ABSTRACT

The movement from destruction to stability is but one of a series of reversals at work in psychosis. Sigmund Freud noted that reversal is an elementary operation of the mind, one of the earliest defenses, perhaps preceding defenses. Freud made the seemingly absurd statement that our sense of external space is a projection of the psychic apparatus. In psychosis, whether or not one possesses an I-feeling, may be experienced in excruciating ways. In psychosis, every possible mixture and dissociation of material and immaterial dimensions of experiencing are found. A psychotic individual raised in a materialistic milieu may or may not bring up compensating images. W. R. D. Fairbairn described the ego's actions in the face of a psychological threat as a divide and conquer technique. Fairbairn's vision is of an ego that begins to fall apart in face of psychic threats and tries to hold itself together by solidifying broken pieces into enduring structures.