I use a picture that depicts the psychodynamic concept of splitting often caricatured as a pull in the mind between good or angelic forces or bad and devilish forces pulling us in both directions. 

 

In clinical practice when splitting takes place in individuals or between people there is often a polarisation between a punitive or harsh attitude and a sympathetic more liberal stance.

Each party in the two sides views the other as wrong headed, as being hard and cruel or soft and gullible.