title: Looking at and looking away. Etiology of preoedipal splitting in a deaf girl.
abstract: This paper presents the analysis of a profoundly deaf 12-year-old girl. The main referring symptom was a pattern of intense libidinal looking at and aggressive looking away from others, which functioned as a preoedipal splitting to keep apart opposite "all good," life-enhancing and "all bad," deathlike self and object representations. The preoedipal splitting seemed to have its etiology in traumatic experiences in the symbiotic and rapprochement phases. The analysis followed the sequence of separation-individuation, as blocks to development were progressively removed.
authors.affiliation: Center for Preventive Psychiatry, White Plains, New York.
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Abrams
mesh_terms: D001883:Borderline Personality Disorder / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D002648:Child; D003638:Deafness / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007207:Individuation; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy; D011606:Psychosexual Development