The term ‘schizoid’ means split, and is the designation of that deeper level of the mind. Klein emphasised the importance she gave to splitting by calling this state of mind the paranoid-schizoid position. The experience is sometimes referred to in ordinary language as ‘going to pieces’ under stress, or ‘not being oneself’. This everyday language is, like the technical language of psychoanalysis, the attempt to make these peculiar states of mind communicable.

What is this state of mind like?