Splitting is the failure in a person’s thinking to bring together the dichotomy of both perceived positive and negative qualities of something into a cohesive, realistic whole. The individual tends to think in extremes (e.g., an individual’s actions and motivations are all good or all bad with no middle ground). This kind of dichotomous interpretation is contrasted by an acknowledgement of certain nuances known as “shades of gray”.
it begins as the inability of the infant to combine the fulfilling aspects of the parents (the good object) and their unresponsive aspects (the unsatisfying object) into the same individuals, instead seeing the good and bad as separate.