Transference and Projection

[Music] hi my name is Richard Hill and I'm curious have you ever had any times in your life when someone seemed to take a real disliking to you even before you had any opportunity to do something irritating or offensive or maybe you've had the experience of noticing that around a certain person your behavior becomes completely different perhaps you suddenly become totally clumsy or very talkative when you normally aren't if your answer to any of these questions is yes then you have already had the experience of transference and projection the topics I'm going to be discussing for the next 35 minutes or so it's tempting to think that our interactions with another person are exactly what they sing whether gratifying angry making more disturbing the emotions and behavior coming from the other person seem to be all there's nothing to do with us yet a whole century ago Sigmund Freud made the discovery that if we do not look beneath the surface of the unconscious patterns replaying themselves in an encounter we're likely to miss the whole point of it if we similarly fail to acknowledge the denied aspects of ourselves it may be those with which we are unknowingly viewing in another person the phenomena of transference and projection although solidly accepted in analytical and psychodynamic schools of psychology and in which they originated and nevertheless complex and often misunderstood concepts yet some claim the projection is the single most important phenomena in psychotherapy now my aim today is to help you to understand what transference and projection are how they develop in a therapeutic relationship and what forms they tend to take so that you can recognize them as they occur in your theory for therapy rooms and in your life for further study you may also wish to explore two professional development courses provided by the mental health academy transference and projection and sitting with shadow for more information visit www.gfi.com/webmonitor let's answer the the so wat first why study transference in projection if you're working in a psychodynamic traditions such as Jungian psychology then the idea of examining the unconscious exchanges in an encounter especially if they're a Pyrrhic one seems not only normal but it's imperative traditions such as cognitive behavioral therapy or transactional analysis however unless sensitized to the phenomenon so study of such interactions may seem irrelevant with these therapies yet it is increasingly and widely understood that a person is damaging relationships with others early on constrain his or her ability to make the most of abilities and opportunities these counterproductive programs for relationships are unconscious and cannot be dealt with directly either by the therapist or the client eventually however such pathological patterns find their way into the client therapist relationship when they do it gives the skillful therapist the opportunity to help the client to recognize and resolve them assuring in the possibility of real transformation for the client most mental health helpers have heard of the terms projection transference or therapeutic transference and also their cousin's projective identification and countertransference what do they refer to exactly the what defining the terms transference is characterized by unconscious redirection of feelings of one person to another it can occur both in everyday life and also in the therapy room one example of how it can happen is when a person mistrusts another because the other resembles say an expose in Nana's appearance or demeanor in a therapeutic context transference refers to the way in which the clients view of and relations with people from childhood expressed in current feelings attitudes and behaviors in regards to the therapist analyzing this transference has generally be seen been seen as the the central feature of psycho dynamically oriented techniques projection projection is also an unconscious process like transfers it's considered to be a defense mechanism whereby intolerable feelings or thoughts are externalized and attributed to others by attributing to or projecting on to other others ones unacceptable or unwanted thoughts and/or emotions projection reduces the anxiety both so-called negative emotion and impulses such as sadness resentment greed and lust and also the positive emotions and qualities such as generosity creativity and altruism can be projected what we deny within us is often termed our psychological shadow which becomes the principle material for projection projective identification this process occurs when a person projects an unwanted or in horrible aspect of him or herself such as say deceptiveness on to someone else behaves towards the other in a way that generates feelings in the other which correspond with the projection and then unconsciously identifies and feels oneness with the other projective identification is unconscious and more extreme than projection it serves a number of purposes for the person projecting in such a way the most important function is probably that of defense avoiding painful feelings which have been denied it also serves as communications and nonverbal and unconscious means of sharing experience instead of telling the therapist about their inner world clients engage in a projective identification to get the therapist to experience and this way they may be able to evoke empathy and understanding third through projective identification clients secure a container outside of themselves which can hold and manage the unwanted feelings fourth it is a way of relating to another person relationship being all-important in psychotherapy finally if the therapist is able to respond appropriately projective identification can be a pathway for psychological change appropriately here means that the therapist agrees to hold the material for a while for the client so that he or she can examine it as it appears in the therapist and hopefully come to realize that it is safe at some stage to take it back some therapists have differentiated between projection and projective identification by noting that with projection a person has more choice as to whether or not to accept the projection where with projective identification there's a strong element of coercion even though it's usually unconscious countertransference while this concept has shifted over the years the general consensus now is that counter transference is the therapists emotional reactions in response to the client's transference and projective identification more generally it can refer to a therapists emotional entanglement with a client in psychoanalytical and