THE INTRAPSYCHIC SPLITTING OF THE I AS A PATTERN OF SPLITTING, CONFLICT AND INTERPSYCHIC WAR WITH OTHERS

Abstract

In this article, I tried to argue the fact that the internal splitting, respectively the intrapsychic conflict of our I represents the psychological pattern of the external splitting, respectively the interpsychic or social conflict, being therefore about the splitting/conflict of the I first with oneself, and then with others. I have thus shown, bringing arguments from the sphere of Christian theology and Lacanian psychoanalysis, that this very intra- and interpsychic splitting of the I is at the basis of the internal/psychological and external/social conflict, the I being considered for this reason the prototype par excellence of the division, the scission and the conflict at the psychological and social level. And this because the quintessence of the I seems to be, both from a theological-Christian perspective and from a psychoanalytical one, the narcissism. Thus, if from the point of view of Christian theology, I interpreted the narcissistic I as being both the cause and the effect of the "fall" or "original sin", from the psychoanalytic point of view, as Jaques Lacan highlighted in his famous the "mirror stage", the narcissistic I is constituted by doubling in the imaginary or illusory mirror of reality. I have also shown that the main ignorance of the narcissistic I consists in identifying the mind with an external image, that is, in attaching or falling in love with one's own mental images which confuses them with reality. It is more precisely about the primary/intrapsychic identification of the I with its own image (from the mirror) - the pattern on which the secondary or interpsychic identifications with different mental images will later be grafted. It is these identifications with different images, ideas, beliefs, ideals and mental symbols, by virtue of being considered as belonging to the sphere of  the"I", that will generate scission, rivalry, competition, conflict and war between people. Therefore, only the full awareness of this narcissistic-aggressive-conflict pattern of the I could free us from its tyranny, basically responsible for all conflicts and wars between people.