Splitting [Spaltung]

Literary/ Cultural Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. WORLD HISTORY AND IDEAS: A CROSS-CULTURAL VOLUME.

Domains

Concept (psychoanalysis)

Dates

Date of occurrence 1894

Places

Splitting [in German Spaltung] is a key psychoanalytic concept in the work of Melanie Klein and her followers, building upon certain recognitions in Freud. It is related to the terms Projection and Introjection and refers to the infant.s defensive response to anxiety which divides whole objects (such as the mother.s body) into good and bad part-objects (e.g. the good breast, the bad breast) which are then treated as if they were not part of an original whole. This early prototype of the good and bad (the helpful and gratifying versus the annihilating and persecutory) then becomes a …

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204 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Splitting [Spaltung]". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 October 2005 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1617, accessed 24 April 2024.]

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Splitting [Spaltung]

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