PROJECTION 101

 

A young boy was once asked by his mother about a small cut on his forehead when he looked her in the eye and said simply that he "wasn't there when it happened." The human psyche is an amazing and complex thing. Humans survive, psychologically speaking, by employing a number of instinctual, semi-conscious mental "tricks" that aid in the digestion of our life's experiences. We tuck away something unsettling into a mental "compartment" to deal with when we're ready; we space out (go "somewhere else") when confronted with something really boring or scary; and we "bury" that which rocks our boat too violently and challenges our world-view too forcefully. These sleights-of-hand are a God-send in a way—but they can get us into trouble, too. 

 

One such trick (that comes standard on every human model) is called projection: as though we were human "film projectors" shining out onto others those parts of ourselves we'd rather not be associated with, or that we're not ready to accept. By way of illustration, let's say there's a new person at work who you feel is really "full of themselves," overly ambitious, and just too, too... well, too something! For some unexplained reason, you are unreasonably angry at them unreasonably often, thinking about them when you're home, having fantasies of pushing them off a cliff, etc. You could say they've got a "hook" in you. For others, this same person holds no charge, which is bewildering: how can others not be seeing what you seem to be seeing so clearly? 

 

The "law of projection," so to speak, would hold that there is likely a part of you that you feel is "full of yourself..." - that's hard for you to openly acknowledge. Let's say one day when you were a child you came proudly out of your bedroom with what you considered to be a master finger-painting. But Mom was in one of her "moods" and snapped at you, calling you a self-centered little so-and-so. In an instant, your little (biologically advanced) psyche automatically rearranged itself, switched a few things around, and survived the incident emotionally—first by blaming yourself (because Mom must be good for you to survive) and then by burying Mom's indiscretion deep in your unconscious (Incident? What incident? I'm good...).

 

Now, 20 years later, it's back, showing itself as a seemingly random obsession with that "self-centered little so-and-so" in Accounts Receivable. Weird, huh? It's as though some internal manager decided, "Hey - we're relatively stable now, with a good-paying job and a strong marriage—we can handle dealing with this unfinished psychic business now and grow up some more..." This is just one among many examples of things we might "project out" onto others. And, we also project our unowned good stuff, too—like onto those super-shiny mentors, movie stars and dead poets. 

 

It takes a lot of guts to look at our shadow (the part of us we've deep-sixed), which is why we seldom do it. But if you've ever screwed up your courage to go down into the basement, out in the woods or into a murky lake at night, you know how good it feels to have widened your world a little more and conquered your fear in some way. We're all partly in the dark and partly in the light our whole lives—that's the human condition. Noticing a projection is often the only way we'll ever know that part of us is still missing and needs to be reclaimed.  TB