Projection
Projection
means the expulsion of a subjective content into an object; it is the opposite
of introjection. Accordingly, it is a process of dissimilation, by which a
subjective content becomes alienated from the subject and is, so to speak,
embodied in the object. The subject gets rid of painful, incompatible contents
by projecting them.
While some traits peculiar to the
shadow can be recognized without too much
difficulty as one’s own personal qualities, in this case both insight and good
will are unavailing because the cause of the emotion appears to lie,
beyond all
possibility of doubt, in the other person. No matter how obvious it may
be to the neutral observer that it is a matter of projections, there is little
hope that the subject will perceive this himself. He must be convinced that he
throws a very long shadow before his is willing to withdraw his
emotionally-toned projections from their object. AION 9
Let us suppose that a certain individual shows no inclination whatever to
recognize his projections. The projection-making factor then has a free hand and
can realize its object – if it has one – or bring about some other situation
characteristic of its power. As we know, it is not the conscious subject but the
unconscious which does the projecting. Hence one meets with projections, one
does not make them. The effect of projection is to isolate the subject from his
environment, since instead of a real relation to it there is now only an
illusory one. Projections change the world into the replica of one’s own unknown
face. In the last analysis, therefore, they lead to an autoerotic or autistic
condition in which one dreams a world whose reality remains forever
unattainable. The resultant setiment d’incomplétude and still worse
feeling of sterility are in their turn explained by projection as the
malevolence of the environment, and by means of this vicious circle the
isolation is intensified. The more projections are thrust in between the subject
and the environment, the harder it is for the
ego to see through its illusions.
AION 9/10
It is often tragic to see how blatantly a man bungles his own life and the lives
of others yet remains totally incapable of seeing how much the whole tragedy
originates in himself, and how he continually feeds it and keeps it going. Not
consciously, of course – for consciously he is engaged in bewailing and
cursing a faithless world that recedes further and further into the distance.
Rather, it is an unconscious factor which spins the illusions that veil his
world. And what is being spun is a cocoon, which in the end will completely
envelop him.
One might assume that projections like these, which are so very difficult if not
impossible to dissolve, would belong to the realm of the
shadow – that is, to
the negative side of the personality. This assumption becomes untenable after a
certain point, because the symbols that then appear no longer refer to the same
but to the opposite sex, in a man’s case to a woman and vice versa. The source
of projections is no longer the shadow – which is always of the same sex as the
subject – but a contrasexual figure. Here we meet the
animus of a woman and the
anima of a man, two corresponding
archetypes whose autonomy and unconsciousness
explain the stubbornness of their projections. AION 10
Though the shadow is a motif as well known to
mythology as
anima and animus, it
represents first and foremost the
personal unconscious, and its content can
therefore be made conscious without too much difficulty. In this it differs from
anima and animus, for whereas the
shadow can be seen through and recognized
fairly easily, the anima and animus are much further away from consciousness and
in normal circumstances are seldom if ever realized. With a little
self-criticism one can see through the shadow – so far as its nature is
personal. But when it appears as an archetype, one encounters the same
difficulties as with anima and animus. In other words, it is quite within the
bounds of possibility for a man to recognize the relative evil of his nature,
but it is a rare and shattering experience for him to gaze into the face of
absolute evil. AION 10
One has, of course, to overcome certain moral obstacles, such as vanity,
ambition, conceit, resentment, etc., but in the case of projections all sorts of
purely intellectual difficulties are added, quite apart from the contents of the
projection which one simply doesn’t know how to cope with. And on top of all
this there arises a profound doubt as to whether one is not meddling too much
with nature’s business by prodding into
consciousness things which it would have
been better to leave asleep. AION 17/18
One can imagine how desireable it would be in such cases to
dissolve the projection. And there are always optimists who believe that the
golden age can be ushered in simply by telling people the right way to go. But
just let them try to explain to these people that they are acting like a dog
chasing its own tail. (cont’d,) (AION 19)
The projection-making factor, for instance, has undeniable
reality. Anyone who insists on denying it becomes identical with it, which is
not only dubious in itself but a positive danger to the well-being of the
individual. AION 24
Inflation magnifies the blind spot in the eye, and the more
we are assimilated by the projection-making factor, the greater becomes the
tendency to identify with it. A clear symptom of this is our growing
disinclination to take note of the reactions of the environment and pay heed to
them. AION 24
When a man resents the inferiority of his milieu and feels that he is too
good for his surroundings, it is because the inferiority of the milieu in
himself is projected into the outer milieu and therefore he begins to mind
those things which he should mind in himself. When he says, ‘I mind my inferior
milieu’, he ought to say, ‘I mind the fact that my own inner milieu is below the
mark’. He has not right values, he is inferior in his feeling-life. That is his
problem. AP 100
When
meditation is concerned with the objective projects of the unconscious that
reach consciousness spontaneously, it unites the conscious with contents that
proceed not from a conscious causal chain but from an essentially unconscious
process… Part of the unconscious contents is projected, but the projection as
such is not recognized. Meditation or critical introspection and objective
investigation of the object are needed in order to establish the existence of
projections. If the individual is to take stock of himself it is essential that
his projections should be recognized, because they falsify the nature of the
object and besides this contain items which belong to his own personality and
should be integrated with it.
