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Inpsychology,psychoanalysis, andpsychotherapy, projection is the mental process in which an individualattributes their own internal thoughts, beliefs, emotions, experiences, and personality traits to another person or group.
TheAmerican Psychological Association Dictionary of Psychology defines projection as follows:[1]
[T]he process by which one attributes one’s own individual positive or negative characteristics,affects, and impulses to another person or group... often adefense mechanism in which unpleasant or unacceptable impulses, stressors, ideas, affects, or responsibilities are attributed to others. For example, the defense mechanism of projection enables a person conflicted over expressing anger to change “I hate them” to “They hate me.” Such defensive patterns are often used to justify prejudice or evade responsibility.
A prominent precursor in the formulation of the projection principle wasGiambattista Vico.[2][3][how?] In 1841,Ludwig Feuerbach was the firstenlightenment thinker to employ this concept as the basis for a systematic critique of religion.[4][5][6][how?]
TheBabylonian Talmud (500 AD) notes the human tendency toward projection and warns against it: "Do not taunt your neighbour with the blemish you yourself have."[7][attribution needed] In the parable ofthe Mote and the Beam in theNew Testament, Jesus warned against projection:[8][attribution needed]
Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
Projection (German:Projektion) was first conceptualised bySigmund Freud in his letters toWilhelm Fliess,[9] and further refined byKarl Abraham andAnna Freud. Freud argued that in projection, thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings that cannot be accepted as one's own are dealt with by being placed in the outside world and attributed to someone else.[10] Freud would later argue that projection did not take place arbitrarily, but rather seized on andexaggerated an element that already existed on a small scale in the other person.[11]
According to Freud,projective identification occurs when the other personintrojects, or unconsciously adopts, that which is projected onto them.[12] In projective identification, the self[clarification needed] maintains a connection with what is projected, in contrast to the total repudiation of projection proper.[13]
Freud conceptualised projection within his broader theory ofpsychoanalysis and theid, ego, and superego. Later psychoanalysts have interpreted and developed Freud's theory of projection in varied ways.
Otto Fenichel argued that projection involves that which theego refuses to accept, which is thussplit off and placed in another.[14]
Melanie Klein saw the projection of good parts of the self as leading potentially to over-idealisation of the object.[15] Equally, it may be one's conscience that is projected, in an attempt to escape its control: a more benign version of this allows one to come to terms with outside authority.[16]
Carl Jung considered that the unacceptable parts of the personality represented by theShadow archetype were particularly likely to give rise to projection, both small-scale and on a national/international basis.[17]Marie-Louise Von Franz extended her view of projection, stating that "wherever known reality stops, where we touch the unknown, there we project anarchetypal image".[18]
Erik Erikson argues that projection tends to come to the fore in normal people at times of personal or politicalcrisis.[19]
Drawing onGordon Allport's idea of the expression of self onto activities and objects, projective techniques have been devised to aid personality assessment, including theRorschach ink-blots and theThematic Apperception Test (TAT).[20]
According to some psychoanalysts, projection forms the basis ofempathy by the projection of personal experiences to understand someone else's subjective world.[21] In its malignant forms, projection is adefense mechanism in which theego defends itself against disowned and highly negative parts of the self bydenying their existence in themselves andattributing them to others, breeding misunderstanding and causing interpersonal damage.[22] Projection incorporatesblame shifting and can manifest as shame dumping.[23] It has also been described as an early phase ofintrojection.[24]
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Projection is commonly found inborderline personality disorder andparanoid personalities.[25]
In psychoanalytical and psychodynamic terms, projection may help a fragileego reduceanxiety, but at the cost of a certaindissociation, as indissociative identity disorder.[26] In extreme cases, an individual's personality may end up becoming criticallydepleted.[27] In such cases, therapy may be required which would include the slow rebuilding of the personality through the "taking back" of such projections.[28]
Jung wrote, "All projections provoke counter-projection when the object is unconscious of the quality projected upon it by the subject."[29] Jung argued that what is unconscious in the recipient will be projected back onto the projector, precipitating a form of mutualacting out.[30] In a different usage,Harry Stack Sullivan saw counter-projection in the therapeutic context as a way of warding off thecompulsive re-enactment of apsychological trauma, by emphasizing the difference between the current situation and the projectedobsession with the perceived perpetrator of the original trauma.[31]
The method ofmanaged projection is a projective technique. The basic principle of this method is that a subject is presented with their own verbal portrait named by the name of another person, as well as with a portrait of their fictional opposition.[32] The technique may be suitable for application in psychological counseling and might provide valuable information about the form and nature of their self-esteem.Bodalev, A (2000)."General psychodiagnostics".
Psychological projection is one of themedical explanations of bewitchment used to explain the behavior of the afflicted children atSalem in 1692. The historianJohn Demos wrote in 1970 that the symptoms of bewitchment displayed by the afflicted girls could have been due to the girls undergoing psychological projection ofrepressed aggression.[33]
Invictim blaming, the victim of someone else's actions or bad luck may be offered criticism, the theory being that the victim may be at fault for having attracted the other person's hostility. According to some theorists, in such cases, the psyche projects the experiences of weakness or vulnerability with the aim of ridding itself of the feelings and, through its disdain for them or the act of blaming, their conflict with the ego.[34][full citation needed]
Thoughts ofinfidelity to a partner may also beunconsciously projected in self-defence on to the partner in question, so that theguilt attached to the thoughts can be repudiated or turned toblame instead, in a process linked todenial.[35] For example, a person who is having a sexual affair may fear that their spouse is planning an affair or may accuse the innocent spouse ofadultery.
Abully may project their own feelings ofvulnerability onto the target(s) of the bullying activity. Despite the fact that a bully's typically denigrating activities are aimed at the bully's targets, the true source of such negativity is ultimately almost always found in the bully's own sense of personalinsecurity or vulnerability.[36][better source needed] Such aggressive projections of displaced negative emotions can occur anywhere from the micro-level ofinterpersonal relationships, all the way up to the macro-level of international politics, or even international armed conflict.[17]
Projection of a severe conscience[37] is another form of defense, one which may be linked to the making offalse accusations, personal or political.[17] In a more positive light, a patient may sometimes project their feelings ofhope onto the therapist.[38] People in love "reading" each other's mind involves a projection of the self into the other.[21]
Research onsocial projection supports the existence of afalse-consensus effect whereby humans have a broad tendency to believe that others are similar to themselves, and thus "project" their personal traits onto others.[39] This applies to both good and bad traits; it is not a defense mechanism for denying the existence of the trait within the self.[40]
A study of the empirical evidence for a range of defense mechanisms by Baumeister, Dale, and Sommer (1998) concluded, "The view that people defensively project specific bad traits of their own onto others as a means of denying that they have them is not well supported."[40] However, Newman, Duff, and Baumeister (1997) proposed a new model of defensive projection in which therepressor's efforts tosuppress thoughts of their undesirable traits make those trait categories highly accessible—so that they are then used all the more often when forming impressions of others. The projection is then only a byproduct of the real defensive mechanism.[41]
And he who [continually] declares [others] unfit is [himself] unfit and never speaks in praise [of people]. And Samuel said: All who defame others, with their own blemish they stigmatize [these others].
