Introjection
Primary defence in McWilliams' scheme; not ranked by Vaillant. The person takes in the qualities, attitudes or voice of another person, usually an important early figure, so that it becomes part of their inner world without their noticing.
What drives it
Keeps an important person close (in mourning, or with a feared parent) and eases helplessness by holding their standards inside. The price is that hostility felt toward that person can end up aimed at the self.
How it shows
Work
A harsh inner standard that clearly isn't theirs: “My father would say this deck is lazy.” Rules about work they can't justify when asked. Self-criticism in someone else's phrasing. Colleagues hear the echo of a parent or former mentor.
Relationships
After a death, taking on the dead person's mannerisms or opinions. In an abusive relationship, “I deserve it”: the abuser's view held as one's own. Freud's point in Mourning and Melancholia was that self-reproaches often fit the lost person better than the self.
Self
An inner voice with an accent that isn't yours. Ask whose words they are; if you can name the person, it's an introject.
What tells it apart
Harsh superego (inner critic): The harsh superego is the resulting structure; introjection is the process that put a particular voice there, visible when the criticism uses someone else's wording.
Identification with the aggressor: Introjection usually aims the taken-in attitude at the self; identification with the aggressor aims it at others.
Conditions of worth (Rogers): Conditions of worth are standards for being lovable; introjection is broader and takes in voices, mannerisms and moods as well as standards.
A test
Ask the person to say their harshest self-criticism aloud, then ask who used to say that; quick recognition of a specific person confirms introjection.
Questions to carry
- Hearing their harshest self-criticism aloud, how quickly can they name whose voice it first was?
- Whose words do I hear when I’m hardest on myself?
How strong the research is
clinical. Foundational in object-relations theory; research on self-criticism and internalised parental criticism is consistent with it but doesn't test it directly.
Where it comes from
Sándor Ferenczi, 1909; Sigmund Freud, 1917; Melanie Klein, 1930s
Sources
- Sigmund Freud, Mourning and Melancholia (1917)
- Sándor Ferenczi, Confusion of Tongues between Adults and the Child (1933)