Concept
Confusional states
In Herbert Rosenfeld's Kleinian account, first given in his 1950 paper on chronic schizophrenia, states in which the normal splitting that keeps good and bad aspects of the self and its objects apart breaks down, so that love and hate, and good and bad objects, become mixed and cannot be told apart. The patient then fears that the destructive impulses will overwhelm the loving ones and destroy the good self and object. Rosenfeld tied these states especially to envy, which attacks the good object itself, and found them in chronic schizophrenia and also in less disturbed patients. He saw confusion as poised between splitting and integration: it may herald a move towards integration or a retreat from it, and it may itself be used as a defence.
Development
1950
introduced by Herbert Rosenfeld
Rosenfeld's 1950 paper described the confusional states of chronic schizophrenia as a failure of the normal splitting of good and bad objects, so that love and hatred and the good and bad self become mixed up; Klein took the idea into Envy and Gratitude.
In Notes on the Psychopathology of Confusional States in Chronic Schizophrenias (1950)
Relations
- 1950 introduced by Herbert Rosenfeld
Rosenfeld's 1950 paper described the confusional states of chronic schizophrenia as a failure of the normal splitting of good and bad objects, so that love and hatred and the good and bad self become mixed up; Klein took the idea into Envy and Gratitude.
- 1950 derives from Splitting
Confusional states are defined against Klein's splitting: they arise when the primary split between good and bad objects, and between loving and hating parts of the self, fails or breaks down, so that the two cannot be told apart.
Works
- 1950
Notes on the Psychopathology of Confusional States in Chronic Schizophrenias
A short paper on chronic schizophrenia in which Rosenfeld describes confusional states as the outcome of a failure of the normal, structuring split between good and bad objects, and between the loving and hating parts of the self. When that split breaks down, love and hatred become mixed, and the patient fears that the destructive impulses will overwhelm the loving ones and destroy the good self and the good object. Where envy predominates, the good object itself is attacked, so that good and bad can no longer be told apart and the confusion becomes unbearable. Rosenfeld places confusion between splitting and integration, and finds such difficulties in separating good from bad, to a lesser degree, in less disturbed patients too. Klein took up the idea in Envy and Gratitude (1957); the paper was reprinted in Psychotic States (1965).
See also
Linked from
People
References
- Notes on the Psychopathology of Confusional States in Chronic Schizophrenias1950Evidence for a relation