Projection.
Here is the Mind-food version of my most recent podcast from "The Human Experience" which you can listen to on Spotify-
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Did you know that all disorders are just normal human behaviours that have developed out of self-protection.
One of those normal behaviours, the one that I want to talk to you today about, is called projection. Now many of you may have already heard that term and if you haven't you might likely understand it anyway because of course that's what happens at the movies. Pictures are projected onto a screen, a large screen for everyone to see.
The psychological projection is kind of like that. We all do it, it's a normal part of the human experience. It's where we attribute something we are feeling or thinking or our motives, a trait, onto another person or sometimes our pets. It's a form of denial.
A simple example of projection is a person who is accusing their partner of cheating because they themselves are perhaps being unfaithful and are struggling with that about themselves. Humans tend to project attributes onto others that they find distasteful or are critical of in themselves.
So the unconscious discomfort leads people to attribute unacceptable feelings or impulses onto someone else to avoid confronting them. Projection allows the difficult trait to be addressed without the individual fully recognising it in themselves.
It helps them deal with the unwanted or the intense or difficult emotions or experiences. It is literally just a defence mechanism.
As humans we project sometimes it's not good or bad. Projection can occur in a variety of contexts, from an isolated incident with a casual acquaintance to a regular pattern in a romantic relationship. Learning to recognize and respond to projection is actually what's important here, not really whether or not you do it. Because it can help people understand, to become aware, and through that to accept and improve communication and relationships. This knowledge helps us to navigate and resolve conflict.
However, because it is usually an unconscious response, so outside of our awareness, it can be a main cause of problems in relationships, including in the relationship we have with ourselves. It can be the reason why eventually a relationship, whether it's a friendship or a romantic relationship will eventually end badly. It can be why we fall out of love and blame others.
So as an example, as a young girl we're often taught that to feel anger or aggression means you're bad, then as an adult, that learned belief that's out of our awareness impacts us anytime we experience feelings of anger or aggression. We feel "bad" and our subconscious response is to protect us from those feelings by projecting them onto our partner. We ask our partner if they are upste, or if they are ok. No matter how much our partner denies this we don't believe them. We do this because we believe we're not allowed to feel this way, we want to avoid "being bad" because we've been taught to believe that we are bad if we allow ourselves to feel that way.
Without awareness, the result is constantly attributing what we perceive as our unacceptable anger or aggression onto the other person, let's say a romantic partner, and accusing them of being mad at us. Now if this happens often enough, eventually of course, it'll cause the partner to feel like they want to leave the relationship or to get mad.
The person who was actually feeling that way even though they didn't admit it, then uses that experience as evidence that they were accurate, it is confirmation of what is already an unhelpful learned belief.
Another harmful consequence of continual projection, is when the trait becomes incorporated into your identity. So for an example, if a father who never had a successful career, tells his son you won't amount to anything or don't even bother trying, he is projecting his own insecurities onto his son, yet his son might internalize that message, believing that he will never be successful, this message results in the son never even trying.
Although it is difficult to do so, individuals who maybe have had that particular experience, upon becoming aware and understanding projection, this is the beginning of them being able to realize that the father's criticisms were never about them, always about the father himself. Then through that awareness, with the help of a professional would be able to begin to repair that damage and go on to believe something very different that actually allows the son to build a successful career.
Now look at its most extreme, paranoia can be the result of projection it occurs when our relationship with ourselves is so negative that we struggle to experience the negativity for ourselves. We protect our self-image by projecting all unwanted thoughts and feelings onto others. especially if we've been taught we are either good or bad, when the truth is we're all a blend of good and bad because everything in life is balanced by an opposite.
You know we can't experience one without the other so we can't experience happiness without having experienced sadness so that we know what it is. We wouldn't know when we are being "good" if we didn't observe and experience "bad".
It's easier to observe and recognize when others are projecting, of course because it is less painful, we have some distance from it, however having the awareness to recognize it in ourselves is essential if we want closer, healthier communication and relationships with ourselves and others.
Some of the signs are feelings that seem excessive for the context or circumstances, noticing you're making accusations, being quick to blame, losing objectiveness, having difficulty with keeping your perspective.
If you notice any of those, give yourself a moment, and then in reflection, as you move towards gaining awareness through self observation, ask yourself, is this something I criticise myself?
How do you respond to projection from others? By having boundaries, when you're being projected onto respond with clear statements such as I disagree, or I don't see it that way, this can deflect the projection. It might even prompt the person to reflect in that moment or to take some responsibility.
It can also prevent you from internalizing unfair criticism or blame. If the person continues to project and seems unable to kind of move forward, then it may well be necessary to just remove yourself from the conversation.
Awareness and acceptance of your thoughts and feelings in the moment, rather than trying to avoid them minimises projecting negative self-experience onto others.
Acceptance doesn't mean that we're not going to change the pattern or the thoughts moving forward. Acceptance is just about the now of it. It's not black and white. It's not you either accept or you don't. It's just in this moment, in the now of it, this is what's happened. It's been and gone. That moment has happened, we cannot go back, we can only go forward.
Having that awareness and understanding of projection allows us to become more tolerant, accepting and flexible, both of ourselves and others. Because after all, we are all just having a human experience.
So if you have any thoughts or questions you would like to share and discuss about this or any other podcast topics, you can find my email at www.pampoole.co.nz.
Have a great week of human experiences my friends, no doubt we'll talk again soon.
Bye for now.
