Have you ever found yourself thinking so highly of someone that you couldn't imagine them doing anything wrong, only to question everything you thought you knew about them after a disappointment? Or have you noticed how difficult it can be to acknowledge the good qualities of someone whose behavior you strongly disagree with? These experiences raise questions about how we perceive ourselves and others, particularly when what we experience conflicts with what we already believe.
In psychodynamic theory, splitting refers to the difficulty of integrating positive and negative feelings, qualities, or perceptions of oneself and others into a more complete understanding. Instead, these experiences remain separated into opposing categories, such as all good or all bad (Cabaniss et al., 2011; McWilliams, 2011).
McWilliams (2011) discusses how splitting can extend beyond individual relationships and influence how we perceive people and groups. This perspective changed how I think about the defense mechanism because it questions how we develop our beliefs, evaluate other people, and respond to information that challenges what we already think we know.
In Psychoanalytic Diagnosis: Understanding Personality Structure in the Clinical Process, McWilliams (2011) writes:
“In everyday adult life, splitting remains a powerful and appealing way to make sense of complex experiences, especially when they are confusing or threatening. Political scientists can attest to how attractive it is for any unhappy group to develop a sense of a clearly evil enemy, against which the good insiders must struggle. Manichean visions of good versus evil, God versus the devil, cowboys versus Indians, the free world against the terrorists, the lone whistle-blower against the hateful bureaucracy, and so on, have pervaded the mythology of contemporary Western culture. Comparable split images can be found in the folklore and organizing beliefs of any society.” (p. 116)
When you think about it, we live in a society where people can become deeply attached to a particular position or way of thinking. Politics is a good example. Red versus blue can become more than a political distinction; it can influence how we evaluate someone's character, interpret their intentions, and determine whether we consider them good or bad. Once someone is placed into one category, it can become difficult to acknowledge information that complicates that perception.
Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with having firm beliefs or reaching definite conclusions. We all have values, principles, and convictions, and some situations require us to distinguish right from wrong and pick a side. Sometimes, neutrality and ambivalence can be damaging and dangerous in themselves depending on the topic at hand.
But there's a difference between having a firm position and not having the range or ability to entertain anything that might complicate it.
Have you developed the capacity to engage with complexity without immediately feeling the need to reject it? Can you engage in a conversation where you're willing to consider different perspectives without automatically becoming defensive? Can you recognize your own flaws without allowing them to define your entire identity?
I believe these are important questions worth exploring. Having convictions and being able to think critically about those convictions are not mutually exclusive.
Although splitting is discussed in clinical literature in connection with certain personality organizations and disorders, it's important to distinguish the defense mechanism itself from a diagnosis. The existence of splitting as a clinical concept doesn't mean that every instance of black-and-white thinking or strong political disagreement is evidence of a psychological disorder—nor does every rigid judgment or polarized perceptions reflect splitting as a defense mechanism.
But I believe it's worth examining how splitting relates to the way we think, interpret our experiences, and understand other people. Our perceptions influence how we make sense of the world around us, including how we distinguish between what we consider good or bad, right and wrong. To understand this process, we need to examine what splitting is, why it develops, how it functions as a defense mechanism, and how it can influence our relationships and our understanding of ourselves.
Understanding the Defense Mechanism
Splitting is a psychological defense mechanism in which someone separates experiences, feelings, or perceptions into opposing categories of good and bad. Rather than recognizing that someone can possess positive and negative qualities at the same time, they struggle to reconcile the two.
In psychoanalytic theory, splitting is associated with early psychological development and the development of object constancy. McWilliams (2011) explains that splitting is understood in relation to a developmental period when a child hasn't fully yet integrated their experiences of caregivers. The same caregiver who provides comfort can also cause distress. Before a child develops the capacity to recognize these experiences as belonging to the same person, the caregiver could be perceived as entirely good when their needs are met and entirely bad when those needs are frustrated. Splitting allows these experiences to remain separate rather than requiring the child to reconcile them within a more complete understanding of the caregiver.
