Transcription
Every decade or so, I'm on the receiving end of an intelligent comment or question. Gasp. And today, I hit the jackpot. I've received the following highly interesting commentary.
What do you think are the characteristics of people who most easily allow us to project onto them? The ones that are most likely to project onto. In other words, the ones that attract projection from other people. What are the characteristics of people who are most likely to project onto these people? If it is a unique combination in every case, then my question is pointless. I'll give you a hint. It's not. But if there are some traits you have discovered about these diets, I would be extremely grateful to learn what they are. I like gratitude. What makes us project onto specific people? What is it about them? And what is it about us? And there and are there some commonalities that can be observed? learning opportunities, red flags, what to avoid, what to pursue, etc., etc.
That's a fascinating question actually and I will tell you something. I am not aware of anyone who has ever thought about this issue. I'm not aware of any anyone who has written about it or studied it or analyzed it or whatever. So I'm going I'm going to go out on a limb here based on my 30 years plus in this racket and the various observations I had the um ability to make over these many many years but before we go to uh before we go there before we I answer your question uh we need of course to define what is projection and and its sisters.
Projection is one of a family of defenses that resemble each other so much that many self-styled experts confuse them and shamefully many scholars confuse them as well. Start with projection. Projection in psychoanalytic and psychonamic theories is a process. It's a process by which you attribute your own individual negative characteristics to another person. There's something about yourself that you're ashamed of. Something that you reject. Something that you find unacceptable and you can't live with it. You can't admit it. Not even to yourself. Not even in the dead of the night. You can't simply can't. It unsettles you. It creates ego destiny. And so at the end what you do um you take these parts of you that are intolerable that are burdensome that are unbearable and you attribute them to other people. When these parts are positive the process is known as idealization. When these parts are negative the process is projection. These parts could be anything. Could be traits, could be effects, emotions, could be even behaviors or impulses. And you could attribute it to another person or you could attribute it to a group. You could characterize a whole group by projecting onto them. And this is known as stereotyping. And the result is stereotypes.
So projection is a defense. You're defensing against your own discomfort, against your own shame, maybe guilt. You're def you're defending against um the unease and the upset and the discomfort that are involved in admitting to yourself exactly who you are in looking yourself in the in the mirror. So it's a defense mechanism where unpleasant or unacceptable impulses, stressors, ideas, effects, beliefs, values, responsibilities, traits, behaviors are attributed to other people or other groups. So, an example would be um where someone conflicted over their anger management issues uh would say, "I'm not angry at them. They're angry at me." Someone who is a very hateful person but knows it's not okay to be hateful, is constantly being told that being hateful is morally wrong, that kind of person would say, "I don't hate anyone. they hate me." These defensive patterns are used to justify prejudice to avoid responsibility. And when taken to extreme, they can result in paranoid ideiation or even paranoid delusions. An individual who constantly projects, an individual who tars and colors other people in a negative brush all the time, may may come to blame other people for whatever is happening in their lives. When you project other people, your own hatred, your own anger, your own sexual orientation, you become you're a latent homosexual, but you know, you attribute it to others. do when you when you dump on other people not your trauma, not your pain, but you dump on them your negativity, your shadow side, your the rotten parts or which are an inevitable part of of every person's identity. When you do that, they become the enemy. They are to blame for everything bad that's happening in your life. And this is known as aloplastic defenses. You may come to believe that these other people are plotting against you. They're conspiring against you. They're about to take you down. They hate you. So this is paranoid ideiation.
Projection permits the individual to avoid seeing their own faults. But uh while initially we thought that these faults are unconscious and unknown to the self, now recent recent studies, recent research has demonstrated that people project also parts of themselves that they are fully aware of but may be ashamed of or they project onto other people as part and parcel of a manipulative machavelian strategy. And this begins to segue into other forms of projection, much more compounded forms of projection.
Take for example projective identification. Projective identification is a concept in psychoanalytic theory and a concept in object relation schools. In psychoanalysis, projective identification is a defense mechanism in which the individual projects qualities that are unacceptable to the self onto another individual and that person internalizes the projection, adopts the projected qualities and believe themselves to be characterized by these projections. And the target not only embraces the projection as their own, but they regard the whole process as appropriate or justified. We'll come to it a bit later. So this is in psychonalytic theory.
