projective identification
Neil Hucker
eddy1 at labyrinth.net.au
Wed Feb 27 06:38:25 CST 2008
Dear Regina, Adam and Jean.
In my work with personality disorders I found Mastersons writing very
helpful. He focused very much on the seperation/individuaton phase of
development. To understand this more fully I went to the work of the
psychoanalyst Melanie Klein who I understand developed the concept of
projective identification and introduced it around 1946. Obviously the
concept has been explored and developed around the world since then.
There is apparently a lot of debate about all its aspects and what are its
defing characteristics.
My understanding is that projective identification is an unconscious defence
mechanism that allows a person to project a part of themself out into the
perceived self of another to ward off the anxiety that owning that part
would entail. It can most easily be understood with the negative parts of
the self, for example hate or envy.
The p/i is a defence mechanism of the paraniod position where the infant
experiences everthing as itself and the world as bits which comes before the
depressive position where the infant starts to experience itself as a whole
entity in its own right and the mother and the external world as seperate
and whole.
An example could be that a child may hate someone they love but are afraid
that they may be rejected if they hate. Something has to be done with the
hate.
The hate is then perceived as residing in the other which creates paraniod
fear and the child can then be warmed up by their love to avoid rejection by
placating the perceived hate in the other and.
This part role cluster relationship is then identified with by the person as
the actual role relationship. The self is experienced as good and loving and
the other as bad and hating. In the healthy full relationship the loving
hating child is securely attached to the loving hating mother with a
predominace love.
I have confused a bit, the origens of the conserved part object relationship
or probably part role relationship with its functon in the adult.
For me the importance of the p/i concept relates to how adequately a person
can role reverse with another, for eg if a protagonist is asked to play the
role of their hated mother and refuses because they say they couldn't be
that dreadful I will suspect that only one aspect of a role or one role of
a cluster of the mother is being related to. I will then explore whether
that aspect is in the protagonists role repertoire. Usually the person will
say I never want to be like my mother or I never want to have that role of
hers. I never want to be that way with my child.
Since this is a distorting relationship mechanism I focus on the warm up of
the projecter and the responses of the projection screen.
At this point I will not comment on the way projective identification has
been described here so far but I would enjoy any further discussion. I am
intrigued by its ramifications.
Neil Hucker
Melbourne
.----- Original Message -----
From: "REGINA SEWELL" <sewell.2 at osu.edu>
To: <list at grouptalkweb.org>
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2008 12:18 PM
Subject: projective identification
> Adam,
>
> Your discussion of projective identification in terms of role reciprosity
> makes a lot of sense and broadens the concept. As I was reading your
> discussion on a way around it, I was thinking both of the Buddhist
> approach... we fall prey to other people's projections or games when we
> lose connection with ourselves in the present moment. The more we can
> stay in and/or reconnect with the present moment, with our breath, with
> bodily sensations, with "what's actually here now" the more spontanious we
> can be in responding from our place of truth. I suppose that takes us at
> first away from the cerebral cortex and then back to it. Or perhaps first
> to the cerebral cortex, back to the limbic system and then back to the
> cerebral cortex.
>
> And, I would think that there are a lot of scrambled transmissions
> (different dynamic) that lead to the same outcome. That is, it doesn't
> matter what Arnold is thinking if his behavior conveys blame to Betty, she
> may still get lost in the spin. For example, Arnold is from Brooklyn and
> used to talking loud and fast and Betty is from Mobile, Alabama and used
> to being talked to slow and softly and when Arnold speaks loud and fast,
> her heart rate speeds up and she goes into the spin of anxiety - a
> physiological response - and then has the thought - "He's angry" or "I'm
> in trouble" or whatever.... (In this instance projecting a different role
> on to Arnold - not exactly role reciprocity... what is it?) and apologizes
> even though she has no clue what's going on simply to get back to a place
> of more calm... The same solution... if Betty can see this happening,
> she can reconnect with the present moment with her body, with her breath,
> whatever, and stop the spin and change the s
> piral of the exchange.