Say somebody has offended you, and you dream of that
person and feel again the same anger in the dream. Then I
say, “That dream tells me just what the anger means, what it is in reality.”
But you contend that the person had said such-and-such a thing, so you
are perfectly justified in feeling such anger and assuming such an attitude
toward him. Well, I must admit all that to be perfectly true,
and then I humbly say, “Now, when you have had your anger and are reasonable
again, let us consider this dream, for there is a subjective stage of
interpretation. You consider that man to be your specific
bête noire, but he is really yourself. You project
yourself into him, your shadow appears in him, and that makes you angry.
Naturally one is not inclined to admit such a possibility, but after a
while, when the process of
analysis is effective, it dawns upon one that it is
more probably true. In other words,
our worst enemy is
perhaps within ourselves.
It
is a fact frequently observed that the archetypal images of the inner world
project themselves on to the outer world and there become manifest.
In so far as they excite and attract the attention of the individual they
enable or enforce his turning towards the outer world. This is
certainly one of the meaningful functions of the mechanism of projection.
Its purpose is not only to keep painful insights at a distance, while
their contents are ascribed to others, but also to serve the opposite purpose of
making things consciously perceptible and distinguishable, for they confront the
ego
with the non-ego. TGL 48
Some
people, when they notice that the other person is not what they assumed, are
pulled by natural curiosity to find out more about the matter.
They think it odd that they were so attracted
by a woman who ceased to attract when she proved to be quite different.
They try to find out what happened and why the attraction faded.
In that way there is a chance of realizing the projection.
But those who, as soon as they are disappointed, just finish, always
remain in the projection. If one is disappointed, that is
just the time to follow the relationship, at least for a while, in order to find
out what happened. That is actually how Jung discovered, in
himself, the anima.
Being again disappointed in a woman, he asked himself why on earth he had
expected anything else – what had made him expect something different?
Through asking such questions and realizing an expectation which did not
fit the outer figure, he discovered the image inside. TPoPA 195
It
is therefore always helpful if a relationship – not only a heterosexual
relationship – disappoints you, to ask yourself such questions: Why did I not
see that before? What did I expect? Why
did I have a different image of this person? – Where did the error come from?
For the error is something real too. If one can do
this, it indicates a desire to hold on to the human relationship and take back
the illusion. When one does that and makes an effort to
establish the relationship on its own level, then the illusions must be
investigated as something interesting. But people with weak
feeling tend to break off the relationship as soon as the other person
disappoints them. They just walk out because it is no longer
interesting, and questions about why one had the wrong expectation and why one
is hurt are not asked. TPoPA 196
Question: But isn’t there something in the other person which formed the hook for the projection?
Yes,
but one can only discover that if one goes on after the disappointment.
Then one might find it. At first one thinks one knows
the other person, for when I project I have the strong feeling of intimate
knowledge. At the first meeting there is no need to talk: you
know everything about each other – that is a complete projection – the wonderful
feeling of being one and having known each other for many ages.
Then suddenly the other behaves in an unexpected way and there is
disappointment. One falls out of the clouds and feels that
“this is not it.” If you then go on, you must do two things,
for now there is a double war: you must find out why you had such a n illusion
and who the other person is if he or she is not what you expected.
Who is he or she in reality? That is a long job, and
when you have done that – have found the root of your own illusion and how the
other person seems to be when looked at without projection – then you may ask
why your illusion chose that person to fall upon? And
that is very difficult, for sometimes the hook is big, and sometimes very small,
because the other person may have only few characteristics that fit the
projection, so it may be more – or less – of an illusion.
There are all degrees.
The idea now is that if you could find the projecting factor that comes from
within that personality, then there would be the chance of unification.
I
gave you the example of my naiveté in thinking for years that money problems had
nothing to do with psychology but had to be solved by common sense, by the means
of outer reality, since money was an outer problem (I thought).
However, even such a primitive, inferior extraverted part of an
introverted personality can be looked at symbolically, by taking what happens in
that area of life as a symbolic event; in this way it can be brought inward.
Thus for the introvert it is in a way especially difficult to see through
certain of the projections he makes onto the outer world.
Only if he can bring them inward can he really get to the “one” of
the Self, because his
ego and that part of the personality can never unite except through the
activation of the Self. AAI 67
Experience shows that the carrier of the
projection is not
just any object but is always one that proves adequate to the nature of
the content projected – that is to say, it must offer the content a “hook” to
hang on. TPotT 129