The fear of object loss, responsiveness to subliminal stimuli, and schizophrenic psychopathology.
Thirty schizophrenic patients were seen individually for three sessions in a balanced design. In each session, following subliminal stimulation with a neutral stimulus, a baseline assessment of pathology was made. Then, in different sessions, in counterbalanced order, each patient received one of three experimental (or "critical") stimuli: a) a neutral control stimulus; b) a message--CANNIBAL EATS PERSON--intended to activate aggressive ideation; c) a message--I AM LOSING MOMMY--intended to activate fantasies of object loss. Each of these conditions was followed by an initial and later assessment of pathology, and finally by a measure of the patients' sense of differentiation from a mothering figure. In the final session other measures were also obtained, including each patient's conscious association to the critical stimuli when presented supraliminally. The major results were: a) as in previous experiments, the subliminal aggressive message intensified pathology and aggressive ideation--especially for relatively undifferentiated and relatively nondefended patients; b) subliminal stimulation of fantasies of object loss also increased pathology--especially for nondefended patients--and also increased the patients' sense of merging with the mothering object; c) the patients' response to subliminal stimuli--including presumably neutral ones--was a function of the conscious meaning(s) of such stimuli. It was concluded that: a) the threat of object loss (real or fantasied) may be one of the motivations supporting the development of pathology in schizophrenics; b) the activation of fantasies of aggressive destruction can exacerbate schizophrenic pathology--perhaps by activating fantasies of object loss; c) future research with subliminal stimulation should consider carefully the differential responsiveness of subjects to the content of particular messages.
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000374:Aggression; D001010:Anxiety, Separation; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D005201:Fantasy; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009769:Object Attachment; D012392:Rorschach Test; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000209:etiology; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012649:Self Concept; D012919:Social Behavior; D013360:Subliminal Stimulation; D014936:Word Association Tests