projective identification

[Adam Blatner]

Hamish Brown in New Zealand responded to my inquiry about projective identification and I responded; he agreed to share this with you all and we invite your comments. 
 

H:   (email: perfect_brown at xtra.co.nz ): The psychoanalytic people seem to talk about holding something for someone, the group analytic people seem to talk about a group member holding something (or expressing something) for the group.  This has always seemed like a little 'magical thinking' to me.

     ab: yes, my point exactly.

 

H: However the notion I have been valuing from my analytic supervisor and some colleagues is the notion that a person who experiences something traumatic may not have the capacity to feel all of the experience.  Often it is kind of walled off and affects there functioning but is not noticed by them.  I tend to find as I am sitting with clients in individual work (and sometimes in group work) that I will feel the pain of something as it begins to emerge from this walled off state.  I believe that as I let my self feel what ever it is (and perhaps name I name it) the client is often enabled to feel it too.  Then as they find that it is ok to feel it they begin to process it and I stop feeling it.  

       a: Yes, this is compatible with my thoughts, and stated more empathically, compassionately. I will modify my writing to fit. Thank you.

 

   H: I have found that there is almost always a parallel between what I am feeling and what the client is beginning to feel - or feeling but not acknowledging - or feeling but avoiding.  I think that this is what doubling is in our language, I think I could also call it empathy.

      a: yes

 

   H Should I name it as my experience?  Well only sort of, and also, I don't think so. but can I name it as their experience?  This is something I could not possibly know.. It exists in the room between us, and I know to allow myself to participate without drawing conclusions to be in an enquiry, not to avoid or pretend but not to impose either..  As I have considered this to be a projective process I have found that this understanding helps me, when I considered it as my experience (meaning something about me) I could (generally) never figure out what it meant about me nor did it particularly seem to link to my history of pain and trauma etc.. so I think Jung called it 'participation mystique'

     ab: (1) it could be in part your own transference! 

 So what I suggested is to use the parts of self technique: Part of me feels ... and part of me notices on the other hand that... and another part of me wonders what's going on... is it me, you, the story... let's explore this together. 

        But even the when and whether to say this must rest with the judgment of the therapist and the particulars of the patient.

 

    H The analytic people seem to talk about the client 'putting' an experience into the therapist - I think Thomas Ogden talks about it like this in his book entitled Projective Identification - I don't like the appearance of consciousness or awareness that the word 'putting' implies even though this is not intended by those that use the term.

        AB: Yes, again, this refers to your first point above and why I think we need to demystify it! Can role reciprocity do the job?

 

   H: When this all gets complicated is when the feeling that I tune into does resonate with my own traumatic experience in a way that gets me to enact counter roles to those of the client, this might be the role reciprocity you refer to - I would call it a symmetrical role relationship which if not interrupted involves increasing degrees of emotional enmeshment as we each seek to avoid some inner experience through relating to the other (or at least the other as we have projected them to be).  

        AB: Well, I prefer the phrase, "tempts me" rather than "gets me" because some times the therapist gives in, or lapses, and plays the reciprocal role; and sometimes, ideally, the therapist notices the temptation and comments on it rather than acting it out... 

       The reciprocal role is sometimes symmetrical---i.e., similar. You angry, I angry.

                     and sometimes complimentary---i.e. you angry, I placate, or whine defensively, or overly apologize... 

   

   H  This last bit is where all the stuff about dual relationships come into play I suppose.  Given that projection is unconscious then I cannot really know when I am doing it with any absolute certainty and therefore I cannot say that a dual relationship will be OK in a particular instance because this could just the unconscious and emotionally enmeshed part of me speaking... and this bring me back to this notion of 'participation mystique' in which I consciously do not try to decide exactly what the experience is all about but rather let the work be informed by the experience.

       AB: I think this seems like a cop-out. The game is to know you are unconsciously tempted all the time, and you at least make some effort to notice and question your temptations. No guarantee you'll get it every time, but you don't excuse yourself. The game is to increase your skill, your self-sensitivity, even just a bit. On another level, of course, you're right, in explaining how therapists occasionally get sucked in. 

 

   H Well these are quite new ideas for me to be writing about but I feel good expressing myself and bringing structure to how I see this stuff - thanks   

    AB: thank you!  You are stating your points so well, I wonder if I can share these back with the grouptalk list as a whole or would you like to keep this confidential between us? 

 

      H: I will write about the other points you raise shortly in another email Warmly Hamish

 AB: Many thanks again, I enjoy your thoughtful comments. Warmly, Adam



(This in response to an exchange about a related topic---whether clients can be managed well in a group with people who are there because they're in training. )

         January 24, 2008 ... adam wrote: Dear Hamish, congratulations on your baby daughter!  A new chance for God to try again to bring creativity to the planet! Every baby, and every moment is a birth. Well, I'm just being poetic, but many blessings are due---and don't we all need them, too!?! 

    Okay, I like your thoughtful style of writing. I can resonate with this. First, two questions for clarification:



   1. H: ...  often in individual work many different family of origin dynamics get re-enacted and worked through by the therapist and client.  Much of this work involves regression of the client and includes processes in the dyad or group like projective identification. 

     ab:  ? ..... processes in the ... group-like PI?  or processes in the group, such as projective identification.



ab:  I've become more interested in looking at how PI works, what others think the term means. I think it refers to simple role reciprocity, the focus being on the person accepting (identifying with) or at least being tempted to or noticing the temptation to so identify. The key is to interrupt that dynamic and turn an identification into a surplus reality id...

      A acts in a way to provoke B. Instead of getting angry, B says, "part of me is tempted to react angrily and part of me is curious about what's going on here. Shall we play it out in a scene where I react and see what comes up for you?

       Or the director could say that. 

              But if B just reacts angrily, it makes it harder to figure out who's the mean one.

     So that's how I see PI... what do you think? am I misunderstanding the concept?



     part 2. you say:  The roles that it would be helpful for a client to enact in the therapeutic relationship may not serve them at all well for learning in a training programme.  

    AB: this seems interesting, fruitful. Could you say more, give a couple possible examples.



  Finally, on consideration, I'm still wary (about clients being included with trainees in sessions) , perhaps because in the last five years I've come to a heightened perception or awareness of the various types of psychopathology and degrees of problematic functioning in otherwise normal-seeming (or shall we say sealed-over and compensated) people, not a few of whom happen to be in the professions themselves. 



        So I am less generous and bland, and more cautious, more expecting of not just lawsuits (more in the USA), but decompensations, or using the ease of changing therapists for people to devalue a therapist and escape from having to consider that they themselves may be characterologically setting up problems in relations. 

       Excuses for not paying the fee; excuses for leaving or avoiding engaging; clear avoidance of a real interest in self-examination; etc.---      Anyway, thanks. Warmly, Adam
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