projective identification

[Adam Blatner]

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/   
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