Schizoid Processes: Working with the Defenses of the Withdrawn Child Ego State
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This article examines the defenses of the withdrawn Child ego
state as described by both transactional analysis and British object
relations theory. The process of withdrawal is considered, and the
principles of therapy from a relational perspective are explored.
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Theoretical Views on Schizoid Processes
I will start by examining several theoretical descriptions of
schizoid processes that have influenced my thinking in my work with
the withdrawn Child Ego State.
The term "schizoid" has been used in the psychotherapy literature
to describe both a personality structure and psychological processes.
Melanie Klein (1946/1986), from the British object relations
school, employed the term both to refer to the splitting mechanism
used by the infant to organize his or her experience and to describe a
developmental position. In discussing what she saw as "the violent
splitting of the self," she highlighted the "excessive projection" (p.
187) that resulted in the other being experienced as a persecutor. She
thus described the terror that some clients experience when they feel
the whole world is about to attack them.
Fairbairn's (1940/1952c) paper "Schizoid Factors in the
Personality" described three prominent characteristics of schizoid
personalities: (1) an attitude of omnipotence, (2) an attitude of
detachment, and (3) a preoccupation with fantasy and inner
reality. In a later paper, "Endopsychic Structure Considered in
Terms ofObject-Relationships" (1944/1952a), he went on to describe an
intrapsychic structure that consisted of the splitting of the ego and
repression as a defense. He also pointed out that schizoid
personalities may appear to fulfill a social role with others with
what seems to be appropriate emotion and contact while in actuality
remaining detached.
Guntrip (1968/1992) developed Fairbairn's endopsychic ideas
further and listed characteristics of the schizoid personality. He
also elaborated on Fairbairn's concept of the schizoid's dilemma and
spoke of the compromise that people engage in to manage that dilemma.
He described a further split in the ego that he called "the passive
regressed ego" (p. 144), which he saw as a retreat to an objectless
world.
Ralph Klein (1995) built on the work of Fairbairn and Guntrip, and
from the perspective of the Masterson (1988) approach, he used the
term "schizoid" to describe another disorder of the self (in addition
to borderline and narcissistic personality disorders). In taking an
object relations view, Klein saw the schizoid as either in a self-
object relations unit as a slave attached to a master or as a self-in-
exile fearful of a sadistic object.
Horney (1945) described three "neurotic trends" (p. 42): moving
toward people, moving against people, or moving away from people in a
way that involves withdrawal from contact. She saw people who
manifested these trends as estranged from themselves and others.
In Principles of Group Treatment Eric Berne (1966) used the term
"schizoid" to describe one of the four life positions, which he called
a "futile and schizoid" position (p. 270). A game typical of that
position would be "Look What They Did To Me." In describing clients
who occupy this position and who are at the limit of their endurance,
Berne wrote that the schizoid position "leads ultimately to thechoice
of aesthetic or spiteful suicide" (p. 271).
Paul Ware (1983) developed a classification of personality types
or adaptations that described psychopathology and maladjustment and
listed various driver behaviors and injunctions that were typical of
each type. He described the schizoid adaptation as characterized by
withdrawn passivity, daydreaming, avoidance, and detachment and people
who exhibit these characteristics as shy, overly sensitive, and
eccentric. Their driver behavior is "Be strong," "Try hard," or
"Please others." Vann Joines (1985), further developing Ware's work,
viewed individuals with the schizoid adaptation as creative
daydreamers, referring to their highly developed capacity to think
internally.
In talking about three styles of the Adapted Child-compliance,
rebellion, and withdrawal-Vallejo (1986) described withdrawal as "the
adaptive behavior that accompanies despair and resignation after loss,
deprivation, destruction, abandonment, or the failure of something,
whether it be a person, thing, or situation" (p. 116).
