When as a MFT trainee I first started seeing clients I had normal bouts of self-doubt and fear that I wasn’t at all ready to be seeing them yet. Usually after a few minutes into the session I would remind myself just to be there with the client and listen and respond authentically and that all would be well and that was usually enough to make my self-doubts go away. However there was one client that I was seeing that whenever I would sit with him/her no amount of self-soothing or self-talk could make my self-doubt go away. And strangely, even if I had been feeling confident, competent or otherwise effective, as soon as he/she would walk into my office my positive feelings would be replaced with ones like, “You will never amount to anything” or “You are hopeless and you should just stop this now.” I tried to push these thoughts away and just be with the client—only these thoughts and feelings wouldn’t budge. By the time the session would end I would feel like a complete and total failure and an absolute fraud.
At the time I was lucky to have a WONDERFUL supervisor whom, upon hearing how I felt when in session with this client, introduced me to the concept of Projective Identitification. She explained to me that the client was unconsciously communicating to me about their subjective state via how I felt about myself in this client’s presence, i.e. the person was projecting their inner state onto me. The client said with his/her words that he/she was doing okay and all was well but via their unconscious they were communicating to me how he/she really felt about him/herself. As soon as I heard my supervisor’s interpretation it made sense to me. Once armed with this insight I was able to understand the subjective states as transference and what had once felt intolerable now felt like valuable clinical information. However, if I had not had the supervision I might not been able to differentiate my feelings from what was in fact a classic Projective Identification as this is a psychological state that can be difficult to differentiate without a skilled someone on the sidelines.
All of the above is just my attempt to introduce you to the concept, in case this is an idea you are not yet familiar with( and I am sure that many of you are and/or have at least experienced this dynamic in your life with other humans). So when I got back from my trip to Portland I was feeling extremely numb. I felt that I wasn’t able to love. I couldn’t feel my heart. I felt totally disconnected from myself. I had no idea how I was feeling and my thoughts felt strangely distant. My inner life felt foggy and far away and when I tried to access it I felt like I was trying to make out the words and melodies to a song playing on a far away radio. It took me almost four full days for me to figure out that what I was feeling was in fact a Projective Identification. It is not me who is numb and who can’t love or feel my heart or can’t access my thoughts or feelings. I am, for all of my many faults, a person who loves, feels, and is totally connected with my inner life. As soon as I recognized that I was in the midst of a P.I., and that I was feeling the feelings of another who shared my week long journey, I felt the way you do when you are dreaming and you know you are and you want to wake yourself up from it, but you can’t. Don’t get me wrong, knowing it is a Projective Identification makes the pain of being numb less painful—yet I don’t feel fully out of it.
Igor is away on vacation this week and so I don’t have him to help me process all the feelings I had during the trip nor to help me free myself from the Projective Identification that I presently find myself in. It helps to write about it. It helps to have to use my mind and words and notice how I feel as I write them, to do so feels a bit like how when your leg goes numb and you get up and try to shake out the numbness and tingling. Strangely exercise also has helped. Last night was the first time since I broke my toe that I was able to run and feeling my body and my breath and feeling myself move through space also seemed to bring me back to myself a bit. All that said, I still feel a little numb and a little distant and not 100% myself.
The good news is, that even though I have not woken from the Sleeping Beauty sleep of Projective Identification, I have been dreaming. I have been dreaming lovely dreams. Two nights ago I dreamt of being at a gorgeous Italian villa that belonged to a dear friend and I was very happy to be there. Last night I dreamt of an extremely positive Animus figure (i.e. a super hot guy who knew my soul) and we were very much in love. My Prince Charming was an artist who was working at Neiman Marcus doing art installations on all three levels of the store. All was well until we met my mother for lunch and then He left me. I chased after him in the parking lot and tried to get him back to me. I got him to come back into the store. When we went back into the store we saw this kind of sculptural office/playpen set up in which these two parents had created as a way to keep their kids close by as they worked. My Prince saw this and was upset that they had only one way to move and so he was going to create a swing (shaped like a tube) that would allow for more freedom of movement. Both seem like surprisingly positive dreams considering how I am feeling.