In object relations theory, especially the work of Melanie Klene, uh again, projective identification is a defense mechanism in which a person fantasizes that a part of their ego is split off and projected onto an object in order to harm or to protect the disavowed part. And so this allows the individual to maintain a belief in their own omnipotent control. Let me translate this to English. There is a part of you that you hate, part of you that you reject. You're you find it this part unacceptable. Some kind of trait, quality, characteristic, some type of behavior, maybe a failure in the past, some memory. You can't live with it. You can't sleep at night. You can't eat well. It's horrible. So, one thing you could do is split it off, disown it, pretend that it's not yours, and then uh project it into another person, an object. Project it into another person. And the idea is that when you project it into another person, you either eliminate that part. It's the equivalent of erasing it or deleting it, or you actually protect that part. You preserve it somehow, but now it's someone else's responsibility, not yours. And so this allows you to maintain belief that you're in full control of the situation, that you have this omnipotence, which is a very infantile view of of the world that persists in some individuals well into adulthood.
Projective identification is a key feature of what Klene called the paranoid skits position. Uh and then there was Wilfred Bion the British psychoanalyst and he theorized that in normal communication development an infant will project part of their mind into an object in order to have that part of the mind be felt and understood by the object. When there is a case of delayed or stunted or arrested development, we no longer use the these phrases, but I find them very resonant. When development is stopped or disrupted somehow, this kind of projection will continue into adult life. The individual will project these parts onto an object that happens to be a human object. And this projection will constitute part of the thwarted object relations of such people for example narcissist. Okay.
And then we have another cousin or sister or whatever of projection and that is reaction formation. Psychoanalytic theory. Reaction formation is a defense mechanism in which unacceptable or threatening unconscious impulses are denied and they are replaced in consciousness with the exact opposite. So I gave the example of a latent homosexual. The latent homosexual is not aware that he or she is a homosexual. It's unconscious and yet it's there. It's threatening. It's terrifying to this particular individual for some reason. He's been brought up religiously or whatever. He finds it terrifying. So instead in his or her consciousness, this individual will create the exact opposite image of a homosexual. He would become a homophobe. He would he would become a hater of homosexual. To conceal an unconscious prejudice, an individual may preach tolerance. To deny feelings of rejection, the mother may be overindulgent towards her child. To deny your homosexuality, you become a homophobe. There's a symbolic relationship between the unconscious wish and the conscious opposite. The outward behavior, protestations, utterances, speech acts provide a disguised outlet for the tendencies that it seems to oppose.
Okay, now you have all the terminology. You are as knowledgeable as I am at least. And we can finally answer the poor commenters's question. In the meantime, he got much older and more frail. And I think it's time to answer his question. I think it's a he. I'm not sure. To remind you, uh, when we were all much younger, when I read the comment, he asked, "What makes you a target for projection?" How does the projector, the person who projects, choose the target of projection? Why do does someone who project, why do they choose you and not someone else? And I think there are five reasons.