The schizoid character is a defensive position that results in a
detached interpersonal style. Johnson (1994) viewed character
structure as existing on a continuum. At one end is the personality
disorder and at the other is a higher level of functioning that he
calls a "character style" (p. 11). He saw schizoid personality at the
disorder end and avoidant personality at the style end (p. 11) of this
continuum.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV)
(American Psychiatric Association, 1994) lists the diagnostic criteria
for the schizoid personality disorder:
A pervasive pattern of detachment from social relationships and a
restricted range of expression of emotions in interpersonal settings,
beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as
indicated by four (or more) of the following:
neither desires nor enjoys close relationships, including being part
of a family
almost always chooses solitary activities
has little, if any, interest in having sexual experiences with another
person
takes pleasure in few, if any, activities
lacks close friends or confidants other than first-degree relatives
appears indifferent to the praise or criticism of others
shows emotional coldness, detachment, or flattened affectivity. (p.
641)
The DSM-IV focuses on behavioral manifestations, whereas Fairbairn
and the British object relations theorists focus more on intrapsychic
dynamics. In my view, the various behavioral and descriptive elements
of the DSM-IV need to be supported by a developmental and intrapsychic
perspective.
Defenses and Processes
In my reading of the aforementioned authors, it became clear that
certain defensive processes are common in relation to schizoid
phenomena. One of these is splitting, a "process by which a mental
structure loses its integrity and becomes replaced by two or more part-
structures" (Rycroft, 1968, p. 156). Several writers also speak of
repression or the process of rendering something unconscious. A
further defense, projection, is highlighted by a number of authors; it
consists of "viewing a mental image as objective REALITY" (Rycroft,
1968, p. 125). Withdrawal and detachment from the world, coupled with
self-reliance, may create an impression of aloofness. This may be seen
as a defense against the perceived dangers and anxieties that
inevitably accompany reliance on others and is supported by a lack of
affect and coldness (noted by several writers). Regression, a further
defensive process, is characterized by a flight inward and backward,
even to the point of contemplating suicide. Schizoid personalities are
often introverted and live primarily in an internal world. They may
experience themselves as lonely, which may be felt as a longing for
contact and love. In contrast to this longing, a common feature is
terror of destroying others and of being destroyed by others. Often
these people may appear outwardly contactful but are, in fact,
emotionally withdrawn. Overall, there is a sense of futility and
emptiness and a lack of integration (J. Klein, 1987, pp. 171-172).
Case Example: Some of these processes are demonstrated by
Sebastian, who usually startsthe session by feeding me something that
we can talk about or "chew" on but that does not reveal his
vulnerability. In so doing he is checking to see whether he recognizes
and can trust me this hour. Sessions seem to be isolated experiences
for him, without continuity. He often seems to have forgotten the
previous session and to have wiped out his experience of connecting
with me.
During sessions, Sebastian often withdraws and seems to be
watching me. It is as if he is on the inside of his head looking out
of his eyes watching my every move. He has described having retreated
into a castle, in the dungeon where he feels safe. He leaves a guard
on duty. The drawbridge is down but can be raised at any time. If I
see an expression of emotion on his face and respond, he is moved at
having been seen but feels he cannot call out. He feels it would be
dangerous and frightening to do so.
Sebastian has retreated from the world and is detached from
interpersonal relations. He has numbed his emotional responses to
people and events. Initially, when we explored his feelings about our
breaks, they did not mean anything to him. Now he seems to have some
feeling about our endings, and more recently when we spoke of my going
away, he acknowledged that he will miss me. This indicates that he is
beginning to emerge from hiding into a contactful relationship with
me.
The Process of Withdrawal
Attachment: Various authors have described our need for others
(Bowlby, 1969; Erskine, 1989; Fairbairn, 1952b; Guntrip, 1968/1992)
and suggested that we are relationship- and attachment-seeking from
birth. Berne (1966) referred to this need for others as "recognition
hunger" (p. 230) (for a detailed overview, see Erskine, 1989).
The helpless infant needs a holding, containing environment to
make sense of his or her experience as well as an attuned response to
his or her feelings and relational needs. An attuned holding
environment enables the infant to emotionally attach to the other
(Bowlby, 1969; Fairbairn, 1952b). A bond forms between the unitary ego
of the infant and the attachment figure, and these fulfilling
experiences of contact become memories.