Psychological defense mechanisms generally operate outside conscious awareness to manage anxiety, internal conflict, and distress (Cabaniss et al., 2011). They can help someone manage experiences that feel emotionally overwhelming. The problem comes about when a defense becomes rigid and limits someone's ability to respond to experiences in a more flexible way.
The Function of Splitting
Splitting can make conflicting experiences easier to tolerate by separating them into distinct categories. This can influence how someone interprets an experience and what they’re willing to acknowledge about it.
Think about a friendship where someone feels genuinely loved and supported but has also experienced dishonesty or betrayal within that same friendship. Both experiences contribute to an understanding of the relationship, but accepting them together can be emotionally difficult. Someone relying on splitting may dismiss the betrayal to preserve their positive view of the friend, or allow the betrayal to discredit everything they once valued about the relationship. One perception takes precedence over the other, reducing the discomfort of having to reconcile them.
This process can also protect someone's self-esteem. Recognizing that someone they admire has behaved badly could challenge their judgment, while acknowledging that someone they dislike has done something good could complicate their existing beliefs. Splitting can reduce the discomfort of these contradictions by allowing someone to reach a more definite conclusion about who is good and who is bad.
McWilliams (2011) describes splitting as a defense that can distort perception while reducing anxiety. Its protective function is also connected to its limitations. When someone relies on opposing categories to manage distress, information that complicates their understanding can become difficult to acknowledge. The immediate relief comes from making an experience easier to interpret, but that relief can come at the cost of understanding the situation more completely.
Idealization and Devaluation
Idealization and devaluation are two processes closely associated with splitting. Idealization involves attributing exaggerated positive qualities or significance to someone. Their flaws might be overlooked, minimized, or interpreted in ways that preserve a highly favorable image of them.
Devaluation occurs when negative qualities dominate someone's perception. Previously recognized strengths are dismissed, while mistakes and shortcomings become evidence of the person's overall worthlessness or bad character.
These processes can be observed when someone's perception of a friend or partner changes dramatically following disappointment, conflict, or perceived rejection. However, a change in perception isn’t necessarily evidence of splitting. People can discover information that reasonably changes how they view someone, especially when repeated harmful behavior is involved. The distinction is whether they can incorporate what they have learned without allowing one aspect of the relationship to erase everything else they know about it.
Someone can acknowledge that a friend has behaved badly without concluding that every positive experience in the friendship was fake. They can also appreciate someone's good qualities while recognizing that those qualities do not excuse harmful behavior. When idealization and devaluation dominate perception, the person being evaluated can seem to change entirely, even when the available information supports a more complicated conclusion.
Splitting and the Self-Concept
Splitting can also influence how someone understands themselves. A cohesive self-concept allows someone to recognize different aspects of their identity, including qualities that may contradict one another. Someone can be intelligent and still make poor decisions. They can be caring and still behave selfishly in certain situations. Making a mistake can reveal something about someone's behavior without defining their entire identity.
When someone struggles to integrate these different aspects of themselves, their self-perception can fluctuate between extremes. Experiencing success can make them feel like they're capable of anything, while failure can make them feel like they're not good enough at all. A single mistake can become evidence that they’re fundamentally flawed.
This can make someone's self-esteem vulnerable to criticism and disappointment. Information that challenges their preferred self-image may be difficult to incorporate, particularly when their sense of identity depends on maintaining a specific perception of themselves.
The same pattern can influence how someone responds to feedback. Rather than considering whether criticism contains useful information, they experience it as a rejection of their entire identity. In other cases, they dismiss the person offering the criticism to protect their existing self-perception. When someone consistently responds this way, it becomes more difficult to engage in self reflection because examining a particular flaw can feel like questioning their entire sense of self.
