Trace-Objects: Discovering Negative Identification in the Schizoid Transference

Abstract

This article describes parallel disclosure, a form of clinical self-disclosure that addresses the schizoid patient's use of negation to omnipotently deny the impact of other. Negation is described as obstructing projective identification and disabling object use, creating a blank space where the negated object exists in the psyche and in the schizoid transference. The author refers to this blank space as the undifferentiated trace of a traumatizing historical object (a trace-object), and reasons that the trace-object—though amorphous and depersonified—can be conceptualized as a human object. Perceiving negative space as if it were an object in its own right is referred to as negative identification. The parallel disclosures illustrated in this article involve the author's personalized version of the patient's trace-object, offering it as a parallel to the patient's trace-object for the patient to use.

Keywords:

• negation
• negative narcissism
• projective identification
• introjection
• self-disclosure
• identification

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephanie Lewin

Stephanie Lewin, Ph.D., is the author of “Uncaging the Aggressor: Narrative Identification in Work with an Obsessional Trauma Survivor” (Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 49, 485–508), and “Delusional Hate: Primary Identification in the Case of a Gifted Patient with a Predatory Mother” (Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 45, 218–238). She has also written “Parallel Identification: A Shield against the Assault of Traumatic Jealousy” (Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 21, 551–570).