Johnson (1994) described research that shows that the infant is "
'hardwired' at birth for social interaction" (p. 21) and is attuned to
the social responses he or she will encounter. He suggested that the
infant "will be able to track the affective tone with which he is
handled and the attunements, or lack of it [sic], to his needs,
emotional states, etc." (p. 22). Chamberlain (1987, p. 58) cited
experiments in which the mothers of infants were asked to be silent
and "still faced" for just three minutes. The infants tried to
influence the mother within 15 seconds, as if to elicit a normal
response. If they were unsuccessful, they withdrew. D. Stern (1985, p.
73) also found that when a parent does not respond appropriately, a
baby can become disturbed or withdrawn.
Disruption and Withdrawal: A contactful attachment to another is
the basis of the development of the self for the growing infant
(Kohut, 1977; D. Stern, 1985). When the infant experiences neglect,
impingement, or lack of attunement accompanied by a lack of
reparation, the child may go into hiding with his or her feelings and
relational needs. This painful disruption in the relationship may halt
or slow the process of integration (J. Klein, 1987, p. 171) and the
ego may fragment. Fairbairn described the infant's response to this
disruption as taking the relationship inside where she or he divides
the experience into tolerable and intolerable elements (Fairbairn as
cited in Gomez, 1997, p. 61). The tolerable self-object experiences
are projected out onto the world and the intolerable are kept inside.
This is the first phase of withdrawal and splitting. A coping/everyday
self is left to maintain a relationship with the world while the
withdrawn, vulnerable self goes into hiding (Figure 1).
To provide a sense of well-being and safety, the infant's coping/
everyday self attempts to maintain a tolerable relationship with the
external object. To achieve this the infant must abolish negative
experiences, which it does by splitting and later repressing the bad
experiences so that he or she can control them. Tolerable experiences
of the everyday self are repeated and internalized; this reinforces
the repression of the vulnerable self. The infant thus upholds his or
her sense of security by maintaining a relationship with the external
object. However, this relationship is now impoverished. The vulnerable
infant part of the ego is now split off and will be repressed and
hidden from that part of the ego that maintains contact with the
world. This coping/everyday self is similar to Winnicott's (1965)
false self as well as to the adapted Child described by Berne (1961,
p. 69).
The withdrawn self splits further to create the internal saboteur
(Fairbairn, 1952b), which turns against the vulnerable self. The
internal saboteur serves to keep the vulnerable self hidden and
repressed. It is the anti-wanting self that is contemptuous and
despising of neediness and ensures we neither seek nor get what we
want (J. Klein, 1987). The vulnerable self is repressed further and
splits off from the coping/everyday self that maintains a relationship
with the external world (Figure 2). As a defense against an attack
from the external world or an attacking and rejecting object, the
internal saboteur may launch a preemptive strike against the
vulnerable self to forestall such an attack. This has the effect of
shutting down the vulnerable self to prevent an attack.
This process of withdrawal describes a defensive retreat from the
world of rejecting objects and painful experiences, with a subsequent
withdrawal from contact and taking inside the important and precious
parts of the self to protect them from the unresponsive world.
Fairbairn (1944/1952a) described a psychic structure that he saw
evolving out of this disruption to the early relationship with the
primary caretaker (Figure 3); he called it the "endopsychic
structure" (p. 82). In this structure, each aspect of the self is
attached to an object by affect. Thus we have three basic self-object
representations. First, the coping/everyday self was described by
Fairbairn as the central ego, which is attached to the idealized
object. I prefer to call this the "preserved object" to distinguish it
from Kohut's (1977) idealized selfobject and because it is more
descriptive of the everyday self's attempt to maintain and preserve
the nature of the relationship. Often the countertransferential
response to this representation is feeling controlled and limited by
the attempt to preserve the relationship. Second, the vulnerable self/
libidinal ego is attached to the exciting object, which is inevitably
disappointing; therefore, I call it the "exciting/disappointing
object." J. Klein (1987, p. 161) described it as the frustrating
exciting object for similar reasons.
Third, the internal saboteur, which Fairbairn later called the
antilibidinal ego, is attached to the rejecting object, which may also
be experienced as an attacking object. The coping/everyday self uses
aggression to keep the rest of the structure out of conscious
awareness, and further aggression from the rejecting/attacking object
and the internal saboteur maintains the repression of the vulnerable
self. Although the structure is repressed, it is there all the time,
overhearing the process of therapy even if it is not active or
manifest in the therapeutic relationship.