psychodynamic psychotherapy such as object relations therapy transference and countertransference are not deemed to be bad rather they are mined by the therapist for the useful information they contain about the clients processes to understand how a transference and projection develops let us view it as part of the total architecture of therapy a summary of Sheldon Kash dance for stage model can give us a thumbnail picture of this view stage one engagement clients come into therapy with misgivings fears discomfort often ambivalent about being there shortly after beginning treatment the client may actually feel worse and wonder if he or she made the right decision by entering therapy so that the goal at this stage is to ensure that the client stays in treatment clients need a safe caring relationship and to not have the therapy gallop ahead of them before they're ready so the focus is on engagement not on making interpretations discussions should go beyond the presenting problem but the therapist should resist the temptation to do something what the therapist does appropriately do at this stage is link factual client statements to effect thus conveying empathetic understanding for example the interventions such as you seemed upset when you talk about this topic an indication that engagement has been attained and that this stage is coming to an end occur when the client says that he or she is feeling better and begins to look forward to therapy sessions many clients believe that are cured at this stage and well perhaps want to stop coming the wise therapists have a must find a way to acknowledge the growth that has happened so far but held the client to understand that the roots of the problem may not yet have been reached if anything only the surface might have been scratched stage 2 projective identification as human beings we construct a template for how to do relationship early on in our lives it's constituted from how our primary caregivers giver or givers relate it to us we then take the template including all the unfinished business of thwarted impulses and unmet needs and try to inappropriately well stuff it into a surrogate who seems at some unconscious level as though they might be able to follow our unconscious instructions for how to behave with them in relationship the therapist is that surrogate so it's stage 2 relational pathology begins to emerge the client begins to session his or her template and begins to put it on or even into the therapists projective identification is now develop the projector the client exerts unconscious but nevertheless often strong pressure on the therapist to accept and identify with the projections the client projector may believe albeit unconsciously something about the therapist that is not totally true but by relating to the therapist as if it were true the therapist may identify with the client in a process called inte rejected identification when this happens the therapist can alter his or her usual behavior to make the projection come true and this is all done on an unconscious level to explain how the therapist becomes drawn in to the client's pathology and experiences an emotional reaction to the projective identification thus completing the projective process let's take an example of a projective identification of dependency I think that might help it's complex I know in this case the client will make attempts to force the therapist into the role of Savior such as by often asking for advice or experiencing frequent crises requiring emergency phone calls the likely countertransference of the therapist kicks in with the therapist feeling overprotective of the client and having a strong urge to help the quiet it's best to resist the urge to be helpful in such ways because doing so only succeeds in reinforcing pathology once the projective identification has arrived in the room the therapists goal is to bring it and the associated meta communications out into the open thus bring the whole relationship into the room in the dependency example we're following the goal of the therapists is to get the client to directly acknowledge I cannot survive without you of course the catch is that being nice and accommodating people therapists want to help their clients to not offer the help sympathy and guidance I asked for is very difficult as therapists however we are encouraged to stand by our boundaries thus resisting this urge to obey the clients demands or needs which would reinforce the existing pathology on some level the clients knows that the way they are in relationship with people isn't working stage 3 confrontation the therapists presented with the projection responds to the meta communication of it by steadfastly refusing to obey or conform to the demand this is obviously uncomfortable for the client who perceives it as a rejection but by saying no to the clients projective identification the therapist is challenging the validity of the projective identification as a basis for relationship the therapist bests intervention is in two parts first affirming the relationship making it clear that the projective identification and not the client is being rejected and also staying steadfast in refusing to act from the intra jected identification taking this option however means that the therapist must deal with often in tenth client responses to the confrontation intensification this could be responses such as health harming or threating suicide blaming the therapists of course and secondary projective identification z' forcing the therapy back to stage two or leaving terminating treatment by the end of stage three the therapeutic relationship has calmed down the client begins to see the maladaptive ways of relating to the therapist and no longer viable and she he begins to interact differently with the therapist Stage four termination at this stage the therapist gives feedback about what it was like to be the object of the clients projective identification and about how the client is perceived by others the therapist helps the client to see how his or her early relationships have affected behavior with others there's a letting go of pathological object relations and then separation wherein client and therapist share feelings about the ending of the relationship getting a handle on the overall course of therapy with a focus on where the projective identification would come in and how they get worked through it's important but it's also necessary to recognize the principal forms of transference and of projective identification the indicators of how a client was effectively traumatized appear in the form of transferrin stakes by determining which type or form