>
> Peace,
>
> regina sewell
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: list-request at grouptalkweb.org
> Date: Friday, February 1, 2008 1:00 pm
> Subject: List Digest, Vol 20, Issue 1
>
>> Send List mailing list submissions to
>> list at grouptalkweb.org
>>
>> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>> http://grouptalkweb.org/mailman/listinfo/list_grouptalkweb.org
>> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>> list-request at grouptalkweb.org
>>
>> You can reach the person managing the list at
>> list-owner at grouptalkweb.org
>>
>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>> than "Re: Contents of List digest..."
>>
>>
>> Today's Topics:
>>
>> 1. projective identification (Adam Blatner)
>> 2. projective indentificatio (Terry Makin)
>>
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ---
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:20:09 -0600
>> From: "Adam Blatner" <adam at blatner.com>
>> Subject: projective identification
>> To: <list at grouptalkweb.org>
>> Cc: iagp-psychodrama at yahoogroups.com
>> Message-ID: <03a401c86470$96859230$2e01a8c0 at desktop>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>>
>> Howdy, I was writing up some ideas on projective identification
>> and wanted to make sure that my understanding is correct. If you
>> have a psychoanalytic background or can check with a friend with
>> such a background, I'd be very appreciative of your / your
>> friend's comments. Briefly, I present this dynamic in more role-
>> theory language and discuss its implications. This gets a little
>> wordy, so don't bother if you aren't interested.
>>
>> Understanding "Projective Identification"
>> Adam Blatner
>>
>> Projective Identification is a term used by psychoanalysts to
>> refer to a dynamic that occurs most prominently when doing therapy
>> with patients with borderline personality disorder. After reading
>> about it, it seemed to me that this was an important dynamic that
>> is useful to appreciate, as it occurs in many situations---and
>> more, that it can be made more understandable when presented in
>> terms of applied role theory. Having some grounding in
>> psychodrama, I think in terms of scenes. We can slow motion the
>> action and portray the unspoken assumptions or asides of the
>> players, but if you can't visualize it, then we're being too
>> obscure in our abstractions.
>>
>> So, Imagine: Arnold (person A), feeling, say, angry, but
>> unwilling to admit it to himself---it's repressed---"projects the
>> anger onto Betty (person B). Encountering a slight frustration or
>> friction, says, accusingly, "You're just trying to make me mad!"
>> That's projection.
>> Betty (person B) is tempted to respond in a fashion that is
>> either complementary (he's angry, she'll apologize, even if she
>> doesn't know what she did wrong, gives in, backs off, feels
>> defensive); or symmetrical (she becomes as irritable as he,
>> counter-blames: "Yeah, well, you're being mean yourself!"
>>
>> In other words, Betty is tempted to play into the role set up by
>> Arnold. This is called role reciprocity.
>>
>> Projective identification, as I understand it, also can operate
>> with positive emotions: In nice exchanges, he smiles, so she
>> smiles. He says, "Thank you," she replys, "You're welcome," or "No
>> problem." These little role reciprocity exchanges go on all the
>> time in a thousand ways.
>> In more problematic exchanges, A puts out a certain tone,
>> feeling, and B plays into it, amplifying the negative feedback.
>>
>> Now, as I understand it, "projective identification" applies to
>> the whole transaction, the projection and the one who identifies
>> with the projection, and the real emphasis is on the latter!
>>
>> Earlier on I said, Betty is tempted. Now much of the time, unless
>> we know what's going on, we give into a temptation. For example,
>> If we don't know that there's even a possibility of a toy rubber
>> snake being put out as a practical joke, and if there's any
>> likelihood that a snake might have gotten in the house, we might
>> be truly frightened. The more you know that certain things are
>> scams---that what you see might be a phony rubber snake--- the
>> easier it is to dismiss them. So, to the extent that Betty does
>> identify with Arnold's projection, then what is going on in the
>> situation is projective identification.