Um, Ziggman Freud came up with the idea of narcissism of small differences. He said that people behave like narcissists and they feel entitled, become aggressive, hateful, vengeful and so on. Because the target of such untoward traits and behaviors resembles them. He said we resent people who resemble us. We we resent people whose difference from us or to us is small. He called it the narcissism of small differences. Similarity creates contempt, creates hatred, creates resentment and rejection, creates aggression and violence. similarity, not dissimilarity. An example, an immigrant who comes to your country and attempts to become like you, attempts to emulate and imitate imitate you, it would piss you off. You would you are likely to become aggressive and violent precisely because the immigrant threatens to become like you. And so the similarity threshold I think targets of projection actually remind us of ourselves. When we project onto someone it's because that someone reminds us of ourselves because it's a reflection of us because that someone triggers in us self-awareness, self-recognition which we which we reject and resent and hate. We don't want to be self-aware. We don't want to introspect. We don't want to recognize ourselves in the mirror. We we don't want that. We want to remain oblivious to the parts of ourselves which we hate. And yet that person is sufficiently similar to you or to us, sufficiently reminiscent of us, sufficiently resembles us to cause us to self-reflect and recognize ourselves in that person. And so we project the negative part parts onto that person because of their resemblance. At the same time that person should not be a replica of us because if that person is a complete clone it's a replica the projection would fail there's a projection of small differences and I think there's a projection of big differences the person should be sufficiently similar to allow for the projection to proceed and sufficiently different so that we feel comfortable that the projected content or the projected material by right characterizes that person much better than it characterizes us. Like if that person is different to us, it's easy to attribute to that person the parts in us that we reject and hate, that we don't accept, that we are uncomfortable with, that generate egoistony. We say, "I'm not stingy, but that person is stingy. I recognize that person's difference to me. And I recognize that difference not only in terms of stinginess. He is different to me because he's an immigrant. He's different because he's black. He's different because he's a Jew. He's different because he's short. He's different because he's tall. He's different because he's whatever. The difference, the initial difference between the projector, the person who projects and the target of the projection justify all future differences. Like the template is a template of differences. That person is different to me. And so it it's very likely it stands to reason that that person has traits and behaviors that I don't possess. Traits and behaviors that I would hate and I possess. Trait and behaviors that I reject. Trait and behaviors that are abhorrent and abominable. And that person has them because he's different to me. He's different to me in other ways. But this difference is indicative that my underlying hypothesis that these traits and behaviors are not mine but is uh is justified. So you need a combination in the target of projection. You need a combination of sufficient similarity to you to allow you to attribute the projected content and at the s same time sufficient difference to you to allow you to make this the projection believable.
When this happens, there is a process that I call imputed validity. When you find the perfect target for projection, the projection makes narrative sense. The projection doesn't takes take place in a vacuum. Projection doesn't take place in some abstract empty space. The projection takes place in society, in a culture, in a specific relationship uh based on within some context. So the extraneous data about the the target, the behavioral record of the target, the personal history of the target, they all feed into the projection and rendering the projection reasonable, likely, plausible, believable. It makes narrative sense. So for example uh imagine that the target of the projection indeed does does have certain negative traits or behaviors or personal history. Imagine that the target of the projection is a criminal. Then it's much more believable that a criminal would possess negative traits and and behaviors than you. It's much easier for you to project the unwanted material onto the criminal because he is or was a criminal. The targets personal history, biog biography, the targets uh social status or relative positioning, the targets social cultural background, the targets wealth or lack of it. The the targets, characteristics, qualities, traits which have nothing to do with the projection help to justify the projection, make it believable, credible, reasonable. And this is known as epistemic trespassing. You know there's something called hello effect. Epistemic tr trespassing is actually the mechanism underlying the hallow effect. The hallow effect says that people who are very good in one field they come to believe that they are very good in all fields. So you have singers and actors pontificating on global affairs. You have medical doctors who discuss theology. You have physicists who analyze the question of whether God exists or not. you have your or what is consciousness. So this is the hollow effect that you're good in one field does not mean that you are good in everything everywhere all the time. This is a fallacy. And so there is the reverse hallow effect with projection. There is the reverse hallow effect. The target of a projection is flawed in some way. The target of a projection is blemished. Target of projection is problematic in some way. Target of a projection is anyhow derided or decrieded or suspected or analyzed or the target of a projection embodies and raifies imperfection that makes the projection possible.
First and foremost when you project you need to convince yourself you are the harshest most judgmental audience. When you project something in yourself that you hate about yourself, you need to convince yourself that this is not projection. This is the truth. I'm not I'm not the one who is raging and has anger issues. You do. I'm not stingy. You are. I'm not vengeful. You are. Whatever I'm doing that appears to be similar to you is motivated completely differently. I'm I'm for example, I'm punitive to people. I'm punishing them not because I'm a sadist but because I'm moral. I'm on a moral crusade. I'm a savior rescuer or whatever. So the profile of the target of projection has to involve a vulnerability, a point of access, a vector of attack, a in the armor.
