Underlying the fear of insanity is a terror which is all the more frightening since it is nameless and faceless. Its horror is expressed in such images as the snake pit. This terror lurks in the depths of each schizoid individual and can be compared to an unexploded bomb. The explosion of the terror into consciousness is a “world shattering” experience for the individual. It is represented in the schizoid mind as a world-destruction, or Weltuntergang fantasy or as a feeling of total annihilation. The schizoid individual reacts to this threat with a feeling of “falling apart” or “going to pieces.” Against this terror and its catastrophic effects he erects desperate defenses. If these defenses fail, the only means left of avoiding this terror is the complete escape into the unreality of schizophrenia.
Superficially, the terror appears to be related to the fear of insanity. Jack, whose case was presented in Chapter 2, said, “I think I'm just plain afraid of losing my mind.” Most patients experience the terror similarly. However, it can be shown that terror itself is the force that threatens to overwhelm the ego and destroy the sanity of the individual, and the schizophrenia is a final attempt to escape this terror. What is this nameless fright?
Fears become nameless and faceless when they are repressed. In the unconscious, they live on, with the terrifying effect they had upon the child. After a patient has been successfully released from the grip of this terror, some of its elements become clear. These are the fear of being abandoned, the fear of being destroyed, and the fear of destroying someone. But these are specific fears because they are conscious, while the unconscious terror of the schizoid is an amorphous dread whose tentacles chill the bones and paralyze the will. This terror is like the proverbial skeleton in the closet, which becomes less frightening when the door has been opened and its reality confronted. Before the closed door which hides the unknown, the person trembles with an overwhelming fear that saps his courage and defeats his resolution. Therapy must help the patient gain the courage and strength to face his fears. In the process, he will inevitably experience his terror. With the support and understanding of the therapist, this experience can have a positive effect.
Paul reported such an experience after having been in therapy about a year:
I've had a strange week. I have been alternating between periods of absolute helplessness and feeling much more alive. Friday I was quite active, but Saturday I just couldn't get on my feet. I felt the whole day slip through my fingers. I got very depressed and I cried a little. Sunday was better. I went out. Monday I felt so completely dead I just wanted to lie in bed the rest of my life.
That night I was coming out of a dream and in a half awake state; I turned over on my back and reached out with my mouth to suck. My lips were trembling, and I became very anxious and almost paralyzed. My arms felt heavy and lifeless, like dead weights which I couldn't move. I had to use all my will power to fight against succumbing to the paralysis. I felt that if I let myself go into it, something catastrophic would happen. I made myself wake up fully.
The analysis of Paul's experience shows that the terror manifested in the trembling anxiety and feeling of paralysis developed when Paul made a spontaneous gesture to reach out for pleasure. This gesture of reaching out to suck stirred some childhood memories in which a similar activity threatened to have a catastrophic result. As an infant, Paul met with a hostile reaction from his mother when he made a demand upon her. Her hostility was expressed in a look of murderous rage which the child understood as, I've had enough of your demands; if you don't shut up, I will leave you or destroy you! Such parental expressions of hostility are not uncommon. Many mothers scream their rage and exasperation. Some have even told me how many times they felt they could have killed their children. One such experience will not lead to an overwhelming terror in the child, but if it represents an unconscious attitude on the part of the mother, the effect on the child will be one of fear that any demand it makes could lead to abandonment or destruction. In turn, the child develops a murderous rage against the parent, which is equally terrifying.
The overall effect of such experiences is to inhibit the individual's aggression. The schizoid individual becomes afraid to make demands on life that would lead to pleasure and satisfaction. Reaching out to the world evokes a vague sense of terror. He guards against this terror by narrowing his environment and restricting his activities. I had a patient who was very uncomfortable when she had to travel outside of the area in which she lived. In other patients it is experienced as a panic at the thought of going out on the streets alone or making a trip. In all schizoid patients the terror is related to the fear of losing control, since loss of control would allow the emergence of repressed impulses which, as in Paul's case, carry in their wake the possibility of catastrophic results.
The inhibition of aggression, the restriction of activity, and the necessity for control impose a rigidity upon the body that limits self-assertive gestures. Impulses are restrained, and finally, impulse formation is weakened. Having repressed his desires out of fear, the schizoid individual ends up not knowing what he wants. The denial of pleasure leads to a rejection of the body. To survive in the face of terror he deadens his body by reducing his breathing and his motility.
In view of this situation, it is easy to understand the schizoid detachment and uninvolvement as a defense against terror. To the degree that he can keep himself aloof from emotional relationships, he can avoid the terror that might follow the breakthrough of repressed impulses. His physical rigidity serves the same purpose. But detachment and isolation diminish his contact with reality, undermine his ego, and weaken his sense of identity. Non-involvement also deprives him of the emotional satisfactions which sustain normal relationships and provide an inner feeling of well-being. Finally, rigidity creates an inner emptiness and vacuum which threatens to collapse the schizoid structure.
This defense against terror requires another maneuver. The schizoid individual uses “pseudo-contacts” and “intellectualizations” to maintain contact with reality and support a pattern of behavior which resembles the normal; that is, he plays a role. This unconscious role provides him with an identity and a meaning for his activities. As long as the role can be maintained, the danger of decompensation or of collapse into terror and insanity can be averted. But this maneuver also has its difficulties. Role playing narrows the base of existence. An assumed identity may crumble in the confrontation with the self when one is alone. For this reason, the schizoid is often afraid to be alone. Thus, all aspects of his defense (and maneuvers) render the schizoid vulnerable to the very dangers they are designed to avoid.
Schizoid behavior differs from normal behavior in important respects. It lacks the motivations which determine normal behavior; that is, it is not motivated by the search for pleasure but by the need to survive and the desire to escape the loneliness imposed by emotional detachment. It rests upon rationalizations (May's “technical formulations”) and role playing and does not stem from genuine feeling. Thus, while the schizoid is enabled to function, his behavior and actions have the bizarre quality one associates with automatons and creatures who go through the motions of living without a feeling for life.
It would be a mistake, however, to regard the schizoid individual as deprived of all feeling. Behind his defense lies an intense longing for real contact, warmth, and love. These desires are not completely absent from his motivation. Much as he may impress one at times as an automaton, he comes through at other times as a person in trouble. His actions not only resemble the normal, they partake of the normal. The difference from the normal is fundamentally one of degree. To the extent that the desire for pleasure and satisfaction motivates his behavior, he is normal. To the extent that he represses those feelings but acts as if they determined his behavior, he is schizoid.
THE DYNAMICS OF THE SCHIZOID DEFENSE
The schizoid defense is an emergency mechanism