Projection
Immature defence (Vaillant); disavowal level on the DSM-IV scale; primary in McWilliams' scheme. The person disowns a feeling, wish or trait in themselves and experiences it as belonging to someone else.
What drives it
Moves an unacceptable impulse (hostility, envy, desire, incompetence) outside, so the person can feel clean and the threat can be fought out there instead of in here.
How it shows
Work
The quietly furious manager who keeps saying the team is hostile. The person cutting corners who accuses others of cutting corners. “Everyone here is out for themselves.” The accusations are oddly specific and fit the accuser better than the target. Listeners feel puzzled rather than invaded, because the charge doesn't land as true.
Relationships
“You're angry with me,” said in a cold voice. The partner tempted to stray becomes suspicious of the other's phone. The same accusation turns up across different partners.
Self
Strong, certain irritation at a trait in someone else that you can't let go of, especially one you pride yourself on not having. Ask whether the charge would stick to you.
What tells it apart
Projective identification: With projection you can watch the accusation from outside and it doesn't fit you; with projective identification you start to feel and act out the disowned state under the other person's pressure.
Mind reading: Mind reading guesses others' thoughts in any direction, often self-critical ones; projection attributes specifically the speaker's own disowned trait or impulse, and repeats across targets.
False consensus effect: False consensus assumes others share views the person openly owns; in projection the attributed trait is one the person condemns and denies in themselves.
A test
List what they accuse others of and check whether it fits their own behaviour better than the target's; the same theme across different targets confirms it.
Questions to carry
- Across the different people they accuse, which theme keeps recurring, and how well does it fit their own behaviour?
- Which flaw do I keep spotting in others that someone close might say is mine?
How strong the research is
clinical. A core clinical concept; some experimental support (for example Newman, Duff and Baumeister, 1997) for people seeing suppressed traits in others, but the evidence base is thin.
Where it comes from
Sigmund Freud, 1895 (Draft H) and 1911; Anna Freud, 1936
On the family tree: Sigmund Freud
Sources
- Robert A. Johnson, Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche (1991)