Splitting

(Millon, 2004, p. 27)

Opposite qualities of a single object are held apart, left in deliberately unintegrated opposition,
resulting in cycles of idealization and devaluation as either extreme is project onto self and
others. EXAMPLE: A student vacillates between worship and contempt for a professor,
sometimes seeing her as intelligent and powerful and himself as ignorant and weak, and then
switching roles, depending on their interactions (Millon et al., 2004, p. 27).1 Those clients whose
personality is organized at the borderline level make use of splitting as a defense against
narcissistic injuries. This type of splitting refers to actively keeping apart of good and bad
internal representations of objects as it relates to significant others (Millon, 2004, p. 492).
Thoughts such as, Mommy has some good things about her and some bad things about her, are
simply not possible (Millon, 2004, p. 492). Kernberg (1975) states that these good and bad object
representations form two separate identification systems, either of which may be projected onto
the self or outside world. Thus, borderline clients when under stress may switch between
idealizing others (a projection of the good image) and completely devaluing them (a projection
of the bad image). Understanding the relationship of splitting to the wider constellation of
borderline symptoms requires an understanding of its role in normal development (Millon,
2004, p. 492).

Borderlines are fixated at the separation-individuation phase (rapprochement subphase) which

occurs between 16 and 30 months of age. Separation-individuation precedes object constancy,
the future borderline cannot distinguish between self and other before an image of the nurturing
figure (as a permanent presence) is internalized (Millon, 2004, p. 492). The fear is that when
MOMMY LEAVES, she will be gone forever, never to return. This appears in a clinical setting
whenever a client has no internalized, stable image of his or her father or mother, therefore, has
no cognitive or emotional appreciation of a love that might endure across time and circumstance
as in the oft saying of the borderline: I dont know why I bother with love because everyone I
ever cared about leaves me (Millon, 2004, p. 492). Millon (2004) relates the a lack of stable
internalized images of attachment figures creates considerable anxiety and the concomitant
possibility of regression to more primitive ego states (pp. 492-493). Kernberg (1975, location
2570) defines object constancy as the capacity for establishing total object relationships.
According to McDevitt (1975)2 and Mahler (1963),3 object constancy begins when a young
child (between 25 and 36 months of age) demonstrates the ability to tolerate brief separations
from the mother. This ability stems from the emergence of stable inner representations of the
mother as these become [cognitively] available to child (McDevitt, 1975, p. 714).

1
Millon, T., Grossman, S., Millon, C., Meagher, S., & Ramnath, R. (2004). Personality disorders in modern life
(2nd ed.). New York: Wiley & Sons.
2
McDevitt, J. B. (1975). Separation-individuation and object constancy. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic
Association, 23(4), 713-742.
3
Mahler, M. S. (1963). Thoughts about development and individuation. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 18,
307-324.