Schizoid Factors in the Personality, Fairbairn (1940)
Fairbairn wants to focus on schizoid mental processes, which exist on a spectrum, schizophrenia existing at one extreme. He wants to focus on schizoid processes for a number of reasons, one of them being that these processes are experienced by most patients, even those considered non-schizoid — e.g., patients described as hysterical, obsessional, and phobic individuals.
The “fundamental schizoid phenomenon is the presence of splits in the ego,” a feature shared by all people. (Although theoretically, someone “whose development had been optimum” might not have such splits.) At the most extreme level, a split in one’s ego results in depersonalization or derealization; at a less extreme level, a split can result in one feeling artificial or emotionally disconnected from friends.
Psychoanalysis have long believed that schizoid processes are caused by a fixation in the early oral stage. The infant at this stage focuses on taking (over giving), which comes in the forms of incorporation and internalization. When she is hungry, she feels empty, and after she’s been fed, she feels full. She concludes that the mother’s breast and also the mother herself is full before nursing and empty afterward. Consequently, she concludes that upon nursing she has emptied not just her mother’s breast but her mother herself, a conclusion (supported by the fact that the mother generally leaves the room after nursing) which causes her to fear that she has destroyed her mother.
Fairbairn believes that schizoid personality features are caused by deprivations occurring in the oral phase, and he proceeds to list some similarities between the infant in the early oral stage and the schizoid individual.
(1) Treating Others as Means to Ends. Just as the infant’s libidinal object is a bodily organ (partial object) and not a person (whole object), the schizoid treats his libidinal objects as “means of satisfying [his] own requirements rather than as persons possessing inherent value.” This schizoid characteristic is caused by “the mother who fails to convince her child by spontaneous and genuine expressions of affection that she herself loves him as a person.” This parental failure makes it difficult for the child “sustain an emotional relationship with her on a personal basis,” and thus he continues to have a relationship with the breast (partial object).
(2) Limiting Social Contact. Just as the infant at the early oral stage prioritizes taking over giving, schizoid individuals struggle to give emotionally. The infant believes that when she nurses, she is taking in valuable bodily content, and she believes that when she excretes she is losing this valuable bodily content. Similarly, the schizoid believes that expressing emotion toward others involves losing contents, explaining why he finds social interactions so exhausting. “Thus, if he is long in company, he is liable to feel that ‘virtue has gone out of him’, and that he requires a period of quiet and solitude afterwards in order that the inner storehouse of emotion may have an opportunity to be replenished.”
(3) Preoccupation with Inner Life. When a child concludes that he is not really loved by his mother and that his mother does not accept the love he offers, he concludes that (a) his mother is a bad object, (b) outside expressions of love are bad, and (c) love relationships with external objects are bad. The child responds by becoming preoccupied with his inner world and turning his love away from external objects and toward his internal objects. “Such individuals,” Fairbairn writes, “are often more inclined to construct intellectual systems of an elaborate kind than to develop emotional relationships with others on a human basis. There is a further tendency on their part to make libidinal objects of the systems which they have created. ‘Being in love with love’ would appear to be a phenomenon of this nature.” Writing during WWII, he continues, “Such a personality, when he is in love with an intellectual system which he interprets rigidly and applies universally, has all the makings of a fanatic.”
(4) Fear of Receiving and Giving Love. As stated above, infants fear that after consuming their mothers’ breast milk they have destroyed their mothers. As children grow, they come to realize that this does not in fact happen; they in turn repress their former fears, but these now unconscious fears remain “ready to be reactivated” by any subsequent analogous experience, e.g., if the child concludes that his mother doesn’t really love him and that she doesn’t accept his love. When this happens, just as the infant fears that the mother has destroyed his mother, the older child concludes that his mother doesn’t love him because “he has destroyed her affection and made it disappear,” and he concludes that she doesn’t accept his love because it is destructive and bad. Thus, the schizoid individual keeps his love to himself, not just because he values it too greatly, but also because “it feels too dangerous to release upon his objects.” Moreover, “[s]ince he feels that his own love is bad, he is liable to interpret the love of others in similar terms.”
