Isolation

Abstract

This paper reflects upon Winnicott’s term “the isolate” or “incommunicado self,” which must remain hidden for personality development to proceed satisfactorily. Paradoxically, the (of necessity) concealed isolate or True Self accedes to the personality’s dependence on an object for this development to take place. The impact of trauma on the isolate and the formation of pathological isolation are considered. The outcome of analysis with a traumatized person is contingent upon the type of narcissistic defenses employed to protect the isolate that has experienced impingement and exposure, with the adverse consequences for personality development this entails. A particular form of narcissistic withdrawal into what Green terms “deobjectalization” and “negative narcissism” is examined as a way in which the death instinct can infuse the personality’s defense of the isolate, limiting radically what may be analyzed. A clinical example is given.

Notes

¹ “Echolocation” is a term denoting a process used for locating distant or invisible objects that employs sound waves that are sent out or are reflected back to the sender by the objects themselves. Echolocation is used by animals (and has also been studied in humans) for navigation and orientation purposes, to identify and evade obstacles, to seek out food, and to assess forms of social contact. Its appeal in the psychoanalytic context discussed here lies in both its indirectness and specificity. Unlike the unconscious, which has structured and varying forms of content available under certain conditions, the sonar activity of echolocation is predicated upon uncertainty and unpredictability.

² Analysis of dreams has the benefit of creating a form of triangulation that protects the isolate while engaging the patient in a deep form of inquiry. A brief example is a patient who was brought up in a psychotic family who dreamed of managing a group of “lunatics” in an unfamiliar house while calling for the police to remove them, only to encourage the “lunatics” back into the house, obstructing the police in their task. The patient’s helpless plight in a desperate dependence/separation catastrophe (revealed in many dreams) provided the analyst with valuable information on the risks of exposure of the isolate. It is widely noted that psychotic patients find drawing, painting, and music helpful in constructing a trajectory toward meaning in crises like these. There are analytically minded clinicians who consider that certain physical therapies may be complementary to psychodynamic treatments for the corporeal responses to which they give rise.

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Notes on contributors

Paul Williams

Paul Williams, Ph.D., is a psychoanalyst and author, Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society, and former Joint Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis (2001–2007). His publications include Invasive Objects: Minds Under Siege, The Fifth Principle, and Scum. He lives and works in Greenbrae, California.