Projection occurs inside one person's mind. In the above example, the projection is occurring inside John. Mark may be walking past John and not have a clue what is going on regarding John's perceptions of him.
"Projective Identification" becomes a two-person process. Let's use the above scenario, but this time let's have John and Mark interact. Let's say that John meets Mark, greets him, and then comments to him "You look like you've put on weight." Mark, quite understandably, may feel hurt, and/or angry, and/or embarrassed by this comment. The cause of Mark's uncomfortable feelings, however, should be scrutinized closely, because it is at this moment that we must decide if this pair are accurately perceiving reality or if they have entered into a shared delusional state. If Mark has indeed gained weight recently, his uncomfortable feelings in the wake of John's comments may simply reflect his own feelings about the state of his own body. If Mark has not gained weight recently, we might say that he has become identified with John's projection of uncomfortable feelings about body image. Thus, Mark comes away from the interaction feeling hurt, angry, and embarrassed, when he in fact has nothing to feel hurt, angry, or embarrassed about. He literally gets stuck "holding the bag" of uncomfortable feelings that do not even belong to him in the first place.
Assuming Mark has not actually gained weight, we could say that he has every right to perhaps be offended by John's somewhat rude comment, but it would make no sense for him to worry about his body image, since there is apparently nothing to worry about. Despite this, it is easy to imagine how Mark may go home and begin looking in the mirror, worrying about the way his clothes fit, or anxiously schedule his next gym workout. If the situation played out in this fashion, we could begin to see the dangers in identifying with the projections of others: we literally begin to lose our ability to trust our own perceptions, views, thought, and feelings. We begin to lose a fundamental grasp of the contents of our own minds. This speaks to the fundamental importance of being able to trust one's self, and to form effective boundaries in the face of projections that are launched at us.
And launched they are, all the time, -
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