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Disavowed action can be viewed as a psychological attempt to retain lost agency. Kohut described the vertical split of disavowal by contrasting it with the horizontal split of repression. In The Analysis of the Self, Kohut (1971) writes that the vertical split is "a specific, chronic structural change. ..." In this state, he argues, "the ideational and emotional manifestations of a vertical split in the psyche-in contrast to such horizontal splits as those brought about on a deeper level by repression and on a higher level by negation (Freud, 1925)-are correlated to the side-byside, conscious existence (italics added) of otherwise incompatible psychological attitudes, in depth" (Kohut, 1971, pp. 176-177).
The development of Kohut's thinking about the vertical split arose out of his work with the narcissistic behavior disorders. The overt motor acts that label these patients are familiar as the shoplifter, the adulterer, fetishist, exhibitionist, embezzler, and other more subtle variations on the theme. Goldberg (1999), in his book Being of Two Minds: The Vertical Split in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, and Goldberg (2001), in his book Errant Selves: A Casebook of Misbehavior, points to the distinct, side-by-side personality that carry out these misdeeds.
This "other" personality, one that is conscious to the patient and yet simultaneously foreign, is usually cast as ( 1 ) misbehaving and (2) as being driven by a narcissistic need in the deepest sense. There are significant reasons to disagree with the first contention and to concur wholeheartedly with the second. In both neurosis and psychosis, the vertical split may be seen to display unusual or foreign actions not immediately recognizable to the patient as being a part of his or her "normal" repertoire of intentions. Yet, in fact, these behaviors may not be "misdeeds" but may, in addition, represent a different category-one where innate natural talents are seeking egress in an attempt to restore narcissistic equilibrium.
Through two clinical vignettes, this article will explore the loss of sense of agency or the experienced ownership of one's motor actions in neurosis and psychosis. Clinically, this loss of agency will be tied to Sullivan's ideas on selective inattention, which foreshadowed aspects of Kohut's vertical split in a self system. Stern's developmental framework for the emergence of self-agency in infants will then...