>>
>> The practical value of the concept is to note that these are
>> scams, manipulations, what Eric Berne called "games," with a
>> slight emphasis on these maneuvers involving one person's
>> projection and the other person buying into it. But the key is
>> that if we know about this dynamic, then we start expecting it. We
>> notice when we find ourself feeling or thinking something out of
>> the ordinary. If we're feeling mellow and okay and in the course
>> of a seemingly ordinary interaction we start to feel anxious,
>> sexy, angry, bored, and so forth, maybe we're picking up something
>> that isn't actually ours.
>>
>> Role reciprocity involves social norms, emotional intelligence
>> and sensitivity, and possibly also the activity of the mirror
>> neuron system, the instinctive tendency to imitate, to respond
>> with either symmetrical (sort of the same) or complementary (sort
>> of opposite) responses.
>>
>> What isn't so automatic or lower consciousness is the
>> shifting from the emotional mammalian limbic system brain to the
>> neo-cortex. Then it becomes a higher consciousness, more
>> spontaneous---in the sense of it not being automatic---a more
>> adequate response to an old situation; If Betty (person B)
>> reflects on this temptation, and wondering aloud, "Hey, what is
>> going on? I was feeling okay, and now I'm not okay. Is this me or
>> you?" then that halts the negative feedback cycle.
>>
>> In other words, if Betty notices the temptation to respond
>> according to the intuited feelings, but resists that temptation
>> and comments on it, that can open up the communication.
>>
>> This dynamic was described as part of psychoanalytic therapy,
>> of transference and counter-transference dynamics, but they may be
>> actually referring to a fairly obvious and widespread interaction.
>> Granting credit to psychoanalysis for articulating the dynamic, we
>> may benefit by de-jargon-izing it and making it more obvious.
>>
>> The lesson is to know projective identification happens (or
>> call it more simply, perhaps, role reciprocity?); when there is
>> any clue that it might be going on, ordinary folks can do it with
>> each other.
>>
>> Another example: Sometimes my dear wife and I have some
>> friction. This occasionally is one of the underlying processes.
>> When either of us notice the dynamic, we shift gears and open the
>> encounter in new ways. It requires a desire to promote harmony
>> over the illusion of "being right" and a willingness to admit that
>> one sometimes projects unintentionally or unconsciously. Instead
>> of being defensive, one can have enough emotional strength to be
>> curious about one's own issues.
>> (I find that much of therapeutic and analytic writing and
>> discussion assumes that patients, clients, or analysands are not
>> only unaware of their patterns, but are really uninterested in
>> discovering them. This kind of resistance to looking together at
>> things is taken as what is called in computer lingo as the
>> "default mode." But there are lots of people in and out of
>> therapy---not a high percentage, but still a fair number---who
>> really are willing to look at their own issues in the service of
>> continued maturation and interpersonal harmony.)
>>
>> If this theory is correct, then we need to re-frame the
>> concept as a more pathological end of a spectrum that is mainly
>> normal and even healthy. In other words, if projective
>> identification involves role reciprocity, we should recognize that
>> much of the time it operates in adaptive and appropriate ways.
>>
>> An example that's more positive, for example, might be this: I
>> say with my behavior, voice intonation, look, or even the sequence
>> of words in email, "don't you agree?" In many interactions the
>> answer is an authentic, "yeah" Or excited "You've got it!" And
>> even if you don't agree, you could say "No," in a clear way,
>> exhibiting congruence between verbal and nonverbal messages.
>>
>> The place to bring the focus, though, is in the analysis of
>> friction, subtle conflict, unexpected flashes of emotion. And even
>> if Betty does respond to Arnold with an escalating counter-
>> emotion, there's still room to stop the interaction and say,
>> "Whoa.What's happening here? I don't want to have a fight with
>> you!" "How did I get caught up in this interaction?"
>>
>> So Betty need not remain identified with the projection. It
>> breaks the feedback cycle and invites a questioning and re-
>> negotiating cycle of interactions. If all this is so, we should
>> all learn about this dynamic as part of general education. Just
>> because you find yourself getting caught up in an interaction
>> doesn't mean
>> you can't stop and question it. Oooh, this is sexy, this is hot---
>> -wait, do I want to get involved this way?