The “fundamental schizoid phenomenon is the presence of splits in the ego,” a feature shared by all people. (Although theoretically, someone “whose development had been optimum” might not have such splits.) At the most extreme level, a split in one’s ego results in depersonalization or derealization; at a less extreme level, a split can result in one feeling artificial or emotionally disconnected from friends.
Psychoanalysis have long believed that schizoid processes are caused by a fixation in the early oral stage. The infant at this stage focuses on taking (over giving), which comes in the forms of incorporation and internalization. When she is hungry, she feels empty, and after she’s been fed, she feels full. She concludes that the mother’s breast and also the mother herself is full before nursing and empty afterward. Consequently, she concludes that upon nursing she has emptied not just her mother’s breast but her mother herself, a conclusion (supported by the fact that the mother generally leaves the room after nursing) which causes her to fear that she has destroyed her mother.
Fairbairn believes that schizoid personality features are caused by deprivations occurring in the oral phase, and he proceeds to list some similarities between the infant in the early oral stage and the schizoid individual.
(1) Treating Others as Means to Ends. Just as the infant’s libidinal object is a bodily organ (partial object) and not a person (whole object), the schizoid treats his libidinal objects as “means of satisfying [his] own requirements rather than as persons possessing inherent value.” This schizoid characteristic is caused by “the mother who fails to convince her child by spontaneous and genuine expressions of affection that she herself loves him as a person.” This parental failure makes it difficult for the child “sustain an emotional relationship with her on a personal basis,” and thus he continues to have a relationship with the breast (partial object).
(2) Limiting Social Contact. Just as the infant at the early oral stage prioritizes taking over giving, schizoid individuals struggle to give emotionally. The infant believes that when she nurses, she is taking in valuable bodily content, and she believes that when she excretes she is losing this valuable bodily content. Similarly, the schizoid believes that expressing emotion toward others involves losing contents, explaining why he finds social interactions so exhausting. “Thus, if he is long in company, he is liable to feel that ‘virtue has gone out of him’, and that he requires a period of quiet and solitude afterwards in order that the inner storehouse of emotion may have an opportunity to be replenished.”
(3) Preoccupation with Inner Life. When a child concludes that he is not really loved by his mother and that his mother does not accept the love he offers, he concludes that (a) his mother is a bad object, (b) outside expressions of love are bad, and (c) love relationships with external objects are bad. The child responds by becoming preoccupied with his inner world and turning his love away from external objects and toward his internal objects. “Such individuals,” Fairbairn writes, “are often more inclined to construct intellectual systems of an elaborate kind than to develop emotional relationships with others on a human basis. There is a further tendency on their part to make libidinal objects of the systems which they have created. ‘Being in love with love’ would appear to be a phenomenon of this nature.” Writing during WWII, he continues, “Such a personality, when he is in love with an intellectual system which he interprets rigidly and applies universally, has all the makings of a fanatic.”
(4) Fear of Receiving and Giving Love. As stated above, infants fear that after consuming their mothers’ breast milk they have destroyed their mothers. As children grow, they come to realize that this does not in fact happen; they in turn repress their former fears, but these now unconscious fears remain “ready to be reactivated” by any subsequent analogous experience, e.g., if the child concludes that his mother doesn’t really love him and that she doesn’t accept his love. When this happens, just as the infant fears that the mother has destroyed his mother, the older child concludes that his mother doesn’t love him because “he has destroyed her affection and made it disappear,” and he concludes that she doesn’t accept his love because it is destructive and bad. Thus, the schizoid individual keeps his love to himself, not just because he values it too greatly, but also because “it feels too dangerous to release upon his objects.” Moreover, “[s]ince he feels that his own love is bad, he is liable to interpret the love of others in similar terms.”
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