Experience
Projective identification differs from simple projection in that projective identification can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, whereby a person, believing something false about another, relates to that other person in such a way that the other person alters their behavior to make the belief true. The second person is influenced by the projection and begins to behave as though he or she is in fact actually characterized by the projected thoughts or beliefs, a process that may happen outside the awareness of both parties involved.
The recipient of the projection can suffer a temporary loss of insight, a sense of experiencing strong feelings of being manipulated so as to be playing a part, no matter how difficult to recognise, in somebody else's phantasy. One therapist, for example, describes how "I felt the progressive extrusion of his internalised mother into me, not as a theoretical construct but in actual experience. The intonation of my voice altered, became higher with the distinctly Ur-mutter quality."
In everyday life, it can happen that the recipient feels almost kidnapped or coerced into carrying out the unconscious phantasy of the projector. In extreme cases, the recipient can lose any sense of self - to become inhuman, a moving bag of skin, with important symbolic messages rattling about inside - and may find themselves acting out in attempts at self-exorcism; the attempt to rid the self of projections or possession.
Read more about this topic: Projective Identification
Famous quotes containing the word experience:
“I learned from my two years’ experience that it would cost incredibly little trouble to obtain one’s necessary food, even in this latitude; that a man may use as simple a diet as the animals, and yet retain health and strength.... Yet men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“Once Vogue showed two or three dresses for stout women, but we were so shaken by the experience we haven’t repeated it in fifty-seven years. Today ... we must acknowledge that a lady may grow mature, but she never grows fat.”
—Edna Woolman Chase (1877–1957)