Disordered characters engage in certain behaviors that are so “automatic” that it’s tempting to think that they do them unconsciously. Besides that, on the surface, these behaviors so closely resemble defense mechanisms at times that they can easily be misinterpreted as such.

Splitting refers to the unconscious failure to integrate aspects of self or others into a unified whole. The age old conscious and deliberate game of “dividing and conquering” is not the same as splitting.

Several intriguing comments and questions have been posted in reply to my earlier articles on character disturbance. In this post, I’d like to address some of these and the issues which readers have raised.

Almost all the principles of traditional psychology are based upon the attempts of various theorists to explain a phenomenon rare for its time and almost totally unheard of in modern times. Character disturbance — not neurosis — is the pressing psychological reality of our day and simply can’t be understood or dealt with using traditional paradigms.