Generally, separateness, apartness. In
psychoanalysis, a defense mechanism that operates unconsciously and functions by
severing the conscious psychological ties between some unacceptable act or
impulse and its original memory source. In this sense, the original experience
is not forgotten but it is separated from the affect originally associated with
it. The classical theory views this mechanism as a common one in obsessional
neuroses. In Jung's terms, a feeling of psychological estrangement from others.
Also called psychic isolation, Jung argued that it derived from deep secrets,
originally from the collective unconscious, which one feels must be kept from
others. In existential psychology, isolation is akin to alienation, a feeling of
being separate in an absurd universe.