Projective Identification, Just About The Complex

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Projective identification - a very complex and interesting process, therefore, without pretending to reflect all its characteristics, I will try to touch on some of its most important phenomena. Another task is to try to translate what has been read about projective identification into human language. And also describe some of the basic therapeutic competencies required to work with projective identification. First, we will talk about projective identification “as it is,” and then we will touch on its manifestations in the therapeutic relationship.

Projective identification differs from simple projection in that the interpretation of the projection reduces tension, while in the case of projective identification it remains, since empathy remains with the content of the projective part. In projective identification in its most primitive form, it is merged into one introjectionand projection, as a result of the absence of boundaries between internal and external. Projective identification is ego-syntonic state and it does not need to be tested because within it there is a fusion of cognitive, emotional and behavioral dimensions of experience.

Projective identification in ordinary life is present in pair relationship and helps partners, with the help of each other, to organize their own affects. For this, projective identification must go through several stages of development: first, the unconscious parts of the self are projected onto the partner, then the partner is introjectively identified with these parts and at the final stage returns a slightly changed affect to the original owner. As a result, the relationship either improves if containment and stress reduction occurs, or worsens. In the latter case, the partner's tendency to rejection is observed due to the inability to process the affect offered to him.

Projective identification in everyday life manifests itself in the form of self-actualizing prophecy. If for a long time even a very kind person is considered a villain and react to him as if he is encroaching on the most valuable thing that you have, at one point he will really seem a little more rude, which will be taken as proof of your insight.

IN clinical situation projective identification is placed between the client and the therapist. Due to the fact that projective identification is a self-sufficient state in which the client does not doubt, its actualization threatens the therapist's confidence in his own mental health. Projective identification cannot be missed as its beginning is accompanied by intense and intense countertransference (here the second stage starts working - identification with projection). That is, the therapist identifies with the projected part of the client and returns to him either reconciling (identification with the self-representation of the client) or complementary (identification with object representation) counter-transference.

In other words, the therapist experiences either the experiences of the client or the experiences of a significant person who was in his environment. In this case, countertransference allows access to customer experiences that are unconscious and inaccessible to verbalization. Alexithymia the client is treated with countertransference. For example, the therapist may feel anger that is present in the client's experience but is not appropriated by them.

The basis for projective identification is the client's special expectations from the contact, in the place where there is a gap between expectations and reality and projective identification is formed. Projective identification does not allow getting into the reality of the Other; accordingly, working with it requires the creation of a dialogue space and clear boundaries of the therapeutic relationship.

If the client's projection falls on identification of therapist, then in this place traumatization of the latter occurs, which leads to the loss of the therapeutic position. The client's task is precisely to destroy the therapist as a therapist, to deprive him of the foundation of the therapeutic identity.

Paradoxically, it is a fact that what the therapist offers to the client, namely a therapeutic relationship, seems to the client to be useless and harmful and therefore tries to destroy them. But at the same time, the therapeutic relationship is exactly what allows the client to grow up, and not endlessly act out infantile fantasies.

The paradox is as follows - the therapist tries to give the client what he does not need (on a conscious level), but what he needs (unconsciously). The difficulty of working with projective identification is to withstand this communication gap … That is, the client does not expect from the therapist what he is ready to offer him. What, then, is the client looking for, for whom the therapeutic relationship is just an obstacle to getting what he really needs.

In projective identification, the client is furious at emotional withdrawal by the therapist. He lacks the empathy to take care of what the therapist offers him. This is not enough for the client. The therapist for him is a transitional object between dependence on the primary object, which carried out the earliest care and his own ability for self-support and self-comfort. An ambivalent transference arises on the therapist - he has what is important, but due to stinginess, he shares it in a very metered manner, then in order to obtain full authorized access to resources, the therapist must be destroyed. The client seeks to find and even absorb the therapist as a caring object, to make him a part of his life, not limited by the time of the session.

How to work with projective identification? On the one hand, it is necessary to leave the border of contact, since this is the territory of the client, where it is impossible to win. Turning to limitations and the therapeutic position leads to resentment and polarization of the relationship - either you give what I need completely, or I don’t need anything from you at all. The therapist feels cornered by the fact that the client can only be satisfied with total absorption. There is, of course, a positive grain in this topic of total control, since control is aimed at maintaining relationships, it marks the enormous value of these relationships, more precisely so far only that fantasy that is played out in the transference. With the help of control, the client fights the danger of being left alone again. The client cannot take care of himself as this function was not introjected from the parents. One way to work with projective identification is genetic interpretations on the topic of relationships with those people who performed the function of caring.

On the other hand, the only thing the client needs is care and then the feeling of being cared for in spite of destructive behavior is born of the resilience of the therapist. One of the tasks of the therapist is to demonstrate to the client that his affect is not excessive and is related to the need for a relationship. As you know, schizoid states develop precisely from the feeling that my need for love is too much and that I can absorb the object without a trace. Then, for security reasons, it is better to give up any desire altogether.

