ABSTRACT
At the end of the last chapter, we began to differentiate betweenJanetian-type dissociation (which includes PTSD) and attachmentbased dissociation. In Janetian-type dissociation, the sequestration of experience is not necessarily in response to traumatic attachment or organized in terms of affect relating to the attachment figure: It can result from nonrelational traumatic events, such as isolated stranger rapes and earthquakes. I propose that splitting rests more heavily on attachment-based dissociation. As such, the etiological core of what we call splitting involves an enactment of relational positions derivative of traumatic attachment and dominant-submissive relationships in which intersubjective space has collapsed. In this process, a particular organization of alternating dissociated victim-identified and abuser-identified states develops on the axis of relational trauma. This organization of experience is characteristic of borderline personality disorder (Howell, 2002).