>> My, he thinks I'm wonderful, I feel so good. Whoa. What if
>> I don't want to be so wonderful in the way he wants me to be
>> wonderful. What if he asks me for a loan? Might this be flattery?
>> (Yes, people can flatter you with complete sincerity as an
>> unconscious maneuver. If they project a need to have a savior, and
>> you're "it," that sets you up for a wide variety of follow-up
>> maneuvers.) Being set up to fail, being set up to get angry,
>> to reject, to be seen as rejecting, to be seen as inadequate,
>> seductive, and in many other ways set up to take a fall in a game--
>> --all of these are part of the projective-identification dynamics
>> or games. Whether the sucker falls for it, whether the analyst or
>> therapist takes the bait, whether the friend thinks he's helping
>> but really is sabotaging himself and the relationship--- this
>> doesn't have to happen. It tends to happen, but if one is alert,
>> one can resist the projection, not identify with it, and say,
>> "Wait a minute. Part of me is real tempted to play it this way.
>> But part of me is also wary that this might not be a wise way to
>> respond. Help me look at this."
>> In summary, I think this is a useful concept that deserves
>> being demystified and applied more widely.
>> Sorry for being so wordy, but I'm just trying to work this out.
>> Well, what do you think of this? Warmly, Adam
>>
>>
>>
>> Adam Blatner, M.D.
>> website: www.blatner.com/adam/
>> -------------- next part --------------
>> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
>> URL:
>> http://grouptalkweb.org/pipermail/list_grouptalkweb.org/attachments/20080131/ae271210/attachment-0001.html
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 12:55:50 +1100
>> From: "Terry Makin" <mteam at bigpond.net.au>
>> Subject: projective indentificatio
>> To: <list at grouptalkweb.org>
>> Message-ID: <001901c86475$9284b120$b600a8c0 at VIEWMASTER>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>>
>>
>> Hi Adam and grouptalk
>> I am interested that you are exploring this idea. At times I have
>> workedwith people who this happens around (as a psychiatric nurse
>> running groups
>> for people with 'treatment resistant depression', or other ways of
>> sayingAxis 2 diagnoses). I am carefully not saying these people
>> use this defense
>> because I think it is unconscious. I do think of it as attempts to
>> communicate inner states which cannot be expressed consciously,
>> verbally.
>> One of the things I have had to do in my training is become more
>> consciousof my doubling, when and how I do it, because if I am not
>> conscious then I
>> come away feeling jangling and fragmenting. I need to sit with,
>> be with,
>> provide a safe anchor, find a role of Loving Be-holder (in both
>> senses of
>> the word - to perceive and to hold) when I am working with someone
>> whoseinner world is incomprehensible and terrifying to them.
>> Cheers
>> Jean
>> Jean Mehrtens
>> 36 Eamon Drive
>> Viewbank 3084
>> Melbourne
>> Australia
>> Home 03 9459 4063
>> Mobile 0438 095 142
>>
>> -------------- next part --------------
>> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
>> URL:
>> http://grouptalkweb.org/pipermail/list_grouptalkweb.org/attachments/20080201/79f02f1a/attachment-0001.html
>> -------------- next part --------------
>> A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
>> Name: not available
>> Type: image/gif
>> Size: 145 bytes
>> Desc: not available
>> Url :
>> http://grouptalkweb.org/pipermail/list_grouptalkweb.org/attachments/20080201/79f02f1a/attachment-0001.gif
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Grouptalk mailing list
>> List at grouptalkweb.org
>> http://grouptalkweb.org/mailman/listinfo/list_grouptalkweb.org
>>
>>
>>
>> End of List Digest, Vol 20, Issue 1
>> ***********************************
>>
>
>
> Grouptalk mailing list
> List at grouptalkweb.org
> http://grouptalkweb.org/mailman/listinfo/list_grouptalkweb.org
>
More information about the List
mailing list