Cabaniss et al. (2011) explain the limitations of splitting-based defenses in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: A Clinical Manual:
“As above, splitting-based defenses tend to be less adaptive because they protect people from negative feelings and thoughts at a very high cost [20]. Splitting-based defenses predominate when object constancy has not been achieved. While they help to preserve good feelings, this comes at the cost of consolidating a three-dimensional view of the self and of others. A predominance of splitting-based defenses is a good indicator of ego weakness and leaves the individual handicapped in terms of having healthy relationships with others. Splitting-based defenses are sometimes called immature, primitive, or borderline.” (p. 28)
The concept of the split self brings us back to the difficulty of integrating different aspects of one's identity. When someone's understanding of themselves depends on maintaining an idealized image, acknowledging their limitations can feel threatening. Developing a more cohesive self-concept involves recognizing personal strengths, shortcomings, and contradictions within the same understanding of who you are.
Splitting in Personality Disorders and Other Mental Health Conditions
Splitting is discussed in psychodynamic literature in relation to certain personality patterns, particularly borderline personality disorder (BPD). It can involve difficulty maintaining a stable, integrated perception of oneself or another person when emotions become intense (McWilliams, 2011). For example, someone may view a friend or romantic partner as deeply caring and understanding, only to perceive that same person as uncaring or untrustworthy after an argument or perceived rejection. The hurt they feel in the moment can make it difficult to reconcile the conflict with the positive experiences they’ve had in the relationship.
This can be very difficult especially when someone fears abandonment or rejection. A disagreement can influence how they interpret the other person's intentions and the relationship as a whole. When emotions become overwhelming, experiences that contradict their current perception can be difficult to acknowledge. This doesn’t mean their distress is not real or that the other person hasn’t done anything wrong. The challenge lies in holding the hurtful experience alongside the rest of the relationship without allowing one experience to determine the entire perception.
Splitting isn’t exclusive to BPD, nor does it look the same in everyone who receives that diagnosis. Psychodynamic literature also discusses splitting in relation to narcissistic patterns of functioning. Someone who relies heavily on narcissistic defenses idealize people who reinforce their self-image, then devalue them when they feel criticized or unappreciated. In these cases, the way someone perceives another person can be related to how that person makes them feel about themselves.
These examples help illustrate how splitting can influence relationships and self-perception. However, a behavior, a defense mechanism, and a mental health diagnosis are not interchangeable. Recognizing similarities between someone's behavior and a clinical concept can help us examine a psychological pattern, but it's not enough on its own to determine whether someone has a particular disorder.
Splitting, Group Identity, and Moral Judgment
Splitting also offers a way to examine how divisions show up in our social conditioning and the way we learn to perceive other people. McWilliams (2011) discusses the appeal of dividing people into opposing moral categories, such as a righteous in-group and an evil enemy. This division can make complicated situations easier to understand because it gives us a clear sense of who is right, who is wrong, and who we believe we should stand with.
We can see a similar pattern in the way people judge the same behavior differently depending on who’s doing it. Someone might excuse harmful behavior from a person within their own group because they believe that person's intentions are good, but interpret the same behavior from someone on the opposing side as evidence of bad character. They might also be more willing to accept information that supports their group and dismiss anything that challenges their perception of it.
Once someone has decided that a group is good or bad, it can become difficult to evaluate people's actions independently of that judgment. Instead of considering what someone actually did, we may interpret their behavior according to what we already believe about the group they belong to.
These examples illustrate polarized perception, but they don’t establish that splitting is responsible for every instance of group based judgments. Splitting shouldn’t be treated as interchangeable with confirmation bias, projection, or every instance of black-and-white thinking. These concepts describe different psychological processes, although they can overlap.
This also doesn’t mean that every side of a conflict is equally responsible or that we should avoid making moral judgments. Some people cause more harm than others, and differences in power, intention, and consequences matter. Recognizing complexity doesn’t require abandoning our principles or refusing to hold people accountable. It means examining what’s happening without allowing an existing perception to determine every conclusion we reach.
