Projection
The term is widely used in both psychoanalysis and clinical psychology to describe mechanisms that relocate elements of the psyche in the external world.
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In psychoanalysis, projection is used to describe the process that enables the subject to expel feelings, qualities or objects it refuses to recognize in itelf.
[[Projection] makes them appear to be external objects rather than internal parts of the psyche.
For Freud, projection is not a purely pathological phenomenon, but a normal feature of, for example, superstitution and religious beliefs; demons and ghosts are projections of "evil" unconscious desires and impulses.
In so-called projective jealousy, the subject wards off his desire to be unfaithful by projecing jealousy onto his partner, and thus deflects attention away from his own unconscious desire.[1]
Projection is an important aspect of paranoia, and Freud's clearest descriptions of the phenomenon come from his account of the Schreber case.[2]
The statement "I hate him" is transformed by projection into the statement "He hates me and is persecuting me."
The paranoiac's initial impulse to hate can thus be justified as a rational defence against aggression.
According to Anna Freud (1936), projection is one of the ego's defence mechanisms.
The projection of hatred characteristic of paranoia relieves, that is, the ego from the guilt it feels over its hatred of an object.
Anna Freud thus assumes that the ego already knows the difference between "inside" and "outside."
The mechanism of projection is basic to the play-therapy technique developed by Klein: it allows the child to act out internal conflicts by projecting them onto the toys it has been given.
In psychoanalytic terms, projection is the antithesis of introjection.
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In clinical psychology, projective tests such as Rorschach tests are used to diagnose personality types.
The patient is given an unstructured set of stimuli, such as visual iamges, that cna trigger a wide range of responses.
A correct interpretation of the stimuli is an indication of adaptation to reality; analysis of the fantasies and emotional responses that are simultaneously projected provides insight into the individual personality of the patient.
The underlying thesis is that an individual's response to the outside world is governed by the state and the structure of his or her inner world.
