Projective identification

Projective identification is a term introduced by Melanie Klein to describe the process whereby in a close relationship, as between mother and child, lovers, or therapist and patient, parts of the self may in unconscious fantasy be thought of as being forced into the other person.[1]

While based on Freud's concept of psychological projection,[2] projective identification represents a step beyond. In R.D. Laing's words, "The one person does not use the other merely as a hook to hang projections on. He/she strives to find in the other, or to induce the other to become, the very embodiment of projection".[3] Feelings which can not be consciously accessed are defensively projected into another person in order to evoke the thoughts or feelings projected.[4]

Projective identification may be used as a type of defence, a means of communicating, a primitive form of relationship, or a route to psychological change;[5] used for ridding the self of unwanted parts or for controlling the other's body and mind.[6]

Experience

Though a difficult concept for the conscious mind to come to terms with,[7] since its primitive nature makes its operation or interpretation seem more like magic or art than science,[8] projective identification is nonetheless a powerful tool of interpersonal communication.

The recipient of the projection may suffer a loss of both identity and insight as they are caught up in and manipulated by the other person's fantasy.[9] One therapist, for example, describes how "I felt the progressive extrusion of his internalized mother into me, not as a theoretical construct but in actual experience. The intonation of my voice altered, became higher with the distinctly Ur-mutter quality."[10] If the projection can be accepted and understood, however, much insight into the projector will be obtained.

Projective identification differs from simple projection in that projective identification can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, whereby a person, believing something false about another, influences or coerces that other person to carry out that precise projection.[11] In extreme cases, the recipient may lose any sense of their real self and become reduced to the passive carriers of outside projections, as if possessed by them.[12]

Objects projected

The objects (feelings, attitudes) extruded in projective identification are of various kinds – both good and bad, ideal and abjected.

Hope may be projected by a client into their therapist, when they can no longer consciously feel it themselves;[13] equally, it may be a fear of (psychic) dying which is projected.[14]

Aggression may be projected, leaving the projector's personality diminished and reduced;[15] alternatively it may be desire, leaving the projector feeling asexual.[16]

The good/ideal parts of the personality may be projected, leading to dependence upon the object of identification;[17] equally it may be jealousy or envy that are projected, perhaps by the therapist into the client.[18]

Intensity

Projective identification may take place with varying degrees of intensity.[19]

In narcissism, extremely powerful projections may take place and obliterate the distinction between self and other.[20]

In less disturbed personalities, projective identification is not only a way of getting rid of feelings but also of getting help with them.[21]

In an emotionally balanced person, projective identification may act as a bridge to empathy and intuitive understanding.[22]

Types

Various types of projective identification have been distinguished over the years:

A division has also been made between normal projective identification and pathological projective identification, where what is projected is splintered into minute pieces before the projection takes place.[26]

In psychotherapy

As with transference and countertransference, projective identification can be a potential key to therapeutic understanding, especially where the therapist is able to tolerate and contain the unwanted, negative aspects of the patient's self over time.[27]

Transactional analysis emphasizes the need for the therapist's Adult to remain uncontaminated, if the experience of the client's projective identification is to be usefully understood.[28]

Wounded couple

Relationship problems have been linked to the way there can be a division of emotional labour in a couple, by way of projective identification, with one partner carrying projected aspects of the other for them.[29] Thus one partner may carry all the aggression or all the competence in the relationship, the other all the vulnerability.[30]

Jungians describe the resultant dynamics as characterising a so-called "wounded couple" – projective identification ensuring that each carries the most ideal or the most primitive parts of their counterpart.[31] The two partners may initially have been singled out for that very readiness to carry parts of each other's self; but the projected inner conflicts/division then come to be replicated in the partnership itself.[32]

Conscious resistance to such projective identification[33] may produce on the one side guilt for refusing to enact the projection,[34] on the other bitter rage at the thwarting of the projection.[35]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Patrick Casement, Further Learning from the Patient (London 1990) p. 177
  2. ↑ Projective identification
  3. ↑ R. D. Laing, Self and Others (Penguin 1969) p. 111
  4. ↑ Michael Jacobs, Psychodynamic Counselling in Action (London 2006), p. 109
  5. ↑ Quoted in Jan Grant and Jim Crawley, Transference and Projection(Buckingham 2002), p. 31
  6. ↑ Patrick Casement, On Learning from the Patient (1985) p. 100n
  7. ↑ Priscilla Roth, 'Projective Identification', in S. Budd/R.Rusbridger eds., Introducing Psychoanalysis (2005) p. 200
  8. ↑ Patrick Casement, Further Learning from the Patient (London 1990) p. 8
  9. ↑ R. D. Laing, Self and Others (Penguin 1969) p. 37
  10. ↑ David Cooper, The Death of the Family (Penguin 1974) p. 113–4
  11. ↑ Polly Young-Eisendrath/Terence Dawson, The Cambridge Companion to Jung (Cambridge 1977) p. 227
  12. ↑ T. Pitt-Aikens/A. T. Ellis, Loss of the Good Authority (London 1989) p. 120 and p. 133
  13. ↑ Patrick Casement, Further Learning from the Patient (London 1990) p. 121-2
  14. ↑ Michael Parsons, The Dove that Returns, the Dove that Vanishes (2000) p. 166
  15. ↑ R. Appignanesi ed., Introducing Melanie Klein (2006) p. 127
  16. ↑ Patrick Casement, Further Learning from the Patient (London 1990) p. 69–73
  17. ↑ Rosalind Minsky, Psychoanalysis and Gender (1998) p. 86-7
  18. ↑ Neville Symington, Narcissism: A New Theory (1993) p. 11–2
  19. ↑ Robert D. Hinshelwood, "Projective Identification"
  20. ↑ Hanna Segal, Klein (1979) p. 116–9
  21. ↑ Patrick Casement, Further Learning from the Patient (London 1990) p. 98–9
  22. ↑ Robert D. Hinshelwood, "Projective Identification"
  23. ↑ John Rowan and Michael Jacobs, The Therapist's Use of Self (Buckingham 2002) p. 42
  24. ↑ Grinberg L (1962) On a specific aspect of countertransference due to the patient's projective identification (In Classics of Psychoanalytical Technique)
  25. ↑ The Narcissistic/Borderline Couple: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Marital Treatment (1st ed.). New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1992. ISBN 0-87630-634-2
  26. ↑ Hanna Segal,Introduction to the work of Melanie Klein (London 1964), p. 42-3
  27. ↑ Harold Stewart, Psychic Experience and Problems of Technique (London 1992), p. 134
  28. ↑ Petruska Clarkson, On Psychotherapy (London 1993), p. 180 and p. 184
  29. ↑ Adam Phillips, On Flirtation (London 1994), p. 5
  30. ↑ R. Skynner/J. Cleese, Families and how to survive them (1993) p. 47–54
  31. ↑ Polly Young-Eisendrath and Terence Dawson eds., The Cambridge Companion to Jung (Cambridge 1997) p. 237
  32. ↑ Polly Young-Eisendrath and Terence Dawson eds., The Cambridge Companion to Jung (Cambridge 1997) p. 227
  33. ↑ Polly Young-Eisendrath and Terence Dawson eds., The Cambridge Companion to Jung (Cambridge 1997) p. 227
  34. ↑ R. D. Laing, Self and Others (Penguin 1969) p. 111
  35. ↑ Neville Symington, Narcissism: A New Theory (London 1993) p. 101

Further reading

External links

R. M. Young, Benign and virulent projective identification

Wynn Schwartz Demystifying Projective Identification

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