McWilliams (2011) also discusses moralization as a related defense. Moralization involves managing internal conflict by framing behavior in terms of what someone believes is right, wrong, or morally required. In some circumstances, moral beliefs can help someone preserve a favorable understanding of themselves while assigning negative qualities or intentions to others.
For example, someone might justify treating others harshly by insisting that they’re just simply being honest. In their mind, telling the truth is a moral obligation, so their behavior becomes something they believe they have a right, or even a responsibility, to do. If someone takes issue with how they speak to others, they might dismiss that person's concerns by claiming they just cannot handle the truth. This leaves little room for them to consider whether they’re being unnecessarily cruel or whether their own behavior deserves criticism.
The issue isn’t having moral convictions—we need principles to evaluate behavior and hold ourselves and others accountable. The issue is when someone becomes so attached to their understanding of what is right that they can no longer question their own motives or recognize contradictions in their behavior.
Moralization and splitting are not synonymous, and a rigid moral judgment does not, by itself, establish that splitting is happening. But, considering how these processes can interact helps us examine how someone might maintain a positive view of themselves while struggling to acknowledge the ways their own behavior contradicts that image.
Psychological Integration
Psychological integration involves developing the ability to recognize opposing qualities without feeling the need to dismiss one to acknowledge the other. Someone can have admirable qualities and serious flaws. An experience can be satisfying and distressing.
The same applies to how we understand ourselves. Someone can acknowledge their mistakes without defining their entire identity by them. They can receive criticism without interpreting it as a rejection of who they are.
From a psychodynamic perspective, the goal isn’t to eliminate defense mechanisms altogether. As Cabaniss et al. (2011) explain, defenses serve a protective function, but they can become problematic when they’re rigid or interfere with relationships and everyday functioning. Developing more flexible ways of responding to distress allows someone to manage conflicting emotions without relying on the same defensive patterns in every situation.
Integration also doesn’t mean excusing someone's behavior just because they have good qualities. You can recognize what’s admirable about someone and still decide that their behavior is unacceptable. You can understand why you acted a certain way while acknowledging the consequences of your actions. Recognizing different aspects of an experience doesn’t require you to abandon your judgment; It allows you to make that judgment with a more complete understanding of what you’re evaluating.
The concept of the split self brings us back to the difficulty of maintaining a cohesive understanding of ourselves and others when certain experiences challenge what we believe. Splitting can make experiences easier to interpret by separating them into opposing categories, but it can also limit what we’re willing or able to recognize.
Understanding this defense mechanism gives us a way to examine how we respond to disappointment, criticism, conflicting emotions, and information that challenges our existing beliefs. It also raises an important question about the relationship between certainty and perception. What happens when reality contradicts the way we understand ourselves or someone we care about? Can we acknowledge someone's harmful behavior without denying every positive quality they possess? Can we recognize our own flaws without allowing those flaws to define our entire identity?
These are important questions to consider because the way we interpret an experience influences what we’re willing to acknowledge about it. Developing the ability to hold conflicting aspects of ourselves and others in the same understanding allows us to examine human behavior with more clarity, including the parts that challenge how we want to see ourselves and the people around us.
Thank you for reading!
— Sibyl¹¹
꒷꒦♛❤︎
References
Cabaniss, D. L., Cherry, S., Douglas, C. J., & Schwartz, A. (2011). Psychodynamic psychotherapy: A clinical manual. Wiley-Blackwell.
Haines, K. (n.d.). Recognizing splitting behavior. Grand Rising Behavioral Health. https://www.grandrisingbehavioralhealth.com/blog/recognizing-splitting-behavior-9c7e4
McWilliams, N. (2011). Psychoanalytic diagnosis: Understanding personality structure in the clinical process (2nd ed.). The Guilford Press.