Neiman’s, I think, is symbolic of a commercial palace—the kind of palace that I can, on occasion, be imprisoned by. Also, as dreams love word play, it is interesting to note that Erich Neumann was a writer who wrote the definitive work on the Great Mother archeptype. My positive animus is played by a Post-modern Prince Charming( an artist/ a creative/ a guy who works with ideas as the source of his creation). I believe this Prince has been sent by my psyche to wake me from the sleep that the dark witch(played by my mother in the dream). Only the dark witch separates me from the Prince in my dream—it is when I try to get nurturing from the feminine (go to lunch with her) that I lose the relationship with my Animus.
I leave the palace (the mother) and go to the parking lot (where drive is stored) and we come back together through his seeing children merged to their parents. The dream concludes with the Animus attempting to create more movement for the children. My Animus, I believe, is telling me that the way to reconnect with my Self and to separate from the dark mother is through creativity. I think he is telling me that there is a way to be connected to family without being imprisoned by them. I wish that he would have just kissed me and woken me from this Projective Identification I find myself in and besides a kiss is much less work, and he was really hot.
Jeez, even in dreams my poor gender is objectified. Harrumph.
Your “foggy inner life” made me think of that bit from Twelfth Night about the Egyptians in a fog. There is something of the pestilential in this Projective Identification.
At least writing seems to be a borderline worthwhile antibiotic, though I’m shocked your dream artiste wasn’t Parker Stevenson.
When your entire gender is eye candy you have to expect objectification.
PI can be clinically incredibly valuable. In relation with others ( out of therapy) it is pestilential.
Writing is how I know what I think/feel so anything that forces me to do that helps shake off others projections.
Well yeah, I meant that everyone else is a diseased bag of pustules when projectively identifying, not when you’re going ‘hmmm.’
Wow, so many great insights here! The concept of Projective Identification is new to me, but really explains a LOT, now that I think back. I’d love to know more about the concept of the Animus sometime, as that’s a figure (now that I can label it) that appears in my infrequent dreams on a fairly regular basis. I really must pay more attention.
One thing I’ve learned is that being around a person who’s emotionally unbalanced or shut down affects everyone around them. Even in online discussions, you can always tell when a borderline person has entered the “room” as it has a polarizing effect that suddenly seems to center around that person, even though everyone thinks they’re still discussing the same topic.
Thanks, Deja, I will do an entire post(at least one) on Animus. It is a big topic for me. I almost did my graduate thesis on the topic.
You are so right about the borderline presence on line. I have felt that too. Time and space are not required for PI to occur. The other interesting issue around borderlines is that they are extremely intuitive, it is almost lack an opposite PI.
Another wow – I think I’ve read about the projection of mental state (maybe in a Richard O’Connor book on overcoming stress or depression) but didn’t “really” get it. After your explanation I do. This explains my feelings when around a few highly charged, highly agitated relatives (one exuding anger, the other self-hatred and hysteria). And why no one at work could get along with an actively aggressive, angry (borderline?) woman – they were picking up her rage vibes. No wonder nearly every interaction with her resulted in an office war that the rest of us had to wait out.
It sounds like you may be experiencing PI with family and coworkers. As Deja and I were talking about above, Borderlines often use PI. It is a very common experience with people who suffer with that diagnosis. It is like their feelings are so intolerable and so ego dystonic that they project them out for others to feel. It can be very hard to be around. And for therapists I can be very helpful to experience.
Maybe I’ve been going through some of the same thing. I’ve been able to let go a lot of the work stuff from the last job but it’s still lurking and getting in my way. Anyway, interesting post that I’ll need to thing about more.
Also, thanks for the kind words on Facebook. I know you understand.
For me writing about it does help. Perhaps you might want to try and see if it helps you differentiate from any PI that might be going on.
I am keeping my fingers crossed that you find the perfect job and that they see how lucky they would be to have you!
That would be “think” not “thing.”
Hey – does this mean that when I deal with one visibly unhappy, angry and stressed guy at work, and walk away feeling “I am totally worthless, I should just die under a rock now” that I’m picking up his vibe? Bet I am….no one else makes me feel that way around here, and he is clearly not in a happy, confident place in life.
