German term (edited): abspalten von Gefühlen

Dissociation of Emotions

I'm sure it's pretty common to use the words you think are too literal "split off".

http://www.google.de/search?q=feelings "split off"

e.g.
>
The reports of the mothers in this study demonstrate the risk involved when aggressive feelings towards children are split-off, and instead of being experienced consciously and thought about, are acted out.
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Thoughts and ideas are split off, so that they no longer appear as internal private experiences but are projected on to the outside world.
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Note added at 22 mins (2007-11-01 18:33:48 GMT)
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I'd reformulate for a translation:

(e.g. fear, depression, feelings being split off)

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Note added at 1 hr (2007-11-01 19:25:01 GMT)
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With reference to Chetan's suggestion, here's a quote from Wikipedia if you need help deciding whether to reformulate:

Dissociation is a state of acute mental decompensation in which certain thoughts, emotions, sensations, and/or memories are compartmentalized because they are too overwhelming for the conscious mind to integrate. This subconscious strategy for managing powerful negative emotions is sometimes referred to as "splitting", as these thoughts, emotions, sensations, and/or memories are "split off" from the integrated ego. This use of the word "splitting" here should not be confused with references to splitting mentioned with regard to borderline personality disorder or family relations theory.

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Note added at 1 hr (2007-11-01 19:30:18 GMT)
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Results returned from Google are not dependent on the interface chosen (domain .de or domain .com), here's the search at google.com, it's exactly the same:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=feelings "split off"


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Note added at 1 hr (2007-11-01 19:34:35 GMT)
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I was curious to see what the new Google Scholar service returns, and it only confirms my proposal for an answer:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=feelings "split off"



To clarify: I don't want to dispute that we are probably talking about disassociation here (context dependent). But since the author didn't use the technical term in German, why use it in English?

It may simply be a style question - maybe the author used the technical term two lines earlier and chose this time to use a more 'general' term, or maybe he chose to use it in order to be more comprehensible - these are all issues only visible to the translator who has the full context.

is how the Standardwörterbuch für die Sozialwissenschaften translates "Abspaltung".
Webster for secession " withdrawal into privacy or solitude"