Splitting

1. Etymology

Splitting names the dissociation of the personality marked by attitudes and behavior patterns determined by complexes. Related: dissociation; neurosis; psychosis; schizophrenia.

2. Plain summary

Most visible in psychopathology, splitting is fundamentally normal: parts of the psyche detach from consciousness until they appear foreign and live autonomously. It need not be multiple personality or schizophrenia—ordinary complexes already show the tendency. Sharp points to primitive projections as the easiest recognition of the pattern.

House distinction: dissociation is the broader process; splitting here stresses the complex-determined detachment and autonomous life of psychic parts. Related clinical extremes live on psychosis / schizophrenia.

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common splitting motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
dissociation of personality; complex-determined attitudes; autonomous foreign parts; normal phenomenon; primitive projection recognition; vs hysterical multiple personality / schizophrenic alteration; kinship with complex / dissociation / neurosis.

3. Academic elucidation

In analytical psychology splitting is the complex-autonomy pole of dissociation—normal in degree, pathological in extreme. Lexica (Sharp dedicated head; Samuels incidental via complex/dissociation) supply paraphrase Do not invent loci.

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Splitting. A term used to describe the dissociation of the personality, marked by attitudes and behavior patterns determined by complexes. (See also neurosis.) … The tendency to split means that parts of the psyche detach themselves from consciousness… It need not be a question of hysterical multiple personality, or schizophrenic alterations… but merely of so-called “complexes”…

(Sharp, 1991) — cites CW 8 ¶253.

Samuels, Shorter & Plaut (1986) — no dedicated splitting head:

(no head)

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

Let us turn first to the question of the psyche’s tendency to split. Although this peculiarity is most clearly observable in psychopathology, fundamentally it is a normal phenomenon, which can be recognized with the greatest ease in the projections made by the primitive psyche. The tendency to split means that parts of the psyche detach themselves from consciousness to such an extent that they not only appear foreign but lead an autonomous life of their own. It need not be a question of hysterical multiple personality, or schizophrenic alterations of personality, but merely of so-called “complexes” that come entirely within the scope of the normal.
(Jung, 1936/1969, CW 8, p. 166, ¶253) Dual complex / dissociation untouched.

See also: dissociation; complex; neurosis; psychosis; schizophrenia; soul-image; spirit.

References

Jung, C. G. (1969). Psychological factors determining human behaviour. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 8, p. 166, ¶253). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1936)

Samuels, A., Shorter, B., & Plaut, F. (1986). A critical dictionary of Jungian analysis. Routledge.

Sharp, D. (1991). Jung lexicon: A primer of terms & concepts. Inner City Books.