Concept
Dismantling
Meltzer's term, in Explorations in Autism (1975), for the passive coming apart of the self in autistic states. By letting attention drift, the child lets the senses go their separate ways, so that sight, sound, touch and smell each attach to whatever is most stimulating at the moment and are no longer brought together on one object; what Bion called common sense is undone. Unlike active, sadistic splitting, dismantling involves no attack and no anxiety, and it can be reassembled almost at once, leaving a mindless state rather than a fragmented one.
- Broader concept
- Splitting
- Introduced by
- Donald Meltzer
- Key works
- 1
- Related
- Splitting
introduced by
- Donald Meltzer 1975 In Explorations in Autism Meltzer describes dismantling as a passive suspension of attention that lets the senses fall apart, each fixing on its own object. Unlike splitting, it involves no sadism.
diverges from
- Splitting Like splitting, dismantling breaks experience apart, but it is passive rather than sadistic: attention simply lapses so the senses drift to separate objects, and they come together again easily once attention returns.