The therapist can describe the client's condition through empathy and self-disclosure. The client often lacks the therapist's emotional responses, his “true experiences,” the content of which he is not sure about. The balance between self-disclosure and boundaries is very important here. For example, in working with an eroticized transference, it can be useful to “be seduced” and say no in time.

The task for the client is to enter depressive position, in which he is responsible for his life and for his well-being. On the schizoid-paranoid stage there is only room for fusion and fear of autonomy. Accordingly, at this stage, the therapist has extremely unrealistic expectations. For example, the therapist must always be available, including outside the therapeutic relationship. The task of going from paranoia to depression together is not even posed, this is the task of the therapist, and the client will resist this process with all his might. In a depressive position, the client may be sad about the inaccessibility of the therapist, but not be indignant and strive to fix it with all his might.

It is necessary to pay attention to what is, what is seen as insignificant due to depreciation, but at the same time ensures survival. The task of the parent is for the child to live to the age of majority. That is, the care that did the main thing - ensured survival, is ignored as a matter of course, and therefore numerous claims flourish in the place of the ignored lush. In working with projective identification, there is a chance that deep empathy can convey care that is being ignored. You can ask the question - what are you doing for yourself with the help of me, because the fantasy that nothing can be done for yourself blocks the ability to self-care.

Earlier, I wrote about the ability to give interpretations as a way to increase awareness and pull the client out of merging with their experience. The theoretical basis can serve as a source for interpretations, but it is more reliable to rely on what happens between the client and the therapist here and now, being in negative ability … In this case, the interpretations are preceded by containment.

Containment - a universal mechanism to guess the client's need, make it part of the client's identity, recognize and symbolize the experience that needs to be verbalized. “I don’t know what I want, but I already hate you for not giving it to me” - such a motive can serve as a starting point in living a reality in which there is a risk of rejection and frustration.

Containment is higher level of care, which is realized through the opportunity to meet with negative customer affect, instead of indulging him and smoothing out contradictions. A client who crosses boundaries needs more stopping than allowing immediate response. In this case, he meets his own boundaries, or rather recognizes in them the support for his personality. The therapist has two options for behavior - to face the client's hatred and thereby allow him to show his true face, or, taking more care of himself, continue to cultivate in the client a comfortable false self. The manifestation of hatred is a sign of great trust in the therapist, in fact, in this place, a situation of gaining authenticity, unique for the client, takes place. Projective identification also indicates a pronounced progress in the therapeutic relationship and marks the beginning of the therapy itself, since all the previous time and efforts were aimed at preparing such a contact. The manifestation of a false self, on the contrary, reverses this process so that vitality is turned off and the person begins to take care of others to the detriment of his own interests.

One of the main difficulties in this place for the therapist is to discover his own care and love for the client where rage is the main material presented. The therapeutic task, therefore, is to take its place somewhere in the middle: not to give in and not to merge with the client's “good object”, but also not to break the distance too abruptly, leaving the latter alone and thereby becoming a “bad an object . The therapist will be in ambivalent (depressive) position, that is, combine both opportunities and limitations.

Hatred in countertransference generates a lot of tension in the therapist in the place where the client does not realize for a long time what the therapist is doing for him, devaluing and trying to destroy a bad object as if there must be a good one behind it. At this point, the extraction of a good object will depend on the completeness of the destruction of the bad one (paranoid-schizoid position). It is also necessary to withstand the client's rage because he needs to re-experience a negative experience, and not to deceptively replace a bad object from the past with a good object from the present. In this sense, projective identification provides a second chance to change experience through immersion in negative experiences, against which numerous self-soothing techniques are used in everyday life.

Containment is boundary delineation process, naming what is happening. In fact, the function of containment can be performed by interpretation, if we understand by it the ordering of what is happening when there are many events, and their awareness is delayed. Interpretation is a way out of a relationship into a metaposition, an aggressive action towards the client, since it involves confrontation with his experience. Interpretation brings the client back to reality by giving the nameless a name and placing it within a real relationship, while projective identification tries to place the therapist in the client's unreal fantasies. Interpretation opposes projective identification.

Interpretation confirms the importance of what is happening to the client, taking it out of the “good-bad” rating scale. Interpretation connects what is happening with the client's holistic experience, allowing him to take a detached view of repetitive patterns of relationships.

The client needs acceptance and is mortally afraid of rejection. The manifestation of the true self is accompanied by the actualization of the difficult-to-bear countertransference, but at this moment you need to be as careful as possible, since it is now that vital changes begin. To take care of yourself, there is a temptation to do as the parents did - they reassured, but did not console. Comfort occurs when the client sees that he is not destroying the therapist with his affects. The expected reactions from the therapist are destruction or revenge. By maintaining a therapeutic stance, the therapist thereby establishes and maintains the boundaries of the relationship. Well-built external borders lead to the formation of internal borders in the form of recognition of the right and the ability to be yourself, to demand, to disagree, to be inconvenient, and so on. In fact, it is not the interpretations themselves that are important, but the feeling that the client can take with him after the session - “they can withstand me and I’m not so bad for another, and therefore for myself”.