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.