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The HIGHER SELF SYSTEM of SELF-BALANCING.
Self-Projection
A Therapist's Page.
INDEX
What is Projection ?
When we look at someone else and observe their actions and believe that we know their motivations and how they feel, we are projecting.
We are assuming that we know all there is to know about the situation that the other person is in. We are assuming that whatever history of experience they have personally had leading up to the present, it is either insignificant, or, the same as our own. We are assuming that their action speaks for itself as if every action which a person takes has a specific meaning which never changes no matter where that action is taken, with whom it is taken, or, under the circumstances it is taken.
We are assuming that the feelings, or lack of feeling, expressed by the other person particularly relates to the values we associate with that feeling. We believe that we know the other person as if they were ourselves. We award them the honour of our experience, traumas, ability to perceive and to express --- or lack thereof, and our obsessions and compulsions. We assume that they operate under the same expectations, needs, and assumptions that we do. That is a lot of assumptions!
Benefits of Projection.
Projection saves us from anxiety.
People would not use Self-Projection as a perceptual screen if it had no benefits. There are no questions to be asked. There are no answers unknown. We don't have to ask because we believe we know. Since others may not know what we are thinking about them because we don't question them and share with them, there is little chance that they will try to correct us or prove us wrong. We may hurt or embarrass others by our statements of consolation, accusation, or defensiveness --- but we can nullify their protest by taking the attitude that they are just defending themselves from the truth which we know. And if our denial excites their frustration further and approaches violence, we can further assume that they would not be objecting so much if we were not so right. And, if they simply deny us and walk away --- well, that just proves that we are stronger than them and that they they are shamed by the truth we have assumed. No anxiety and no way to lose.
Projection is simple, and safe.
I don't have to take any risks. If I ask a question of them, it may make me look stupid. They may yell at me in anger. They may want to be left alone with their misery. They may not want to share their grief or their glee of vengeance. They may reject my concern. They may tell me something that upsets me. They may tell me something that I don't understand. Then I'll feel stupid and my pride will be hurt. I really don't care what they think or feel. I have to protect myself first. So, I don't get involved. What I see is enough. I know what it means. It means the same to me as it does to everyone else. That is obvious isn't it. Perfectly rational.
Dangers of Projection.
Projection encourages misunderstanding.
The other person does not have a background identical to us. Even if they grew up in our neighbourhood and went to our school and were in every class we were in, their parents, brother and sisters were not mine. All of the interaction which went on between themselves and anyone other than us is unknown to us. Even what we have observed of them is meaningless to the degree that they have a different Basic Personality from us.
Perhaps we love nature and they hate it.
We may feel pleasure at the sight of a butterfly. They may feel annoyance. We stare at the butterfly, I with admiration; he with anger. Same action, different meaning. Giving the other person a picture of a butterfly as a gift is received by him or her as an insult. We are dismayed. They don't like us, we assume. So, now I accept that they want to be my enemy --- and that makes them my enemy. Is that what they meant?
Projection victimizes others.
A friend of mine kept treating me with disrespect. I had been assertive to their manipulative communication but they always chose to deny the reality and sidestep the issue. So, unresolved, the situation would repeat.
In an effort to remove the negative emotion from the discussion, I wrote out what kept happening and her responses, what had been expressed, and how I felt about that. I invited my friend to discuss the matter with me so that we could resolve the misunderstanding that was separating us.
Projection ties our Present to our Past.
As soon as my friend read far enough to see that I was describing her behavior, she reacted. A former intimate partner had dared to point out some of her faults to her by also writing a note to her. It had made her intensely angry at the time. She now assumed that whatever I had written was as terrible as that written by her former spouse. Feelings were assumed to be glued to the actions, apparent actions.
Projections call upon reactions that are irrelevant.
To the assumption that I must be mirroring her former husband because I had written a note about her behavior, as he apparently had more than 14 years earlier, she attached all of the extreme anger she carried from the past for her former spouse to the note I had written. Totally misreading the little she had read, as revealed in her later brief conversation, she did not read the remainder of the letter, burned it, and assumed the contents. Then she treated me as if I were her despised lover.
Projections make negotiation and clarification impossible.
A person who projects does not listen, does not want to listen, and , there is nothing you can do to make them listen. They know they are right and they are going to stick by any misunderstanding or misconception they have, no matter what. They are just too proud to admit that they could be wrong, and, that you might be right in what you know were your emotions and your right to express them.