It sure sounds like a PI moment.
Brilliant post. I completely agree that creativity is the solution…to so many of life’s obstacles.
Have I mentioned that my walls are completely covered with homemade macrame owl planters?
I’m just sayin’ – I practice what I preach.
Hey, my house is just screaming for a homemade macrame owl planter!;-)
Thanks, Anna!:-)
Wow LBR, outstanding and you did all of this on the first day of the month, which should be taken as a great sign for a productive month! At least that is what I would be telling myself. I have been aware of PI in many circumstances but did not know the name for it. It seems pretty common and since there are a lot of miserable people around one has the opportunity to be exposed to it a lot. You do have brilliant dreams and I am so impressed with Animus- I totally agree that connecting with one’s creativity is the key. Often when I am out of form I find my calm in thinking about science or just as you said getting out and walking, letting the air wipe away useless thoughts. Are you going away for the long holiday? Happy September 1st!
xoxoxo
I hope you are right. I really would like this month to be a month of action and production. Summer has felt slow and unproductive. I love your expression, “when I am out of form”. It is lovely you know how to re-member your self. I can’t imagine what it is like for people who don’t.
No going away this week but next week I am off to Chicago. Happy September 1st!xo
My summer sucked for the most part but it could have been worse so no point complaining. I am excited that you are going to Chicago, I had such a great time this last trip. When are we getting together?
xo
I would love to lunch with you when I get back from CHicago. Let’s plan it. I don’t want summer to turn to fall and fall to turn to winter before we meet again!xo
Wow.
I hadn’t heard of this concept before…pretty deep stuff.Glad the pins and needles are supplanting numbness and that the discomfort will be gone soon after that.
I like seeing you analyze dreams—I loved reading your bf’s Dream and the Underworld (really loved many parts of it!), but couldn’t quite wrap my head around the practical application of it…(even though he pretty much wants the reader to avoid putting it in dayworld terms and “translating” it). This was great to see analysis in action!
Dreams and word play, yes. I had a dream in which the word “reunions” figured prominently. I had just read a poem of the same name, and in the dream I opened an email with the subject heading “Re:reunions.” I like thinking of word parts, too.
Welcome back, you brilliant and charming person, you!
My BF is all about ideas over practicality. The people who hate my Hillman( and there are many) complain that he never talks about practical application. He is a trixter and a philosopher and not a clinician. I don’t think HIlly would like my reductive interpretation. He would say to stay with the image. I love him anyways.;-)
Love your “Re:reunions.” dream. That is fantastic!
It is good to be back home and now back to myself.
This PI idea makes a lot of sense to me. So cool that you can coach your own dreams.
“I think he is telling me that there is a way to be connected to family without being imprisoned by them.”
I want you to go back to sleep and get your animus to tell you how to do this — connect without being imprisoned.
Standing by…
I think he is saying that it involves lateral movement and creativity. I am not sure what the lateral movement thing means yet. I hope in the next dream he will explain it.
During my trials and tribulations last year, your advice about Projective Identification was VERY helpful.
Knowledge of this when it is going on can be very liberating. I am happy I could help you.
Very interesting about the PI and glad you are moving into a more positive place now (even if you didn’t get the easy way out with the kiss!).
Not to discount the PI stuff, but do you think some of the exhaustion/fog could be due to having to put barriers up to shield yourself from someone whose (expressed or unexpressed) emotions drain you/shut “you” down?
[I find my barriers are so ridiculously thin/permeable in certain situations I am constantly trying to reinforce them...by the time I'm away from the person I'm ready to Rip Van Winkle it.]
I think that a part of how I am feeling is definitely protective. I do. However the not feeling love/not feeling my heart and having no idea about how I feel all feels directly related to her. So it is one part PI and one part self protection. Together these two are tough combo plate. I like to think of them as a Poo-Poo platter.
