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It was one of my divorce cases that went to trial. The Judge called our case, and I stood up (with my client next to me) and announced “Ready.”My client had a daughter who was 16 years old. He whispered to me, “Mr. Dunn, did I tell you my daughter was married?”“No, you didn’t tell me! Why didn’t you tell me?”“Why didn’t you ask?”After that, I added a standard question to my intake form: “Are any of your children married?”

What is the best way to work with splitting?To understand how to work with “Splitting,” it is first necessary to understand what “Splitting” is, how it comes about, and the purpose it serves.What is “Splitting?”“Splitting” is the name for a psychological defense where the self and other people are seen as either “all-good” or “all-bad.” In general, the ability to integrate good and bad, liked and disliked qualities, into a coherent whole that simultaneously contains both, is considered to be an important developmental achievement that begins in early childhood.Why does “Splitting” persist into adulthood?There are three basic reasons that children either do not ever learn to form an integrated and realistic view of themselves and other people or rely on using “Spliiting” after attaining the ability to see people in a more integrated wayTheir parents used “Splitting” and because of that could not teach their children by example to see the world in a more integrated way.Their parents were so extreme in their behavior that it was impossible for the children to form an integrated picture of their parents or themselves.The bad would outweigh the good, if the children saw their parents realistically. Therefore, in order for children in this situation to feel any sense of security, they have to focus very narrowly only on their parents’ good qualities. Often they take all the bad and attribute it to themselves. For example, the child tells himself: “I am bad and unlovable now, but if I do better, Mommy and Daddy will love me and take care of me.”How to undo “Splitting:” There are a number of steps involved and each client is different, so I will give the simplified general version here.Step 1: Determine the client’s readinessNot all clients are far enough advanced to tolerate seeing themselves and others in an integrated way. “Splitting” is a defense against very painful feelings. The therapist needs to assess each client's level of readiness. Let me give you an example.My Mother is a Saint: Imagine your new client comes to therapy and in the course of the intake tells you: “My mother is a Saint!” This is likely to be evidence of “Splitting.” Here is the usual translation of what this means for the client:My childhood was terrible.My father was terrible.I am terrible.I use splitting to preserve my mother as the “good one.”I am not ready yet to see things more realistically.If you, the therapist, in a misguided attempt to help, prematurely try to get your client to see their mother more realistically, you will likely cause your client to actually get much worse!This client’s mental stability is like a table precariously balanced on only one leg—the belief that “mother is good”. Take away that one leg and the table falls. In “splitting” terms, now the client is left with no sense of good at all. Everything becomes all bad.Solution: Wait until you have done more therapy work and the client has identified you or someone else as an additional internal support. These clients need a lot of work on their childhood trauma before I worry about undoing their protective “Splitting”.If you believe that your client has sufficient internal and external support, here are some simple methods that you can use:Step 2: Listen to your clients’ choice of words“Splitting” is often indicated by the clients’ choice of words. I listen for extreme language, such as words like—always, never, jerk, perfect, special, worthless, unlovable, ugly, etc.Step 3: Ask them for a more nuanced descriptionUse a Rating Scale: if my client says that he is worthless garbage, I might ask: “On a scale of one to ten, where one = Not really worthless and 10 = The most worthless thing imaginable, where are you?”With one of my Narcissistic clients who had a good sense of humor, when he told me he was a 10, I said: “Now you are bragging again!”. He was startled into laughing at the absurdity of claiming to be the most worthless thing. He eventually gave himself a 9 rating, which was progress.Ask for a more nuanced description: My client Sherry used to give the same brief description of each new young man she dated: “He’s so cute and sweet and nice.”. When they broke up, she dismissed each of them in the same unnuanced way: “He turned out to be a real jerk!” When I judged that Sherry was ready, I said something like: “Sherry, I can no longer tell them apart. You describe them all with exactly the same words in the beginning: “Cute, sweet, and nice” (her words for all-good) and then at the end, each one becomes a “Real jerk” (her word for all-bad). Please tell me how they each differ in the way they are jerks.”. After we did this a few times, Sherry began to spontaneously interrupt herself when she started using these words and gave me a more nuanced answer.Step 4: Undoing between session splittingYour client's last session went very well. When she left, you were very pleased to hear her talking about herself in an integrated and non-split way. Now she comes into the next session enacting her all-bad split version of herself. She is depressed and self-hating and calls herself a “worthless piece of garbage”. She also does not notice any incongruity between this and how she was at the end of her last session. You become her memory and feed her a few questions that you hope will jog hers:Do you remember last session? If she says “yes” I go on to the next question. If not, I might remind her of one of the topics she spoke about. When she can remember the last session in a general way, I go on to the next question.Do you remember how you felt about yourself at the end of the session? If she cannot remember, I might say something like: “Well, I remember that you were very pleased with yourself because you had some new awarenesses. Do you remember saying that?”. Once she can remember how she was at the end of her last session, I continue.What happened between then and now to make you feel so bad about yourself? Sometimes I have to go through the entire week with her day by day until we hit on the event that created the painful feelings that flipped her back into splitting again. Usually, once these events are in awareness and we work on them in therapy, she is able to see herself again in a more realistic and integrated way.Summary: During childhood, “splitting” often served an adaptive purpose by preserving at least one parent as the “good one” and giving the child hope. After a while, “splitting” became a habit which distorted reality and interfered with the person’s life and limited his or her personal growth. The above suggestions for undoing “splitting” are merely meant as general examples. Each client is different and therapy works the best when you adapt your interventions to meet your specific client's needs.A2AElinor Greenberg, PhD, CGPIn private practice in NYC and the author of the book: Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid Adaptations: The Pursuit of Love, Admiration, and Safety.www.elinorgreenberg.com

Therapeutic and relaxation massages.Also, some salt scrubs, mud baths, range of motion exercises, hydrotherapy, and aftercare instructions.The doors are closed because of HIPPA privacy laws. Same as in a doctors office. People dont even want to be naked. They drape themselves with a towel.Every now and then, some creep will “pitch a towel tent” and be happy about it… and we had to chase them off, and remove them from our client list. Its so disturbing. We were just thankful they didnt solicit us, when that happens. It does happen.Sometimes, massage therapists even have to call the police and use pepper spray, because being solicited for sex is SO ABSOLUTELY LOW AND DISGUSTING.Oh we did have some extras: Health intake forms, free water bottles, smiles, relaxing music, bolsters that keep your back posture straight.. that kind of thing.And can I just say… since you asked, and are clearly looking for sex trade information…If it wasnt for JOHNS, objectifying and soliciting women for sex, there wouldnt BE a sex trade.IF a JOHN asks a woman for FREE sex, and the answer is NO, there is no ACTUAL enthusiastic CONSENT, just because he offered her money for the same activity, and she agreed.Consent is enthusiastic. These JOHNS will NEVER have consentual sex at a massage parlor.In fact, at a place like this, that actually has prostitution on the menu, the women are generally TRAFFICKED.Not consenting. Saying YES to sex for money is NOT consent.I want Johns all over the world to understand that if this person doesnt WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU FOR FREE, its ACTUALLY THAT JOHN COMMITTING AN ACT OF RAPE.Stop objectifying women. Stop putting money into the sexual slavery of women and children.Just. Stop.