This week we are in Sardinia, watching lizards dart between the rocks.
Kerstin noticed that one lizard’s tail was a much brighter green than the rest of its body—almost as though it were designed to attract attention. If a predator attacks and catches the tail, the lizard can detach it and escape. It loses a part of itself, but survives.
Egle wondered how something similar might happen psychologically.
As children, our survival depends on maintaining a connection with our caregivers. If certain parts of us threaten that connection, we may learn to hide, silence or disconnect from them.
Imagine a child whose parent withdraws or becomes angry whenever the child is upset. The child gradually learns to be “easy”: not to cry, disagree, ask for comfort or show anger. The relationship is preserved, but the child has had to leave behind their sadness, needs and authentic voice. As an adult, they may automatically say “I’m fine”, take care of everyone else and struggle to know what they themselves feel or want.
We might think of this as the lizard effect: sacrificing a part of ourselves to preserve the attachment we need in order to survive.
This is not a new psychological idea. The Hungarian psychoanalyst Sándor Ferenczi called it autotomy, borrowing the term from biology. In his 1921 paper Psycho-Analytical Observations on Tic, he wrote:
“If a part of their body is painfully stimulated they let the part concerned ‘fall’ … by severing it from the rest of their body.”
Ferenczi used this image to understand how overwhelming experiences can lead us to split off parts of ourselves. Today this is sometimes described as psychic autotomy: an ingenious survival response in which feelings, memories, needs or aspects of identity are disconnected so that the rest of the self can continue.
The parts we had to leave behind are not necessarily lost forever. In a safe relationship, including therapy, we can gradually recognise why they had to disappear—and begin to welcome them back.
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