information:extraction, information:highlighting, structural:scholar_edition
History

Splitting of consciousness ("normal self" vs. "secondary self") was first described by Pierre Janet in De l'automatisme psychologique (1889). His ideas were extended by Eugen Bleuler (who in 1908 coined the word schizophrenia from the Ancient Greek skhízō and phrḗn) and Sigmund Freud to explain the splitting (German: Spaltung) of consciousness — not (with Janet) as the product of innate weakness, but as the result of inner conflict. With the development of the idea of repression, splitting moved to the background of Freud's thought for some years, being largely reserved for cases of double personality. However, his late work saw a renewed interest in how it was "possible for the ego to avoid a rupture... by effecting a cleavage or division of itself", a theme which was extended in his Outline of Psycho-Analysis (1940a) beyond fetishism to the neurotic in general.