anger toward that person, a process called devaluation. A person is often put on a pedestal—only to be “flipped” and then devalued when he or she fails to live up to one's expectations.

Devaluation

Devaluation, the opposite of idealization, is another defense mechanism that entails denying the importance of someone, including the self. In borderline states, idealization quickly turns into devaluation. The mind's image of the person formerly idealized becomes corroded. A person in a borderline state then characterizes him or herself or another person as completely flawed, unloveable, worthless, and having exaggerated negative qualities. This occurs through harsh criticism or shaming by attributing to another a sense of inherent badness. Such a dynamic is a way of protecting oneself from anxiety. Splitting functions to minimize the anxiety caused by ambivalence.

Ambivalence

In adulthood, splitting signals a problem with ambivalence. It expresses a limited capacity to hold two or more opposing thoughts or feelings at the same time (such as love and hate for one person). Psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott says that love and hate always coexist. It is normal to feel a broad range of emotions for the people closest to us.

In sum, splitting is a dysfunctional way of dealing with ambivalence. This psychological dynamic reflects challenges in maintaining an integrated view of the good and bad in a person, including oneself. A person splits rather than cope with the stress of ambivalence.

Splitting can impair empathy by compromising one's ability to recognize the feelings and needs of others. The perception of others is selectively biased toward negative attributes or unrealistically ideal ones. This damages interpersonal relationships and communication and therefore impairs mutual understanding.