Moving Toward integration and Authenticity
Have you ever felt like you’re either completely on top of the world or at rock bottom? That someone in your life is either the best person you’ve ever known or the absolute worst? Or maybe you’ve found yourself swinging between feeling deeply connected to your true self and, at other times, feeling like a stranger in your own skin?
This pattern of black-and-white thinking—where we struggle to hold both the good and the difficult in ourselves, others, and life—is called splitting. It’s a defense mechanism that can make life feel like an emotional rollercoaster, creating inner conflict and instability in relationships. But what if we could move beyond it? What if, instead of being at war with different aspects of ourselves, we learned to integrate them?
What is Splitting?
Splitting is the tendency to see things in extremes—good or bad, right or wrong, lovable or unlovable. It often develops as a response to emotional pain, trauma, or invalidation in early life. When our nervous system is overwhelmed, it can feel safer to categorize things simply rather than hold onto the discomfort of nuance, mixed emotions, and contradictions.
For example, if you grew up in an environment where love felt conditional, you may have learned that certain parts of yourself were "acceptable" while others had to be hidden or rejected. This can create an internal split, where you feel like you have to be one thing in order to be loved—always strong, always agreeable, always high-achieving. But deep down, the other parts of you—your anger, your fears, your vulnerabilities—don’t just disappear. They show up in unexpected ways, often leaving you feeling disconnected from yourself.
How Splitting Affects Authenticity
Authenticity is about wholeness and integration of all parts of ourselves. It’s about embracing the full, messy, human experience, rather than feeling like you have to "perform" a version of yourself that fits into a narrow set of expectations. But when splitting is present, it can be hard to access that wholeness.
You might:
Struggle with self-acceptance, feeling like you’re either “good” or “bad” based on your emotions or actions that day.
Feel torn between different versions of yourself—who you are in private versus who you are around others.
Find relationships difficult because people feel either perfect or unbearable, instead of complex and flawed like all humans are.
When we split, we lose access to the richness of our true selves. We end up chasing an idealized version of who we "should" be, rather than integrating all the pieces of who we really are.
Moving Beyond Splitting: Embracing Your Full Self
Healing from splitting isn’t about forcing yourself to love every part of who you are overnight. It’s about learning to sit with the discomfort of being human—to recognize that contradictions exist, that emotions can be messy, and that imperfection doesn’t make you unworthy.
Therapy can be a powerful space for this work. Instead of feeling like you need to prove you’re “good enough,” therapy invites you to bring all of yourself to the table—the strong and the struggling, the joyful and the grieving, the certain and the lost. Over time, as you allow yourself to hold both the light and the dark, you start to experience a more stable, integrated, and authentic sense of self.
Questions for Reflection
Do I notice myself labeling things or people as “all good” or “all bad”?
Are there parts of myself that I’ve disowned because I was taught they weren’t acceptable?
What would it feel like to allow more nuance into my emotions and relationships?
How can I practice self-compassion when I feel like I’m “too much” or “not enough”?
The process of moving towards authenticity is not about perfection—it’s about integration. It’s about making space for all of who you are and finding safety in knowing that you don’t have to be just one thing. You can be whole.