And and this leads to the question of why would you do that? Why do people project? So again according to psychoanalytic theory and later object relation theory is because the the part in you that you project it could be anything could be an idea could be a belief could be a value memory um a trait a behavior. There's a part of you that you feel uncomfortable with. A part of you you cannot live with. A part of you that unsettles you and upsets you and nags at you and makes your life hell. You need to get rid of it somehow. You need to hand it over to someone, attribute it to someone. And so this is the motivation in classical psychoanalytic theory and and and so on. But I think there are multiple motivations that could lead to projection. I think projection is a much wider motivational attitudinal landscape or background. For example, envy. Envy and the wish to destroy the source of frustration and the object of envy. When you envy someone, you want them dead. Even if you don't admit it, if you don't don't verbalize it, you don't you it's even if it's completely unconscious. Envy knows at you. Envy consumes you. Envy is is an effect, an emotion that is highly destructive, erosive, corrosive. You want it to stop. And the only way for envy to stop if the reason for the envy, if the object of the envy disappears. So that gives you motivation to attribute to project onto the object on the envy onto the source onto the trigger of the envy to project onto them negative traits uh personal histories, values, beliefs and so on and to seek to destroy them based on this projection. So you could say if you have criminal impulses and criminal behaviors, you could say you could project them onto someone else and say he's the criminal. And so because he's a criminal, he needs to go to prison. He needs to die. And that satisfies your envy.
The problem with projection is that it involves lying and deception. lying and deception to yourself first and foremost. Sometimes it involves selfdeception and that's it. No other type of deception. But there is deception. It is a frail proposition. It is a it is not a ve it's not a tenable thing. It's not a very strong uh structure uh conceptually psychologically speaking. It's vulnerable. It's aminable to challenges and and and it's easily undermined. So when you project content onto someone, you need to be sure that the projected content would be irretrievable. And the only way to accomplish this is by going no contact with the object of projection. You project the content to someone and then you use the projection to justify going no contact. I call it the null future hypothesis. Like if you don't have a future with that person, that person cannot cannot hand back the projected material. You project something onto a person, onto a collective, onto a nation, onto a group, onto a football club. Never mind. project something onto. If you're in touch with it with a target of projection, if you're in touch with a container and receptacle of your myasma, of your rotten parts, of your festering uh wound, then that person or that collective can hand it back to you, can counter project. And that is very threatening. That is very threatening because somewhere the back of your mind you know that the projection is a lie. You know it's a deception and you know it's actually about you. So any challenge overt challenge is very threatening. You need to cut off the target of projection in order to not be faced with counter projection.
In order for the content to be irretrievable, you also need the projected material to be irrevocable. Projected content has to be irrevocable. And the only way to make sure that it is irrevocable is by ren disempowering the target by rendering the target impotent and acquiescent. If the target is impotent can do nothing to you. If the target is acquiescent and obedient and obscurious, the target will not dare to counter project and challenge you. You need them in this state. You need them submissive. Targets acquies. Targets accept the projection. Targets embrace the projected material. Targets self denigrate and self-drogate and self-criticize. and targets self punish and self selfdefeat for many reasons. They have many many good reasons to do this. For example, maybe they want to keep the peace or maybe they want to preserve a shared fantasy or maybe they have a low sense of self-worth and self-esteem. Or maybe they're self- punitive because and mistic because they hate themselves and loathe themselves. Or maybe they are searching for safety. There's a quest for safety. Why is that? Because if they are the bad object, if they are the bad people, you are the good one. It's reverse splitting. Projection is actually a form of reverse splitting. When you project material, you purify yourself. You cleanse yourself. You become unadulterated. The parts in you which were evil, wrong, bad, disquing, challenging these parts that you couldn't live with, you gave them to someone else. At that moment you become pure, unadulterated as I said. So at that moment you became all good and the projection target became all bad. So this is reverse splitting. This is splitting but the projected target when they adopt this division of labor when they agree when they say you're right I'm the bad object you're the good object they do reverse splitting they accept your splitting they embrace it they assimilate it becomes a part of their identity and this is projective identification.
So the optimal target for projection is someone who would not resist someone who would not doubt out. Someone who would not challenge and undermine. Someone who would go along with a fiction and the narrative. Someone who would collaborate and collude gleefully and and gladly. Someone who would acquies, fit in, conform, and play along. And that's the optimal target. I hope I've answered your question, dear commenter. And if you have additional questions, the first one wasn't that bad. Feel free to post it.