In the scientific domain, the concept of normofunction is often defined by studying disfunctions, non-functions and antifunctions: some examples of splitting will therefore be given in order to obtain a metaclinical definition of the Self and Ego.

We intend to describe some trends we have noticed while carrying out our research directed to translating the phenomena we observed in practice into logical and formal terms. An attempt will be made to highlight the idea that a metapsychological definition can be reasserted, starting from one of the central intrapsychic processes of the individual in general, and from the borderline in particular.

Paraphrasing Laplanche and Pontalis, Splitting (Spaltung - Scissione) is the term used to define the coexistence, within the Self and/or the Ego, of two clashing attitudes which do not affect each other from a psychic standpoint.

A clinical example may prove useful to explain this concept. Speaking about therapy, I.Z, a patient, declares: "ONE resorts to therapy to face these problems...". When he emphasizes ONE, his voice is cold and stern, as if he were saying: "One of my several MEs resorted to therapy, but not the others". This phenomenon is known as splitting (Miglionico & Novellino, 1993).

Other phenomena result from it, such as the split transference, the sense of dual or multiple identity in the borderline and the problem of jealousy of the inner object (Miglionico & Novellino, 1993).

In short, splitting is the coexistence, within the Self and/or the Ego, of two opposing attitudes, which are neither integrated nor "integrable". The concept of chronotopic reality of the Self and of its mental subsystems should now be introduced, as it makes it possible to clinically distinguish the splitting of the relative space coordinates from the temporal one.

What do we mean by "chronotopic reality"? Once the splitting phenomenon has been described, one may reasonably wonder WHAT is split.

According to Jung, the Self is a psychic whole, but also a postulate (1921). Can one possibly believe that a postulate really esists? The devotees of cybernetics, of which Berne is one, certainly realize that SOFTWARE is a postulate of HARDWARE; but no one would ever doubt that software really exists.

In the overall working of our mind, we have (and express) several historical Ego states, some of which are mature and some not, resulting from the interplay with specific stimulating events: by interplaying with the stimulating event occurring in the surrounding environment, each and every state of the Ego brings about a circular reaction, which is memorized as a life experience of the Ego and, on another level, of the Self.

In the previous figure (1991) we represent the onion-like substructure of Ego States that explains the relations between Ego States development and psychoevolutive development according Mahler's phases and Haykin's research (1980). For every evolutive line (P's, A's, C's evolutive lines), represented Ego States are 3 but, really, for every evolutive line we can suppose as many Ego States as files that were memorized (saved) in the stimulating events. In our unique experience N = infinite. In short we have a lot of overlapped Ego States. A onion-like structure and substructure.

Therefore if a father comes back home at night after getting drunk and beats his wife in front of his children, he will determine different emotional experiences even in two monochorionic twins, that is the closest example of genetic likeness we know: in other words, two different experiences of the Self.

It is evident that in the Rubber Band (Kupfer and Haimowitz, 1971) the subject is literally thrown out into another here-and-now, into another space-time, even if from a physical standpoint he is still in front of us. This Space-Time can be geometrically represented, as H. Minkowski suggested in 1908, and is called CHRONOTOPE, to define the link between measures of space (x, y and z), and of time (t), in the light of relativity.

It can be inferred that every event, and therefore every experienced event, can be represented by a point whose coordinates are x, y, z and t, in a four-dimensional space, which unfortunately we can only visualize resorting to a Euclidean graphic method, although a non- Euclidean reality is involved. This space-time (or chronotope) is, in embryo, already present in psychoanalytical literature thanks to Salomon Resnik, who dealt with this subject in his definition of the "oniric stage" and "mental space" (1990, 1991). It is interesting to notice that with specific reference to the Rubber Band (Kupfer, D. & Haimowitz, M., 1971), space-time is a RE-lived esperience of the Ego or, even better, is one Ego-that-re-lives. The farther one escapes from the surrounding environment, what we conventionally refer to as here-and-now, the more evident and recognizable this chronotopic feature becomes. A delirious and/or hallucinating Ego, too, provides a useful example for didactic purposes. This four-dimensional character - as three coordinates are used to define space and one to define time - when depersonalization and derealization are concerned, makes it easier to fully understand what we mean by splitting time frome space, within the Ego. As a result, it's understandable the reason why the borderline, in its fear of "rubber band", that is to RE-live memories (and not only to recall them) shuts off any access to them.

Psychology, as well as the philosophy of science, can no longer conceive the idea of space without time, and viceversa. Time , as time structuring in Berne’s sense, should be redefined in space-time terms, which is also the case for the setting, which is a frame for analytical space, and analytical space itself as well, etc.

In the light of what has been said, we understand why large areas of the Ego are preserved even in the chronic schizophrenic patient, and why some non-mature, split states of the Ego are evident in so-called "healthy" subjects.

The classical Freudian Ego, when it is considered either as the sum (=meta-system) of many different historical states of the Ego or as the individual Ego prevailing over others, covers every possible space-time coordinate of the Self. The Self is an over-Ego postulate, and turns out to be cohesive of Ego and subego mental phenomena. In a metaphorical Euclidean exemplification, it is the circle whose radius is varying - intraindividual and interindividual variability - and therefore defines a variable area or, in more scientific terms, a "variable system", as can be inferred by Gregory Bateson’s splendid definition of "extra-cranial mind" in his example of the woodcutter, in his Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972).

If "mind" did not mean something in itself (but Gregory Bateson's researches demonstrate the contrary ! see Mind and Nature, 1979), one might as well have it coincide with the concept of the Self as a system. The "innermost inside" of the Self -system would be rooted in the woodcutter’s personal and transpersonal unconscious, the "outermost outside" could well be the tree to be cut, in Bateson’s example.

This would account for the Self which appears as split and estensive at the same time, in marginal patients. In the metaphorical exemplification of the Self-circle, the Ego may be a circular sector.

As a result, it is epistemologically impossible to define the Self unless we think it is all that is not the non-Self, and even immunologists know how arbitrary all this is, when they speak about the Self and the non-Self, about the variable bounderies of systems and when they are faced then with self-immune diseases (the Self "shooting" antibodies against itself, as it does not recognize itself).

Some peak experiences may possibly give an idea of the Self, a trip after taking hallucinatory drugs, a transcendental meditation, an orgasmic event, a Zen experience, a psychotic Munch-like shout. But nothing will warn us better than the anxiety pervading us therapists, when the extensive Self of the borderline patient tends to phagocytize our Self. Here-and-now too is a question of space-time coordinates and borders, which should be foreseen if we are not to split ourselves. And we are back again to splitting, the starting point of this article, as is the case for every typical four-dimensional universe.

In conclusion, according to General System Theory (von Bertalanffy, 1968) and Bateson's Epistemology, the hypothesis we suggest is that splitting, seen as a clinical phenomenon, provides a train of thought leading to a metapsychological formalization of the SELF as being a MENTAL META-SYSTEM of ALL EGO AND SUBEGO PHENOMENA. The Ego States Organizers, described by Berne, are readable as sub-systems of Ego-system, which is a sub-system of Self-system: a game of chinese boxes where every box (=system) shows the same or different logical level in the hierarchy of the whole self-organizing system. Ego States are the perceivable behavioural phenomena of psychic organizers

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