of transference the client is exhibiting the therapists better able to search for the seed that was thwarted in the client's development three basic types have needs arrived from early development first to have ones competent performance validated and approved second to be protected and supported at times of stress attention that are beyond the competence of the infant or child to manage satisfactorily and third to be acknowledged by one's kin as a fellow being when any of these needs go significantly unmet or or somehow misunderstood they tend to be eventually transferred to the therapist in the therapeutic relationship Heinz Carruth referred to these types of patterns respectively as the mirror idealizing and alter-ego transferences so let's look at the mirror transference psychotherapist Michael Bosch notes that nothing is as reinforcing for the baby as establishing a contingent relationship between her behavior and what is happening in the outer environment recruiting an appropriate validating effective response from the parent is especially critical for seeking competence in communication and in autonomous behavior the mirror transfer transference that demonstrates the clients need or wish for such validation from the therapist the idealizing transference is if we imagine the contentment and sense of safety and reassurance a small child feels when carried firmly but lovingly and his parents arms then we can understand the basis for the idealizing reaction as human beings have an ongoing longing to be strengthened and protected when necessary by being connected to be an admired powerful fear this yearning gives rise to the idealizing transference it's a need to be united with someone that we can look up to and who can write us with the inspiration the strength and and whatever else we need to maintain the stability of our self system when we feel frustrated or endangered or have lost our sense of meaning the alter ego transference the alter ego transference answers a basic human need the need to have one's humaneness one's kinship or sameness with others of the same species it quietly acknowledged here the child is simply being quietly sustained by another in his presence he or she feels accepted the little boy who brings his play tools and workbench to the gouge to work alongside his dad at the big workbench his example of this as is the little girl who dresses up in mums shoes or clothing when transference is experienced as a powerful coercion it may be occurring as one of the projective identification switch our about decoding the clients orders the projective identification x' projective identification x' as I noted in the phenomena of being obedient to our clients processes as therapists we take on identifications projected unconsciously from our clients who are requiring or even commanding us to be a certain way in order for their world to view to be sustained substantial we can register surprise but the process of projective identification is as effective as it is now after all why would any sane thinking therapist subject him or herself to acting totally out of character all of a sudden with a client especially when the new behavior may be less than desirable and the answer may be just as surprising for all the work that most therapists believe that they have done on themselves the reality is that client projective identification z' succeed partly because the projective material somehow resonates with us there is some aspect of it which finds what psychotherapist peter hubbard calls an anchor within us so let us take a practical example of how that works let's say that a client is commanding us to be sexually attracted to him or her given the overwhelming to boo of any sexual encounter at all with clients most therapists would be horrified to discover that they were actually getting aroused by a client but the anchor in this case may be that the client is just the sort of person that we would tend to be attracted to the reason to include information about the anchor here is that we cannot deeply understand projective identification without including our role in the whole process including our countertransference which is also very real early psychodynamic therapies tried to do just that but since the advent of object relations therapy relation and relationships and the attempts to replicate unsatisfying early ones are acknowledged as the holy grail of psychotherapeutic healing so the relationship with a therapist is the cornerstone of the psychotherapy and the part of that relationship is how the therapist is affected by the client with that caveat in mind let's turn to an explanation of the principle types of projective identification with an eye to decoding them cashton out like four main types of projective identification x' to do with dependency power sexuality and ingratiating hubbard working from the transpersonal psychology of psycho synthesis identifies a fifth which is projective identification invoking the sublime we look at each in terms of the relational stance that the client is taking up the consequent meta communication what the command or induction to the therapist is and the implied or else the deep-seated need that the projective material is attempting to meet or defend against here's a quick look at cash dance chart you let's explore each of the projective identification z-- dependency the aim of dependency projective identification is to fourth the other to help those employing such a defense mechanism look for someone else to offer help and support to them even though they can usually work the problem out for themselves despite the innocent appearance of the calls for help the underlying message on the covert communication level level is I cannot live without you such projections are expressions like what do you think what should I do can you help me and I do not think that I can do that alone if people using dependency projective identification do not get the help they are coercing others to provide they can respond with hysterical crying depression and even suicidal tendencies often their early childhood covert messages from caregivers were the more you about your mother's orders the more your mother loves you what is so challenging for the therapist especially a newly trained one is that the request for advice or help made by the client in establishing the projective identification are often well really plausible one new mother with profound post-traumatic stress disorder from multiple sources asked if the therapist could come to her home or as she couldn't get a babysitter in order to go to the therapists room nor could she leave the breastfeeding baby for