Ego States: In Blackstone's (1993) excellentarticle, "The Dynamic
Child: Integration of Second-Order Structure, Object Relations, and
Self Psychology," she suggested that the introjected object of
Fairbairn's theory is analogous to the Parent ego state. She quoted
Berne (1972) as stating that "Fairbairn is one of the best heuristic
bridges between transactional analysis and psychoanalysis" (p. 134).
One of the points Fairbairn made is how the self is bonded to the
object/Parent ego state by affect, and it is the affect that keeps the
two glued together to form a self-object representational unit.
Therefore, the three self-object units of Fairbairn's psychic
structure represent three introjected units in the second order of the
Child ego state. These units are archaic states of the Child ego state
resulting from "developmental arrest which occurred when critical
early childhood needs for contact were not met" (Erskine, 1988, p.
17). When the contact is need fulfilling, the experience becomes
integrated and assimilated as memory (R. Erskine, personal
communication, August 1999). These self-object representational units
may simply be relics of a relationship that once existed. However, if,
for example, the infant projected onto the other his or her rage at
not being met, then the other is imbued with that rage in addition to
whatever anger the person was expressing toward the infant. The self
will then be depleted and impoverished, and it is this relationship
that will be introjected in the Child ego state.
In Exile: In developing Fairbairn's theory, Guntrip (1968/1992)
suggested that the infant may feel so persecuted by internal objects
that there is a further split in the ego that results in the infant
making a second retreat deeper into his or her mind to avoid the
internalized world of self-object representations (Figure 4). The
repressed vulnerable infant self is thus further split as it once
again leaves part of itself to deal with the internal bad objects
while the rest retreats into its "citadel." This is a fantasy of a
retreat to an antenatal existence in a symbolic womb. Security is,
therefore, established through fantasies of enclosure in a womb-like
state. "Womb fantasies cancel postnatal object relations" (p. 53) and
represent a flight from life. As mentioned earlier, Guntrip described
this aspect of the ego as the "passive regressed ego" (p. 144), which
I describe as the "hidden vulnerable self." At each stage of the
withdrawal, defenses are employed to protect the self from further
humiliation, attack, or injury. The regression may also be the self's
flight from its own murderous rage and hatred of the object;
therefore, the self is retreating not only from the aggression of the
internal objects, but also from its own aggression. Repression and
withdrawal prevent further normal development of the self.
R. Klein (1995) described this position as being in exile-a
retreat from being in prison with others to being in an objectless
world. While being with others entails a loss of self, being in exile
entails a loss of others. Therefore, the retreat may represent safety,
but it also encompasses the fear of objectlessness. The womb-like
state may be described by clients as a citadel, a castle, a fortress,
or even a freezer. The state of being in exile has been described as
being adrift in a boat without a rudder or a sail on an ocean a long
way from land with no wind. However, as several theorists have
observed (Scharff & Fairbairn-Birtles, 1994; Seinfeld, 1996),
describing this womb-like state as objectless may be confusing. The
retreat is not to an objectless state but to an antenatal state where
there are no demands or attacks and there is no need to adapt. "An
objectless state remains something the individual dreads" (Seinfeld,
1996, p. 14).
In addition to a client presenting as having gone into hiding,
Seinfeld (1993) also described a retreat and regression in therapy as
the client relaxes his or her defenses. This retreat is in response to
a holding relationshipand the seeking of a psychological rebirth. As
the client relinquishes his or her defenses, he or she may allow
regression to an earlier self-object relationship.
Schizoid Dilemma: Retreating from contact leaves the individual
isolated, lonely, and in pain. In some cases the longing for contact
will reemerge and the person may move toward others; however, such
movement also brings with it the anxiety of being close. Guntrip
(1968/1992) described this as the "in and out program" (p. 36), an
expression of the hunger for and terror of contact and closeness. Some
individuals manage this dilemma by establishing what Guntrip called
the "schizoid compromise" (p. 58), which is a way of keeping others
around but preventing them from getting too close or becoming
endangered. This may be achieved by keeping contact at an intellectual
level, by being present physically but absent emotionally, or by
looking away when expressing emotions.
