The Fear of Object Loss, Responsiveness to Subliminal Stimuli, and Schizophrenic Psychopathology

Thirty schizophrenic patients were seen individually for three sessions in a balanced design. In each session, following subliminal stimulation with a neutral stimulus, a baseline assessment of pathology was made. Then, in different sessions, in counterbalanced order, each patient received one of three experimental (or “critical”) stimuli: a) a neutral control stimulus; b) a message—CANNIBAL EATS PERSON—intended to activate aggressive ideation; c) a message—I AM LOSING MOMMY—intended to activate fantasies of object loss. Each of these conditions was followed by an initial and later assessment of pathology, and finally by a measure of the patients' sense of differentiation from a mothering figure. In the final session other measures were also obtained, including each patient's conscious association to the critical stimuli when presented supraliminally. The major results were: a) as in previous experiments, the subliminal aggressive message intensified pathology and aggressive ideation—especially for relatively undifferentiated and relatively nondefended patients; b) subliminal stimulation of fantasies of object loss also increased pathology—especially for nondefended patients—and also increased the patients' sense of merging with the mothering object; c) the patients' response to subliminal stimuli—including presumably neutral ones—was a function of the conscious meaning(s) of such stimuli. It was concluded that: a) the threat of object loss (real or fantasied) may be one of the motivations supporting the development of pathology in schizophrenics; b) the activation of fantasies of aggressive destruction can exacerbate schizophrenic pathology—perhaps by activating fantasies of object loss; c) future research with subliminal stimulation should consider carefully the differential responsiveness of subjects to the content of particular messages.