very long a borderline client explained to a therapist that she really wanted to come to therapy but the therapists room were a 45-minute walk from the nearest bus stop at the hour she wished to comment she had no car could the therapist she asked politely come pick her up from the bus stop she really really wanted to come for the session she said it seems that more women and men used this projection identification power have you ever been in the therapy room or in regular life with someone around and you're suddenly very incompetent you know whether you you know your sudden new behaviors of you can't park properly you you give a poor presentation when you usually give a really good one or just forgetting things that you would normally tell a client the chances are that if you don't experience yourself in this way with most other people you're the recipient of a power projective identification in this defense mechanism there is a desire to dominate others by making them feel insufficient the covert messages are do exactly what I say obey me you cannot live without me there is the belief that the other cannot do anything right unless he or she behaves like the projector mentally or physically handicapped chronically diseased or alcoholic parents who cannot care for their children and who indeed require care from the child often produce children who feel unwanted and in danger of being abandoned because it's too scary to imagine mother abandoning them such children imagine that they control mother's behavior and in dreams and fantasies live as though they do the seeming flipside of dependency power takes control as its relational stance the projectors meta communication to you as a therapist is that you can't survive without him or her so she or he needs to make you be or act incompetent so that can be demonstrated that he or she is powerful and needed of course what the person really needs is to be able to separate individual and know him or herself as whole regardless of who else is around to interact with but that's far too scary on its own it's it's much easier to go for power over another with threats to leave should be the legitimacy of the power to be challenged if this doesn't make sense take for evidence of this dynamic the typical abuser he never seems to be the one terminating the relationship even though he claims that she is so bad you know however you know he defines it that she needs to be beaten fairly regularly she she's she's never bad enough that he actually leaves so the relationship gets broken up when she finally finds the strength to decide that she isn't incompetent and helplessness as she's been led to believe or had projected onto her once she knows herself as competent and self-reliant well the gigs up she's gone she needs a new he needs a new recipient for the projection power is more typically a male projected identification although a motive a muse motional II abusive projected identification is sometimes seen amongst females as a form of dominating power in the therapy room power and control issues can be around everything from how and when the sessions are scheduled to topics the therapists is not allowed to discuss - rebukes for what the therapist has done wrong one highly narcissistic woman in couples counseling severely criticized the therapist for accepting as a gift of book written by her husband of whose work she was intentionally jealous the woman said nothing when her husband presented it to the therapist in one session but she came in in the next time extremely angry that the therapist had incompetently and unethically accepted something from him that had nothing to do with our couples counseling oh yeah nothing at all you can see the message here sexuality in the too hot to handle character category there is always sex the person who uses a sexuality projective identification forces the other to experience erotic reactions messages with sexual content are projected as covert communication the person using the projective identification may have been the child whose mother gave him the covert message your desired as long as you make me feel excited and stimulate me as different from relationships that have normal sexual content ones in which there is sexuality projective identification did not have a spontaneously arising sexual function they're not impulsive integration the self-denying person who always puts her own needs last is the one likely to use ingratiating projective identification having learned in childhood that she would be regarded as valuable and even loved if she were useful she now understands in adulthood that she must always do things for others in order to gain the others love we need the coercive aspects of the projection however where she is disappointed the other person will be criticized or call to account for what he has or has not done even though there is unlikely to have been an explicit agreement that he he would do the things he's being told off for not doing messages such as you did not appreciate the value of what I did for you and I sacrificed my time money resources effort whatever for you I found in the covert or sometimes direct communication the recipients of ingratiating projective identification generally feel obliged to express gratitude because the aim of the person using this mechanism is to be appreciated and the need is for self appreciation one of the meta mean communications is you belong to me one therapist had a lovely client meg mark highly educated and well known on the speak circuit in his area mark came to the therapy with the relentless mantra I'm not good enough in therapy he was a very cooperative hard-working client trying every suggestion that came out of their sessions in order to start feeling better about himself he reckoned that the therapy hood was working and before too long was in a habit of saying at least once during every session I appreciate you to the therapist mark registered to attend a day-long course the therapist was running he arrived on a somewhat brilliant sunny day saying with mock sternness to the therapist you're competing with sunshine which really was code for you should really appreciate me for being here under such conditions he made similar remarks about his efforts at other times the therapist believed that they had a good therapeutic alliance but she noticed that she always felt obliged to go the extra mile for marker her rationalization that he deserved it may have been her recipients reaction to an ingratiating induction you owe me sublime less well-known than cash stands for types of projective identification is this one identified by Hubbard a person whose relational