Projection

THE FULL DEPTH

The unconscious transfer of inner content onto an outer object, usually another person. What you can't see in yourself, you see (and react to) in someone else. Projection isn't lying or blaming. It's an automatic, unconscious process. The Shadow gets projected as the person you despise. The Anima/Animus gets projected as the person you idealize. The Wise Old Man gets projected as the guru you follow. Projection is how the unconscious makes itself known before you're ready to own it directly.

IN PRACTICE

Every time you say 'she's so controlling' with a charge that exceeds the evidence, or 'he just gets me like nobody else' with an intensity that feels fated, projection is at work. The signal is always the disproportionate charge. When your emotional reaction to someone is bigger than the situation warrants, positive or negative, you're encountering your own unconscious content wearing someone else's face. Withdrawing a projection doesn't mean the other person has no faults. It means your reaction to those faults is no longer carrying your own unmetabolized material.

HOW TO RECOGNIZE IT

• · Intense emotional reactions to specific people that exceed what the situation warrants
• · Idealization: 'this person is everything I need'
• · Demonization: 'this person is everything wrong with the world'
• · Recurring 'types' in relationships: attracting or being attracted to the same pattern
• · Sudden disillusionment when an idealized person turns out to be human
• · Discovering that a quality you criticized in someone else is alive in you
• · Dreams where known people behave in ways that reflect YOUR unconscious content, not their actual personality

IN DREAMS, LOOK FOR

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CONNECTED CONCEPTS

• The Shadow: The Shadow is almost always encountered first through projection.
• The Anima / Animus: Romantic projection is typically Anima/Animus material.
• The Wise Old Man / Wise Old Woman: Guru projection: placing the Wise Old Man onto a teacher or authority.
• Complexes: Complexes drive projection. The complex seeks its match in the external world.
• Integration: Withdrawing a projection is a key moment of integration: owning what was displaced onto others.
• The Persona: We project onto others the qualities our Persona can't accommodate.