I’m sorry your week was so hard and you are having a difficult time coming out of it and back to yourself. The line about connecting to family without being imprisoned by them sure struck a chord with me. Thinking of you -
Thanks, lovely Shanster. I hope we can both find a way to do that. That would be really good.:-)
Uh-oh, I think I’ve been PI’ing my husband lately. I need to start thinking pretty thoughts! Your dream analysis is so beautiful, I could read these all day- truly fascinating and thought-provoking.
Thanks, Fashion Herald, I am so glad you enjoy them. I feel your sure that pretty you only has pretty thoughts( wouldn’t that be nice?;-).
I like the idea of being connected to family without being imprisoned by them. I have achieved this with my sister, who is loving, gentle, and accepting.
Alas, the same cannot be done with my brother.
I’m glad you’re home, safe and sound, and not on that trip anymore!
I am so glad you have been able to achieve this with one family member.
Me too.:-)
okay, my head hurts just from opening my mind to the explanation of PI…
I will send you a Tylenol via Projective Identification.
I had never heard of P.I. before and now that I do know it’s like having a new tool in the toolbox. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced it before but it seems like it would be as though a ghost is passing through you.
If you are interested in the idea you might want to take a look at Melanie Klein’s work as she was the originator of this concept.
And you are right, only with a ghost I feel sure you would know it is happening, with PI it takes time to figure out that it has happened.
The concept of Projective Identification is new to me too, in fact I know very little about all things to do with therapy and counselling yet sometimes think if I did know a little more it would shield me from the anger I feel when dealing with my own mother. The two feelings I get with her are that she is
a) very competitive with me (jealous)
b) very angry with my relationship with Emin (jealous?)
I find the more bitter and angry she gets the more determined I am to remain calm, but I sometimes think the stress I internalise because of that is not good for me.
I am very lucky Emin understands this. My sister tried discussing her short comings with her only for her to deny that she was ever a poor mother! So no point in even trying to unravel my childhood with her.
I hope you recover soon I find retail therapy helps hence my massive overdraft this month!
I try and remain calm and I can RARELY do it. I find myself, despite my clinical knowledge, regressing to a 16 year old version of myself and that isn’t good for anyone involved. You are lucky Emin understands. He-weasel does too. Without him I would have been a HOT mess. And, yeah, I very frequently turn to matter as a means of dealing with mother.;-)
Ah the power of our mothers…. I wish you could have called ME and then I could have sent a Projective Identificaiton vibe trhough to your mom, so that she would feel the urge to chill out so that you could enjoy your time there more! but the trip sounds fantastic anyway….cant wait to catch up. GOOD JOB for being able to write these two blogs and get a grip on those feelings…
Writing helps a lot. Having wonderful friends who get it also helps A LOT!!!
The concept of Projective Identification is new to me but it explains a lot. I have to think about this a good bit more.
Most of us have experienced this and yet so few people know about this concept. I wonder why it doesn’t get much press in pop psychology. I suppose that this concept could be misused and engender blaming others for their feelings. It can be difficult to differentiate.
I should read more about positive identification, since I often leave one particular relative’s house feeling much like you describe here (I also often feel angry — that one has faded, though). I love that you are able to work through these feelings, to identify them and see them for what they are.
I hope that by now the numbness has faded.
I imagine that I will be writing more about this subject as I had another experience of it this weekend. Ugh! But, yes, happily the numbness is gone and I am feeling like my old self again.
I have been thinking about your post for a few days. Like Mardel, it explained a lot to me.
I recently had breakfast with my mother and ended up taking two naps later that day. Now I think I understand why. (We get along well, but she’d had a stressful week. I’m pretty sure I took some of that stress home with me that day.)
Oh, and the positive animus figure. I’d never heard of that, but it explains why I’ve been obsessed by a couple of dreams I had several months ago, especially one where I was chatting with a cute male celebrity and he was giving me a pep talk. Now I get it and I get why I haven’t been able to forget it.
I am so happy that this was helpful for you. Family visits can be stressful and lead to some fatigue. But sometimes it is others peoples fatigue we are holding.
And I am thrilled that the animus idea was one that resonated for you. I am working on a post for the topic. Positive animus dreams are often ones that we never forget. I had one over 20 years ago that I still remember.