stance is devotion obeisance or worship should it in the full flowering of the New Age not be surprised not be a surprise you get a sublime projection identification may not always be easy to spot more other it does not appear on the surface to be as lethal as some of the other projective identification it's about those who are unable to own their own divinity projected onto somebody else someone chosen as the Guru to carry their their you know gold as James Robin Johnson calls it for them the would-be disciple conveys the meadow communications connect me bless me enlighten me the recipient of the projection is ordered to be divine and godlike and most certainly not allowed to have feet of clay this projective identification is illustrated well in the movie the man who would be king in it Sean Connery plays a person who travels to a remote region of a developing country the symbol of his pendant is the same as that held by the native of the region who are awaiting a king they've been told that when their king who was held in tribal legend to be a demigod finally comes to them he will be he will be wearing you know bearing that that symbol the natives accordingly make the Connery character into their King they project onto him their disowned divine cells and the Connery character for his part strives to be kingly if not perfectly godlike and all is well in the kingdom for a while the natives know however that a true gear king being god-like never bleeds the induction to be perfect or godlike so things fall apart one day when the King sustains a slight wound and starts bleeding the resultant disappointment is too great for the Kings worship is the the people of the region and they see that their king cannot carry their projection and in accordance with the or else of this projective identification they crucify him well sort of paper hit him the the sublime projective identification and the therapy room maybe the client who sees the therapist as the enlightened one with all the answers if ever there was a halo effect it would be seen in the aura perceived by such projectors around the recipient of the projected sublime urges deserved realistic or not even for truly humble therapists who make no pretensions to perfection or enlightenment there's a strong pull to act from the covert commands to be divine as with other projection I projected identifications there is likely to come a day when the therapist does something wrong a little late for an appointment falls asleep during a sessions not good but it does happen make some remark that the client finds offensive as the therapist slips off the peasant pedestal under which he or she has been thrust there's a vivid real-life opportunity in subsequent relating to show the client that even though the therapist may have slipped off the pedestal divinity is still a valid attribute to own it can be managed by holding a point of tension with one's eminent humanity the part that comes late its sleepy in session and sometimes makes insensitive remarks for the client to see that it's possible to live up to divinity now that it is accepted ly mixed with humanity the client may be willing to take back his projected material the inner goal that was too frightening to own before thus there can be a happier ending without crucifixion or beheading which is helpful for the man who would be king for themselves revealing the table of projective identification and consequent behaviour engendered in both client and therapist we can smile a little at ourselves as a species we truly do some amazing psychological contortions in order to gain that all-important acceptance in looking more soberly at these defense mechanisms we can appreciate how projective identification our attempts to repair undo or mitigate serious levels of psychopathology in the self in the happiest scenario the wise therapist can pick up on what is happening with the client and allow the projected material to come in to him or herself as an intra ejected identification which he or she can then over time patiently and compassionately transmute and hand back to the client with the earnest metamagnetic communication hey I've carried this stuff for a while and detoxified it it's no longer radioactive it will be safe for you to take back into yourself now and you need it back it's part of you so such projections can when accepted and properly worked with be turned into empathetic tools in order to make or reestablish contact with a client originating an obstacle or to the clients growth they can be transformed through skillful therapists effort and compassionate bearing on the into instruments of that same growth and during this talk I've defined transference and related processes and explained the mechanisms by which they operate I've outlined the stages of a projective identification in the therapeutic process I've identified the forms of transference and discussed five major projective identification in finishing can I ask was any of this a surprise were you anyway astonished to learn that the appropriate way to deal with projective material therapeutically is to allow it to happen because transferred material is a communication albeit unconscious from our client their hopes again they are unconscious and not always met if we remain blocked or shut off from their communications or or fail altogether to recognize the interactive pressure true such communications are an infiltration of the mind and the body of the therapist but in acknowledging this we agreed to walk a narrow type Road being willing to embody our clients experience and really identify with what they cannot that's not falling off the side of an empathetic judgment of them and at the same time maintaining a psychological distance from them so as not to fall off the side of acting from a similar pathology to theirs that is the anchor in us we're horrified at the idea that we would use our clients for our own psychological growth so we diligently monitor our own countertransference supported by ongoing commitment to adequate supervision and our own personal therapy getting to grips with projection and transference as subtle and as slippery as they are can be a long and frustrating process for the therapists but it is crucial for the therapeutic relationship that we become acutely aware of its presence in our rooms [Music] [Music]

Channel: Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors

Views: 51,116

Rating: 4.8440676 out of 5

Keywords: Psychological Projection, Transference, Psychodynamic, Counselling, Psychology (Medical Specialty)

Id: Yqej_8AusE8

Length: 41min 54sec (2514 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 26 2014