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 prototypical division upon which all later divisions are built.
A common example of splitting in literature is the recurrence of good and bad mothers in folk tales, the good mother usually being dead (unless
204 words
Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Splitting [Spaltung]". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 October 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1617, accessed 27 November 2024.]
