Introjection. When The Client Slanders Himself

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

Introjection - This is a type of psychological defense, characterized by a tendency to assimilate other people's attitudes, without subjecting them to criticism.

An introjected client is often overwhelmed with self-criticism and guilt. Such a position can sometimes direct the psychotherapeutic process down the wrong path.

Practical example

The client began to tell during the session that her relationship with her husband did not work out due to the fact that she was arrogant, cold, devaluing.

The therapist's imagination can paint a narcissistic portrait of the client, especially if the therapist himself is narcissistically organized or has experienced an abusive relationship. Careful testing by the analyst of these statements against reality can avoid erroneous inferences.

For example, a therapist might ask:

"In relation to whom else is your depreciation manifested?" "To no one. Only to my husband." "And in what situations with your husband do you start to devalue and how is this expressed?" "In a situation where he questions my words." "For example?" “I told him:“I don’t like it when you yell at children.”He replied:“It seemed to you that I didn’t yell, but raised my voice.”Then I said:“I didn’t like it when you got drunk at a corporate party and you felt sick in the toilet. "He replied:" Your memory fails you, this was not the case. "I asked:" Have you been in the sauna with women? I heard a woman's laugh when you picked up the phone. "He again:" You thought of everything. Stop slandering me. "I start to get angry, I can offend him, say something offensive. My husband begins to accuse me of being cold, that I blame him for everything, that I am fixated only on myself." At this moment, I feel arrogant, devalued."

In fact, it turns out that the devaluation of the client was included as a defensive reaction to the gaslighting of her husband, who, with all this, introjected these qualities into her, forcing her to experience herself just like that, with a "minus" sign.

The client believed in this so much that until the last moment she doubted that her husband could be objectively wrong. He split off from himself his own denial, coldness, depreciation, lies and projected onto his wife. And the wife identified with this projection.

However, introjection also has its own secondary benefit - for example, avoiding responsibility. It is easier for the same client to believe in the words of her husband, so as not to come into conflict with him.

F. Perls compared an introject to an unchewed piece that a person swallows without censoring. A more mature form of introjection is identification.

With more mature forms of defenses, there is a share of awareness.

For example, in order to join a company, a person can temporarily adopt the values of this group ("you are for the Motherland, for Stalin, and I, too," "I, like a dad, will become an engineer and will run in the morning").

We can get rid of introjects through awareness and criticism. But, the earlier the introject was laid, the harder it is to work through it, because he becomes part of the personality.

For example, the ego-syntonic attitude "I am a loser" can form a lasting pattern of avoidance of failure. And then the introject turns into a scenario of life.