Projective identification is a term introduced by Melanie Klein and then widely adopted in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Projective identification may be used as a type of defense, a means of communicating, a primitive form of relationship, or a route to psychological change; [1] used for ridding the self of unwanted parts or for controlling the other's body and mind. [2]
According to the American Psychological Association, the expression can have two meanings:
While based on Freud's concept of psychological projection, [5] 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". [6] Feelings which cannot be consciously accessed are defensively projected into another person in order to evoke the thoughts or feelings projected. [7]
Though a difficult concept for the conscious mind to come to terms with, [8] since its primitive nature makes its operation or interpretation seem more like magic or art than science, [9] 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. [10] 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." [11] However, should one manage to accept and understand the projection, one will obtain much insight into the projector.
Projective identification differs from the 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. [12] In extreme cases, the recipient may lose any sense of their real self and become reduced to the passive carrier of outside projections as if possessed by them. [13] This phenomenon has been noted in gaslighting (see Introjection § Gaslighting). [14]
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; [15] equally, it may be a fear of (psychic) dying which is projected. [16]
Aggression may be projected, leaving the projector's personality diminished and reduced; [17] alternatively it may be desire, leaving the projector feeling asexual. [18]
The good/ideal parts of the personality may be projected, leading to dependence upon the object of identification; [19] equally it may be jealousy or envy that are projected, perhaps by the therapist into the client. [20]
Projective identification may take place with varying degrees of intensity. [21] In less disturbed personalities, projective identification is not only a way of getting rid of feelings but also of getting help with them. [22] In narcissism, extremely powerful projections may take place and obliterate the distinction between self and other. [23]
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. [27]
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. [28]
Transactional analysis emphasizes the need for the therapist's "Adult" (an ego state directed towards an objective appraisal of reality) to remain uncontaminated if the experience of the client's projective identification is to be usefully understood. [29]
A prior study demonstrated how counsellors may identify and clinically use client projective identification. Additionally, the study specified that splitting and projective identification happen one after the other. Also, the three connected phenomena of transference, countertransference, and projective identification are addressed as the foundation for the therapist's successful application of the self as a tool in treatment. This is a three-phase therapy procedure that highlights the significance of the timing of treatments. [30]
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. [31] Thus one partner may carry all the aggression or all the competence in the relationship, the other all the vulnerability. [32]
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. [33] 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. [34]
Conscious resistance to such projective identification [35] may produce on the one side guilt for refusing to enact the projection, [36] on the other bitter rage at the thwarting of the projection. [37]
Psychological projection is a defence mechanism of alterity concerning "inside" content mistaken to be coming from the "outside" Other. It forms the basis of empathy by the projection of personal experiences to understand someone else's subjective world. In its malignant forms, it is a defense mechanism in which the ego defends itself against disowned and highly negative parts of the self by denying their existence in themselves and attributing them to others, breeding misunderstanding and causing untold interpersonal damage. A bully may project their own feelings of vulnerability onto the target, or a person who is confused may project feelings of confusion and inadequacy onto other people. Projection incorporates blame shifting and can manifest as shame dumping. Projection has been described as an early phase of introjection.
In psychology, introjection is the unconscious adoption of the thoughts or personality traits of others. It occurs as a normal part of development, such as a child taking on parental values and attitudes. It can also be a defense mechanism in situations that arouse anxiety.
Object relations theory is a school of thought in psychoanalytic theory and psychoanalysis centered around theories of stages of ego development. Its concerns include the relation of the psyche to others in childhood and the exploration of relationships between external people, as well as internal images and the relations found in them. Thinkers of the school maintain that the infant's relationship with the mother primarily determines the formation of its personality in adult life. Particularly, attachment is the bedrock of the development of the self or the psychic organization that creates the sense of identity.
Otto Friedmann Kernberg is an Austrian-born American psychoanalyst and professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine. He is most widely known for his psychoanalytic theories on borderline personality organization and narcissistic pathology. In addition, his work has been central in integrating postwar ego psychology with Kleinian and other object relations perspectives. His integrative writings were central to the development of modern object relations, a theory of mind that is perhaps the theory most widely accepted among modern psychoanalysts.