Therapeutic Principles: Reaching the
Withdrawn Child Ego State
Working relationally with these processes entails working in the
here and now with the client, working with the transference (both the
needed and repeated relationship [S. Stern, 1994]), and working with
the various defenses used to protect the vulnerable self from further
pain. It entails the therapist being involved, being available to be
impacted and affected by the client (Erskine, Moursund, & Trautmann,
1999), and offering a reparative experience.
Creating a Safety Zone: Therapeutic goals include creating a safe,
holding environment that is both not wounding and unobtrusive and that
will enable the hidden vulnerable self to reemerge. The therapist
needs to understand why the client went into hiding and what his or
her terror is about. In addition, it is important to comprehend how
attempts at contact may be experienced by the client as intrusive. The
schizoid compromise is the individual's attempt to create safety and
to manage the tension between isolation and being trapped or enslaved.
The therapist needs to demonstrate an understanding of the schizoid
dilemma and compromise (R. Klein, 1995) and offer an attuned
interpretation. Ware (1983) adjured us to go slowly: "It must be
remembered that the cure of Schizoids is a slow, painstaking process,
taking only small steps at a time" (p. 15).
The therapist must track the relationship, noticing and responding
to the vulnerable self as it reveals itself as well as monitoring the
defensive interruptions to contact. The therapist needs to listen to
and notice when the client withdraws or dissociates and to explore
what behavior in the therapist prompted the client's retreat from
contact. In supporting the relaxation of defenses and the reemergence
of the self, the therapist will enable the self to come out of hiding
and to leave its fortress or castle. The therapist thus takes on the
function of the defense. For example, with someone who uses
intellectualization as a defense, the therapist might offer, "May I do
the thinking, while you feel?"
As therapists working with these clients, we need to be available
for connection by responding to the withdrawn Child ego state (R.
Klein, 1995) and by offering an attuned empathic relationship (Erskine
& Trautmann, 1996). We must also be available as an object, creating a
space in which the client can use us until he or she feels safe enough
to let us into the "citadel." Then we can help the client out of
hiding. This entails the client emerging into a relationship with the
therapist through forming an attachment with him or her. The therapist
then eventually supports the client's separation by pointing out the
client's anger and thus disillusioning him or her. At times, we need
to be as still as possible, to sit quietly and be willing to not know
what is happening. We need to allow ourselves to wonder silently about
them and about our countertransference responses. We need to shift
between centering on the client and noticing our own feelings,
thoughts, and fantasies. We need to be curious and offer reverie
(Bion, 1962), and as we begin to understand, show them what they feel
or want and create a space in which they can experience love and hate.
Speaking of the schizoid personality, Joines (1985) wrote of the need
to go "in after them and bring them out" (p. 48). Rather than "going
in," perhaps itmight be more appropriate to wait to be invited so as
to avoid a reenactment as the intrusive object.
Defenses: In working with the schizoid's defenses, the goal is for
the client and therapist to discover the function of the defensive
process and to move through the defenses to the repressed and hidden
elements of the vulnerable self. Fixated defenses are an attempt to
take care of the self in the absence of a reparative relationship but
at the expense of some capacities, which results in the self being
impoverished in some way. Manfield (1992) described defenses as
follows: "Defenses are patterns of behavior or thoughts that people
use to protect themselves from emotional pain or discomfort arising
from present life situations usually linked to painful childhood
memories" (p. 32). In his article on defense mechanisms, Erskine
(1988) wrote, "It is because of the fixation of defense mechanisms
that the archaic (Child) or introjected (Parent) aspects of the ego
remain separate states and do not become integrated into the
neopsychic (Adult) awareness" (p. 18). These defenses, therefore, keep
the vulnerable self with its feelings and relational needs repressed.
In addition to repression, splitting, and regression, other early
defenses include avoidance, freezing, fighting, the transformation of
affect, and reversal of aggression (Fraiberg, 1987). When talking
about the defense of avoidance, Fraiberg cited Kaufman's description
of how an infant, when faced with danger, will feel helpless and
"employ(s) a 'flight-fight' response(s), followed by conservation-
withdrawal" (p. 191) to defend and sustain himself or herself.
