THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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The positive aspects of the original object, internalised as a defence against the bad
object, Fairbairn called the idealised object or ego ideal. The idealised object constitutes
the nucleus ofthe superego, and its counterpart is the central ego. Although the maternal
figure is the first object to be internalised, Fairbairn considers the internalised paternal
object to be subject to the same defensive operations of splitting and repression, resulting
in the formation of exciting and rejecting paternal part-objects, "partly super-imposed
upon, and partly fused with the corresponding -figures of mother" (Fairbairn, 1951, p.
174).
The contents of the unconscious do not comprise instinctual impulses (as in Freud's
theory), but split internal objects identified with their respective split egos. Like Klein,
Fairbairn believed that these internal objects were manifest in personified form in dreams
and fantasies. In a 1931 case study, Fairbairn observed the operation of personified
psychic structures arising from identifications with internal objects in his patient's
dreams. He argued that multiple personality is simply a more extreme form of the
dynamic structural personification that occurs in neurotic disorders:
As a whole, the personifications seem best interpreted as functioning
structural units which ... have attained a certain independence within the total
personality; and it seems reasonable to suppose that the mental processes
which give rise to multiple personality only represent a more extreme form of
those ... Although in her particular case these personifications were confined,
in large measure, to the realm ofthe unconscious as revealed in dreams, there
is no reason why in more extreme cases similar personifications should not
invade the conscious field in waking life (Fairbairn, 1931, p. 219)
As Ogden (1994) notes, the significance ofFairbairn's model of endopsychic structures is
that it "fully establishes the concept of internal object relations between active semiautonomous
agencies within a single personality" (p. 94).
The nature and degree of psychological disturbance, according to Fairbairn, depends on
the operation of three factors: "(1) the extent to which bad objects have been installed in
the unconscious and the degree ofbadness by which they are characterized, (2) the extent