Countertransference is defined as redirection of a psychotherapist's feelings toward a client – or, more generally, as a therapist's emotional entanglement with a client.
Transference is a phenomenon within psychotherapy in which repetitions of old feelings, attitudes, desires, or fantasies that someone displaces are subconsciously projected onto a here-and-now person. Traditionally, it had solely concerned feelings from a primary relationship during childhood.
Interpersonal psychoanalysis is based on the theories of American psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan (1892–1949). Sullivan believed that the details of a patient's interpersonal interactions with others can provide insight into the causes and cures of mental disorder.
Hyman Spotnitz was an American psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who pioneered an approach to working psychoanalytically with patients with schizophrenia in the 1950s called modern psychoanalysis. He also was one of the pioneers of group therapy.
In the psychology of defense mechanisms and self-control, acting out is the performance of an action considered bad or anti-social. In general usage, the action performed is destructive to self or to others. The term is used in this way in sexual addiction treatment, psychotherapy, criminology and parenting. In contrast, the opposite attitude or behaviour of bearing and managing the impulse to perform one's impulse is called acting in.
Harold Frederic Searles was one of the pioneers of psychiatric medicine specializing in psychoanalytic treatments of schizophrenia. Searles had the reputation of being a therapeutic virtuoso with difficult and borderline patients; and of being, in the words of Horacio Etchegoyen, president of the IPA, "not only a great analyst but also a sagacious observer and a creative and careful theoretician".
The therapeutic relationship refers to the relationship between a healthcare professional and a client or patient. It is the means by which a therapist and a client hope to engage with each other and effect beneficial change in the client.
Identification is a psychological process whereby the individual assimilates an aspect, property, or attribute of the other and is transformed wholly or partially by the model that other provides. It is by means of a series of identifications that the personality is constituted and specified. The roots of the concept can be found in Freud's writings. The three most prominent concepts of identification as described by Freud are: primary identification, narcissistic (secondary) identification and partial (secondary) identification.
Donald Meltzer (1922–2004) was a Kleinian psychoanalyst whose teaching made him influential in many countries. He became known for making clinical headway with difficult childhood conditions such as autism, and also for his theoretical innovations and developments. His focus on the role of emotionality and aesthetics in promoting mental health has led to his being considered a key figure in the "post-Kleinian" movement associated with the psychoanalytic theory of thinking created by Wilfred Bion.
Modern psychoanalysis is the term used by Hyman Spotnitz to describe the techniques he developed for the treatment of narcissistic disorders.
An auxiliary ego, also known as simply an auxiliary, is the position taken by other participants in a role-playing exercise, or psychodrama, in order to simulate particular situations for the protagonists. Additionally in psychodrama, it can also be a role of representative figures in the protagonist’s life assumed by any person between the group members on the stage, excluding the therapist. Another conceptualization describes it in psychodrama as "the representation of absentees, individuals, delusions, symbols, ideals, animals, and objects" that make the protagonist's world real and tangible.
Joseph J. Sandler was a British psychoanalyst within the Anna Freud Grouping – now the Contemporary Freudians – of the British Psychoanalytical Society; and is perhaps best known for what has been called his 'silent revolution' in re-aligning the concepts of the object relations school within the framework of ego psychology.
Annie Reich was a Viennese-born psychoanalyst who became a leading analytic theorist in post-war New York.
Negative transference is the psychoanalytic term for the transference of negative and hostile feelings, rather than positive ones, onto a therapist.
Parallel process is a phenomenon noted in clinical supervision by therapist and supervisor, whereby the therapist recreates, or parallels, the client's problems by way of relating to the supervisor. The client's transference and the therapist's countertransference thus re-appear in the mirror of the therapist/supervisor relationship.
Polly Young-Eisendrath is an American psychologist, author, teacher, speaker, Jungian analyst, Zen Buddhist, and the founder of Dialogue Therapy and Real Dialogue and creator of the podcast Enemies: From War to Wisdom.
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