The appropriate therapeutic response to such processes is to
acknowledge, name, validate, and normalize the defenses and to
understand their function, pacing movement through the defenses to the
vulnerable self in such a way that the client can accommodate the
change. The role of the therapist is to take on the function of the
defense, thus leaving the client free to express vulnerability. Since
defenses serve to offer the individual stability, consistency,
identity, and predictability (Erskine, Moursund, & Trautmann, 1999),
all these functions need to be taken over by thetherapist. However,
care must be taken in working with defenses so that the client and
therapist can handle the underlying affect. Offering a contactful
relationship in which the therapist is inquiring and attuned may
trigger memories for the client of not being met in the past and may
be a challenge to his or her script. The client may therefore defend
against the current contact to avoid emotional memories.
When working in an attuned manner with clients, they may begin to
relax their defenses and cathect a part of their mind in which they
feel terrified; they may then experience what M. Klein (1986/1946)
described as "persecutory anxiety" (p. 182). The whole world becomes a
dangerous place, and even the therapist becomes an attacking object.
When this happens the client has cathected an early defensive split in
the ego, and rather than the therapist being a helpful person, he or
she becomes unhelpful and even dangerous or attacking. The client may
feel he or she is in a torture chamber, and the therapist may be seen
as the sadistic torturer or jailer.
Working within the Transference: Working therapeutically within
the transference relationship with the withdrawn Child ego state
involves creating an opportunity for the client to relive, in the
present with the therapist, the emotions, conflicts, and relational
longings of the past. The feelings must be reexperienced and expressed
in the present toward the therapist, who becomes the focus for the old
feelings. He or she must be willing to respond nondefensively (Gill,
1982) by offering a validating, attuned empathic response. Working
within the transference allows the intrapsychic conflict to be
expressed within the therapeutic relationship (Erskine, 1993). For the
withdrawn Child ego state this means possibly experiencing both the
fear of and the hunger for contact as well as the fear of isolation.
As the work develops, the focus may shift to decisive archaic
scenes. The therapist then functions as the "secondarily longed-for,
receptive, and understanding" (Stolorow, 1994, p. 51) other, who,
through attuned responsiveness, offers a reparative relationship. For
example, in the case ofinhibited aggression, the therapist might
support the undoing of the inhibition and the expression of fighting
back.
The Needed and Repeated Relationship: In the transference
relationship clients will invite the therapist to repeat old
experiences, but they are also longing to be exposed to new
experiences. For therapy to be effective, the therapist needs to be
experienced as both someone new as well as someone from the past
(Cooper & Levit, 1998). If the therapist tends to focus exclusively on
repetitions of the past in the form of games (Berne, 1966), he or she
may overlook how new capacities for relating are emerging out of the
old. On the other hand, the therapist using a relational model may too
quickly offer a new relationship, therefore defensively welcoming
aspects of the new while seeking relief from the old, repetitive,
problematic relationship with its games. We need to balance staying
with the old while offering the new so that the new may emerge out of
the old. Therapy is the search for the transformational experience
(Bollas, 1987) that enables the repeated relationship to be understood
and the needed relationship to be experienced.
Negative Therapeutic Reaction: As the therapist attunes to the
client's withdrawn vulnerable self, the latter will probably relax his
or her defenses, and in doing so, the endopsychic structure will be
disrupted. Attunement mobilizes the withdrawn self's relational needs,
particularly if the therapist takes on some of the functions of the
defenses, thus leaving the client to experience the vulnerable self.
In other words, this process disturbs the equilibrium of the psychic
structure, and elements of that structure will probably react against
the disturbance. The "gang" of the rejecting object, the coping/
everyday self, and the internal saboteur will attack the previously
repressed self. This is the essence of the negative therapeutic
reaction.
This defensive process was described by Freud (1923) as the most
serious obstacle to psychotherapy. It comprises the client's lack of
"receptivity to an alien, unfamiliar positive experience" (Seinfeld,
1990, p. 13) with a therapist, reinforced by the client's
activerejection of the need for the experience "in identification with
the original external rejecting object" (p. 13). The negative
therapeutic reaction describes the mechanics of juxtaposition as
identified by Erskine and Trautmann (1996), and the internal saboteur
is similar to Erskine's (1988, p. 17) self-generated ego state.
