Conflict & Psychological Splitting 

Many communication models assume the possibility of facilitating rational engagement with individuals in conflict. As many managers know, this is not always the case, because not all individuals engaged in conflict will conform to rational engagement, thus confounding our usual modus operandi.

 In many cases of individuals not conforming to rational engagement we are dealing with ‘psychological splitting’, a deeply unconscious process of failing to fully integrate aspects of personality through various stages of psychological development. An individual who employs the manifesting dynamics of psychological splitting in communication often has a negative impact on individuals and/or a team in the workplace, causing fragmentation and ‘taking sides’ in ongoing conflict that moves further from solution.  

 A significant difficulty in engaging with individuals who are employing a dynamic of psychological splitting is that they have little or no insight into their behaviour, and their methods of communication will often be emotionally laden. They often have a ‘black or white’ perspective that can manifest as ‘you’re either with me or against me’. They will be defensive or accuse others of being overly aggressive, bullying, and uncooperative. Usually they will be unaware that the behaviour they are accusing others of is actually a part of their own behaviour; that in fact they are projecting onto others, elements of themselves that they have been unable to integrate into their personality.

 Another significant difficulty in engaging with individuals who are employing a dynamic of psychological splitting is that the level of energy and time consumed in trying to find a resolution can be out of all proportion to that spent on more familiar levels of conflict.

 When engaging with an individual who is employing a dynamic of psychological splitting it is important to avoid informal discussion and keep to organised meetings with a manager or HR representative present, so that you can maintain transparency of communication. It is important to keep to the facts and avoid emotionally laden rhetoric that might lead to reactive responses. If a mediation process is initiated, identify clear points for discussion. If the individual employing a dynamic of psychological splitting attempts to escalate the conflict during the mediation process, it is almost impossible not to be affected in some way at an emotional level, but it is possible to not engage in a reactive exchange. It is important to stick to your points of discussion and always bring the interaction back on track to the facts of the topic at hand.

 Conflict in the workplace is inevitable and can be destructive, but if handled well it presents the opportunity for a constructive process that can lead to innovative positive solutions. Psychological splitting is just one of the less obvious dynamics that are a barrier to conflict resolution.  

Warring Factions in Families and in the Psyche of the Individual

By Ken Milling  

PACAWA September 2008 Newsletter

Within the milieu of analytical psychotherapy we are often dealing with families, whether directly or indirectly, because analysands bring with them the interpersonal conflicts of families and the behaviours and coping mechanisms developed through socialisation and psychological dynamics within families. Significantly, ‘families’ include those unconsciously created via the workplace and any group or organisation to which we belong.

The internal fragmentation of an analysand can reflect and parallel the process of fragmentation within a family. In the family and in the analysand there is the propensity for warring factions to collide. It is the unconscious inner landscape of families and of the individual, and the unconscious projecting onto and into others, that can lead to at times extreme levels of interpersonal and intrapsychic conflict. “Nature, including human nature, is schismatic. The psyche splits its inner and outer worlds. We are all internally and between us, a complex of manifold opposites.” (Clark,1996:10)

 Once the battle lines are drawn, the conflict can reach terrible heights of viciousness and toxicity. “We divide, cut up and differentiate our environment in order to understand it and use it. We also divide and cut up each other, loving and hating our differences. But unlike other animals we have conscious memory, imagination and discourse.” (Clark 1996:10)

 When we consider the plurality of the individual psyche, analytical psychotherapy can become extremely complex and at times overwhelming (for both analysand and psychotherapist), particularly when psychotherapists are dealing with primitive mental states and psychological splits. Not only do psychotherapists need to survive such encounters, we must attempt to process what might be experienced (initially) as unknowable.

 When dealing with primitive mental states, psychotherapists often experience, via counter-transference, various physical sensations, emotions and mental images. Jung (1984:171) says of transference… “This bond is of such intensity that we could almost speak of a ‘combination’. When two chemical substances combine, both are altered. This is precisely what happens in the Transference”.

 Melanie Klein (1997) developed the idea of a ‘phantasied’ inner world of object relationships where ego and objects could be split into different parts. She describes projective identification in which it is possible in phantasy to split off parts of the self and put them by projection inside another. The projected-into objects are perceived to be persecutory, threatening to annihilate the ego that ejected them. Klein also states that ‘phantasies’ occur at deep unconscious levels. Analysands can be struggling intrapsychiclly with their introjected objects, and interpersonally with aspects of the undifferentiated objects becoming entangled with interpersonal encounters via projection.   

 When the psychotherapist encounters negative transference via projection, attack and/or aggression from the analysand, the psychotherapist can unconsciously employ a form of defence via deft interpretation, intellectual explanation of behaviour, and/or encouraging and maintaining a positive transference. Thus, the psychotherapist can inadvertently reinforce or engender further psychological splits.

 The pressure for the therapist to know can be exacerbated by prolonged periods of genuinely (and often frustratingly) not knowing; when the psychotherapy landscape is barren and devoid of meaning and we can be lost in a masa confusa. As experienced analytical psychotherapists do know, this phase of the work can be extremely challenging and, because acting out can be a way to avoid integration, fraught with the possibilities of acting out – for both analysand and psychotherapist.

 If psychotherapists can recognise and contain within the analytic space, complex projections of primitive mental states from the analysand, it might be possible, over time, to identify their origin, function and meaning. The warring factions within the psyche of the analysand have space for a more conscious encounter with both self and the psychotherapist, where the analysand can begin to differentiate and disentangle the inner world of object relationships via the transferential dynamics and the interpretations of the psychotherapist.

 As difficult and painful as family and intrapsychic fragmentation can be for the analysand I believe that the experience also offers the possibility of new growth and transformation. Family and group conflicts can at times be laden with such a powerful and destructive force that the situation may appear to be devoid of hope… “To lose a neurosis is to find oneself without an object; life loses its point and hence it’s meaning. This would not be a cure, it would be a regular amputation; and it would be cold comfort indeed if the psychoanalyst then assured the patient that he had lost nothing but his infantile paradise, with its wishful chimeras, most of them perverse. Very much more would have been lost, for hidden in the neurosis is a bit of still undeveloped personality.” (Jung, 1970:335)

 It is the undeveloped aspects of the personality that potentially offer hope to both analysand and psychotherapist in a therapeutic process. From my perspective it is not so much about ‘cure’, but the opportunity for degrees of growth, integration and transformation that can lead to a greater capacity for self-reflection. The importance of relationships is recognised, whilst increased levels of consciousness create the possibilities of greater access to the psyche.

 References

 Clark G. (1996). Splitting and Analytical Psychology. Temenos;3:9-10

 Jung CG. (1970). The state of Psychotherapy today. University Press;  Princeton NJ :335.

 Jung CG. (1981). The Practice of Psychotherapy. Routledge & Kegan Paul; London:171.

 Klein M. (1997). Envy and Gratitude and other works 1946-1963. Vintage; London:176-235.

Constructive action & feeling states