In the non-assertive style so common to persons who project, they must have everything their way or no way. That can be coped with by most people who have little more to interact with them on than as part of strict role structures. As long as the emotional and intimate distance is maintained, it really isn't that important what you think of each other, or assume. Or does it?
Projective perceptions create disharmony and destructiveness.
What could have been a short and constructive exchange with a Healthy Adult became a chosen loss between us beyond any control on my part. She elected to sacrifice our friendship rather than to build it because she could not live in the present. How much else of her potential life was she sacrificing in a similar manner? The pattern here is one of safeguarding her emotional development from growth. The individual who uses projection is forced, and chooses, to remain an adult-as-child.
Projection maintains emotional immaturity.
Unable to accept the negative influence which their assumptions may have on others, they continue to express them. Unable to resolve their interpersonal problems, they allow them to traumatize them and build more energy blocks. Unable to take responsibility for their communication and become constructive through trust-building, self-assertion, self-awareness, sensual touch, spiritual perceptiveness, and empathy --- they continue to live lives devoid of the benefits of sharing and honesty.
Destructive Projectors.
A "Strong Projector" can do much that is destructive and much that is positive. Destructively, they can make an innocent person appear to others as a hateful person by way of their misinterpretations and gossip. The destructive projector will often harbor a lot of unresolved hatred. All they need is a target and the right stimulus to ignite their reaction based on a past inability to cope. With such a time-bomb walking around, you don't want to be around them in any form of closeness for long or you are bound to feel the heat of their explosion. And, as sometimes demonstrated, if you cannot cope with their destructiveness, they may destroy you.
Strong negative projectors destroy harmony.
If there is harmony, it becomes destroyed through the confident manner in which, sooner or later, they will find something to misinterpret and hold you responsible for. Any suggestion of negotiation or reconciliation is purely cosmetic for they will never believe that They could have been wrong in their assumptions. Acknowledging that would wreck their fragile world and truly reveal to them their aloneness. Small misunderstandings will become expanded in their minds, by their constant preoccupation with them ... into huge molehills. Their inability to be assertive and their weak self image will often have them resurrect these old misunderstandings in support of new misunderstandings. If you really think that this person ever loved anyone, you are sunk.
Persons who project often have a deep sense of lovelessness.
It may be a part of one's Basic Personality. It may have developed from childhood traumas developed from emotionally hurtful incidents when the child needed comforting or intimacy and was painfully denied. It may develop in a child who is constantly spoiled and not provided with the stability of adult enforced standards. It may develop from the imprinting passed from parents and significant others who are projectors themselves and treat the child without compassion or sensitivity.
Projection may also develop from the shock of a very naive adult with a very romantic opinion of their spouse finding out that their spouse is only human and can and has made mistakes. They are no longer a god to be worshipped. They can no longer be trusted with the obedience and reverence which they may never have asked for. Whichever sources, the trait of projection grows from, it is averse to the reality that a person capable of sharing love is a person who can trust others, and, the person who projects trusts no one but themself.
The destructiveness of strong projectors can range from inciting violence against others to inciting violence against oneself. Verbal abuse includes convicting one of a crime they did not commit. Insisting that the actions of another person have a meaning which you place on it rather than they know of their actions, is dishonest. Insisting that another person pay emotionally and spiritually for your weakness in not being able to accept the truth, is dishonest. Insisting that someone else must be disliked by all those you know because you choose not to like them, is dishonest.
Destructive strong projectors promote ill health.
Afraid of the physical violence which men are capable of, women have a greater potential in intimate relationships to become projectors. For the weak yet sincere man, that may lead to depression, adultery, alcoholism, workaholism, chronic illnesses, more energy blocks, other addictions, or suicide. It also works in reverse with the woman becoming obsessed with her children rather than seeking suicide: she kills herself as an identity to live through her child.
Constructive Projectors.
These persons have a great potential for assisting others in the healing process. If they have been a destructive projector first, it will prove almost impossible for them to make the transition. The change depends upon the learning of a great many skills and developing a considerable awareness --- None of which a projector is inclined to do.