Activation of the internal saboteur and the rejecting object
serves to protect against the emergence in the relationship of the
vulnerable self's relational needs. Attacks from members of the "gang"
may result in the client shutting down, annihilating self or other,
and forgetting. More serious attacks may lead to drug abuse and self-
harm. I think this is similar to Bion's (1967) observation that
psychotic clients attack the link between self and object. The "gang"
may attack the link the therapist forms with the repressed self and
its relational needs. The therapist must work with the attacks on the
link between self and other, exploring the aggressive denial of need.
The client must also experience the therapist as the exciting object
in order to separate and individuate. The client's inevitable
frustrations and disappointments with the therapeutic relationship
require a nondefensive response from the therapist. In fact,
therapeutic efforts by either the client or the therapist to avoid
regression and dependence in the transference may be an avoidance of
the exciting object transference.
The hidden vulnerable self may be experienced as deadened, and an
attuned, understanding attitude from the therapist may lead the client
to feel like the deadened self is being brought back to life. It is as
if the therapist is giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the client,
who may fear an attack if he or she does come back to life. These
individuals may also be frightened of their own aggression and hatred
of the other, which in the past may have been projected onto the
attacking object so that the other became a terrifying monster. At one
time, survival may have depended on being dead to the world, so the
therapist's attempts at resuscitation may be resisted because the
client fears what might happen if he or she camealive. A lively infant
may have not been welcome in the client's family of origin, and the
infant's angry reaction to the unwelcoming response may also be
experienced as a danger to existence.
If the rejecting object and internal saboteur are activated in the
transference, the therapist has the option of interpreting the attack
(Seinfeld, 1993), thus differentiating these two parts from the
vulnerable self. For example, the therapist may say, "What we're
seeing right now is how, as we form a bond, the attacking part of you
becomes critical." Therapist and client can then work to understand
the reason that an aspect of the person would reject efforts to
activate the self and to invite the rejecting object/Parent ego state
(Erskine & Moursund, 1988) to express itself directly to the
therapist. The therapist can also interpose himself or herself between
the rejecting object and the vulnerable self (p. 191). Therapy with
the internal saboteur, however, may consist of echoing its statements
in order to mobilize the energy of the vulnerable self so that it can
emerge and fight back.
Therapy needs to combine an attuned, empathic, involved
relationship; a holding, containing environment; and interpretation
and transformation of the bad objects. Attuned interpretations that
breach the closed system allow clients to incorporate a good object
relationship with the therapist (Seinfeld, 1993).
Conclusion
The purpose of the type of therapy described in this article is to
create an opportunity for the client to reown his or her repressed,
disavowed, hidden capacities and to integrate these into here-and-now
functioning. Further, it is an opportunity for the client to reemerge
from withdrawal, to integrate the split and fragmented ego, and to
resolve the conflicting pulls between a self that seeks
predictability, continuity, and safety and a self that seeks
spontaneity, authenticity, and contact.
The capacity for growth and development may be hampered by the
prior reinforcement of the closed system, and, like a muscle that is
underused, it may have become wasted and will require exercise and
support to rebuild it. Thisinvolves rebuilding the attachment-seeking
behavior that may have atrophied over time as a result of not being
sustained in earlier relationship (Sutherland, 1994).
Therapy needs to combine an attuned, empathic, involved
relationship; a holding and containing environment; and interpretation
and transformation of the bad objects. Attuned interpretations that
breach the closed system allow clients to incorporate a good object
relationship with the therapist (Seinfeld, 1993).
Ray Little is a Certified Transactional Analyst working as a
psychotherapist in private practice in London. Please send reprint
requests to Enderby Psychotherapy & Counselling Associates, 16
Hatfield Road, London W4 1AF, United Kingdom.
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The author wishes to extend special thanks to Richard Erskine for
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application of these ideas.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article was first published in the Transactional Analysis
Journal, Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 33-43. Reprinted with permission of the
ITAA
samvaknin
Schizoid Personality Disorder
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Schizoids and narcissists
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For a more detailed view of pathological narcissism and the
Narcissistic
Personality Disorder (NPD) - click on these links:
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Take care.
Sam