The resistance of destructive projectors to learning in these areas is phenomenal. It will often take a very strong willpower and a very long time of skill-building and challenge for them to make the slow and torturous transition. Torturous because the transition will demand the self-awareness to acknowledge and take responsibility for the destructiveness of their past. Never intended perhaps, but very real in the outcome of their own lives and those close to them.
A constructive projector can inspire confidence, hope, and optimism in those around them. They embody these traits in their expressiveness and identity so it is effortlessly transferred to those who are receptive and near to them. This positive energy can sometimes be seen to raise the spirits of those who come to them or to increase the sense of harmony in the areas they are working in. There is a major difference in the Quality of projection expressed by the individual from that of the destructive projector.
The constructive projector freely shares their positive energy with those he or she wishes to focus on while others nearby may also benefit. The destructive projector seeks to impose their negative projections and their positive egotistical expectations on those they have targeted. The destroyer takes pleasure in their choice to feel negative and live in the past; the healer takes pleasure in their choice to share a harmony with others.
Metaphor of the "Titanic".
The Titanic was launched as a "ship of dreams."
All of the fantasy of human rational engineering and the pride of its science went into the design and building of the theoretical unsinkable ship. The originators, like the many passengers new to wealth, wanted to be accepted as important, more than others, to the larger world. They aspired to dignity and privilege to replace their past of long toil, high risk, and servitude to role and competitiveness. The reality of their own limitations and the dangers evident to the more experienced and self-confident sailor, were lost --- walled off by a poorly grounded hope in stability through size, security through intricacy, quality through flamboyancy. It was the "look" of success.
As the ship plunged ahead, powerless to navigate finely with its design for speed, screaming for attention with no mid-ocean audience, so also did its passengers revel in their endless involvement in mindless chatter between persons of narrow experience against a background of lust for enjoyment and recognition in the present. Knowledge of and learning from the past had been set aside to take advantage of the novelty of newness and originality devised by creative imagination and about to be tested in the waters of reality.
Looks can be deceiving.
Memories can hold one in the past and exclude an awareness of the value and opportunity which the present offers. Expectations and assumptions raise fears and confidence to replace risk with foolish pride and exchange self-respect for self-comparison. The perfection of rational orderliness demands an end to clutter so the safety of adequate numbers of lifeboats is sacrificed for a more attractive visage. Trust is given to those who demand it by their very confidence; not to those who would have earned it. The very positiveness of the crew and captain assuage the anxieties of the timidness of the self-obsessed passengers. Impressiveness of hardware and of crew and of speed, and size, and wealth.
Reality eventually tests the illusions of projected perception.
Assumptions, expectations, a need for confidence and acceptance --- will the theory of superiority survive the test of reality. No. The greater the illusion, the greater the potential for disaster. The race is not to the swift but rather to the one who is aware of their own strengths and weaknesses, acknowledging and forgiving of the strengths and weaknesses of others, and careful to respect the dynamics of the world they are interacting in. Balance is the tempering of imagination and creativity with practicality; it is a willingness to consider new possibilities and opportunities on their own merits.
Coping with Projection perceptions.
To cope with negative projections one should learn the skill of protecting their spirit through visualizations, or, withdraw from the individual who is negative. Rationalization, discussion, negotiation, soothing, distracting --- none of these will change the will of the self-projector who is set on being negative, into one of being positive.
The self-projector maintains a wall between him- or herself and the rest of the world. That wall usually does not crack until outer reality shocks the person into sharp awareness. And, that can be dangerous unless the person has carefully prepared for the freedom that comes with no walls. Yet, what motivation exists as long as one is protected, oblivious, and confident?
Visualizations to protect your personal spirit are often associated with envisioning a bright light radiating positive energy onto you as if it were showing from above, or, an image of you placing yourself into a brilliant ceramic white eggshell form which acts as an indestructible barrier to the negative energies being sent your way. You can even picture the negative energies being reflected back from the shell to the originator. But be careful, such destructive minded persons don't like it when their own negative energies come back to them as a form of darkness. Better to simply protect yourself, or, redirect the negative energies into some form of energy absorber, like the earth.
To cope with positive projections, one only has to relax and open oneself to the energies, allowing them to flow through oneself and bring new vigour to oneself. Then use your clear and strong emotions and your clear and strong intellect to meld potential plus energy plus reality into positive practicality. Nothing happens until you choose to attract and choose how to use energies that all all around you.
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