Countertransference as Projective Identification

SUMMARY

While all countertransference reactions call upon the therapist to examine his/her internal family and unresolved issues, many instances of countertransference can best be understood as originating from and replicating and clients' internalized object relations. In this way, countertransference can be likened to projective identification. By processing countertransference as a form of projective identification the couples therapist can more effectively comprehend and work with important relationship problems. This article outlines the process of analyzing and responding to these kinds of countertransference reactions.     

Projective Identification on Different Levels

Freud's investigation of that which lies beyond the pleasure principle is, among other things, an attempt to understand how thoughts on matter, biology, psychology and mythology become linked, despite the fact that each of these systems are independent and self-sufficient, each one working according to its own logic. Free energy, that we may liken to a kind of noise, is bound and organized in a process where subjective meaning is created. During this process, a meaningful connection between inner and outer reality is established. However, subjectivity also creates problems, since the individual needs to find his or her own self-realization, his or her own path towards the grave. Self-realization contains an aggressive potential, which—reminiscent of the workings of the immune system—may be aimed at everything that is not-self; at the unfamiliar or that which causes discomfort; at that which blocks the path towards the individual's mastery of the world.     

Projection,Introjection, and Projective Identification: A Reformulation

In this essay, the author recommends a reformulation of the psychoanalytic concept of pojection. The author proposes that projective processes are not merely defensive maneuvers that interfere with perception, but rather an essential means by which human perception is rendered possible. It is the manner in which human beings test and-evaluate reality in terms of their experiential structure, and their needs for survival and nourishment. Projection is the early phase of introjection.     

Interpretation as Shaped by Projective Identification

How to make interpretations during the course of psychoanalytic treatment is a recurring clinical question. Certain aspects of the analysis serve as helpful signposts along the way. Patients have particular interpersonal ways of presenting themselves. The unique intrapsychic manner the patient has of relating to us (transference) and our feelings (countertransference) to these matters give us clues to study. Our understanding of these situations may lead to the development of a hypothesis we may or may not choose to share with the patient. Projective identification is a complex mental mechanism that can often shape the content and manner of an interpretation.     

From Projective Identification to Empathic Connection

SUMMARY

This article examines the challenging journey of successful coupling by understanding the marital relationship within a developmental framework. The process of Projective Identification is viewed as a useful concept found at the confluence of family systems and psycho-dynamic streams of thought, bridging the interpersonal and intrapsychic experience of couples whose individuative strivings are stalled. A map is offered for the transformation of a marriage from the stages of Idealization and Disillusionment toward the stage of Acceptance and empathic connection.     

投射性认同的三次转向：内涵演变与概念比较

投射性认同发端自Freud的投射概念, 后由Klein正式提出, 经过Bion, Resenfeld, Grotstein等人的发展, 已经成为精神分析的核心概念之一。其内涵演变经历了从单向投射到双向互动, 从内心幻想到现实交流, 从母婴关系到咨访关系的三次重要转向。投射性认同较投射而言是一种更成熟复杂的防御机制, 与移情的差异则体现在起因、内容和结果等方面。近年来, 神经精神分析的兴起与镜像神经元的发现为理解投射性认同的发生机制提供了神经生物学的基础。     

Vision, Interpretation, and the Interactive Field

Interpretation is discussed relative to ways in which an analyst sees the material in question. Michael Fordham's approach to projective identification and 'defences of the self' is criticised and contrasted with one that orientates in 'third areas' between analyst and analysand. Through clinical material, these different approaches are discussed. The works of Jung and Bion are related, and Fordham's approach to interpretation is seen as originating from a vertex K, in particular his concept of childhood, in distinction to the vertex O which is the orientating position for processes in the third area. It is argued that in Fordham's approach O is saturated, that K does not evolve from O, and, furthermore, that his examples demonstrate that, contrary to what he says, in his activity he does not eschew memory, desire, and knowledge.     

Group Therapy with Sexually Abused Boys: Leadership,Projective Identification,and Countertransference Issues

Group therapy is an essential component of the treatment of sexually abused children. Since the painful affects associated with the abuse are often dissociated or acted out, the group leaders learn of the affective experience of the abuse through the process of projective identification. The leaders must be aware of this process, set limits on the abusive acting out in the group, and help moderate, label, and empathize with the affect. It is through this difficult process that the children have a chance to reintegrate and work through their abuse experiences so they no longer feel compelled to act them out through repetitive abusive relationships. Specific leadership, countertransference, and projective identification issues in group therapy with sexually abused boys are discussed.     

Countertransference and Projective Identification Revisited and Applied to the Practice of Group Analytic Supervision

Countertransference and projective identification are two concepts that are very useful when describing the dynamics of atmospheric processes and also more explicit issues in supervision groups. Researching both aspects of interpersonal relationship helps the group analyst to better identify and understand the emotional reactions in the group experience. However, it is important to see the different approaches of these two concepts. Projective identification deals with keenly involuntary and often unperceivable ego-syntonic actions and unconscious thinking related to early identificatory feelings.

While other instances of countertransference are often comparatively easy to perceive, projective identification is considerably more difficult to recognize and therefore more difficult to work through. Concrete examples of countertransference and projective identification predominating countertransference respectively, as well as to commonly occurring, mixed forms of these emotional answers to supervision groups illustrate this.     

The Interface Between Countertransference and Projective Identification in a Case Presented to Peer Supervision

This case report, presented to a supervision group, is a prenatal genetic counseling casethat caused me a great deal of emotional discomfort as the events unfolded. Thediscomfort originated during my first meeting with the couple for routine preamniocentesiscounseling and continued through later encounters. This case illustrates the process ofworking through countertransference and projective identification issues that may arise ingenetic counseling.     

Projective identification: an alternative hypothesis

The concept of projective identification as a primitive defense mechanism is reassessed. An alternative hypothesis is offered: that projective identification can best be understood as a compromise formation which includes as its major component an "identification with the aggressor" or a "turning of passive into active." This reversal is demonstrated within a two-tiered transference/countertransference of the analyst as powerful parent and the patient as the helpless child. On the deeper level the patient enacts the role of dominant parent and the analyst experiences the feelings which the patient had felt as a child.     

Symposium: Research In Projective Techniques

Psychotic and nonpsychotic psychiatric inpatients were tested on the Rorschach. "Reality-testing" was measured by four form-level scoring systems designed by Beck, Mayman, Becket, and Wilensky, The psychotic subjects were dichotomized on three diagnostic dimensions: schizophrenia, paranoia, and premorbid social adjustment. No significant differences were found for the Beck system. With the other systems, psychotics showed significantly poorer reality testing than nonpsychotics. No differenced were found for the schizophrenic and paranoid dimensions. The Phillips premorbid adjustment score was negatively correlated with all four measures of "reality-testing." The conclusion drawn was that Rorschach measures of "reality-testing" are associated with psychotic and poor premorbid functioning, but do not differentiate schizophrenic from nonschizophrenic psychotics or paranoid schizophrenics from nonparanoid schizophrenics.     

Projective Adaptivism

Abstract

Moderate invariantism is the orthodox semantics for knowledge attributions (i.e., sentences of the form ?S knows/doesn’t know that Φ?). In recent years it has fallen out of favour, in large part because it fails to explain why ordinary speakers have the intuition that some utterances of knowledge attributions are felicitous and others infelicitous (felicity intuitions) in several types of cases. To address this issue moderate invariantists have developed a variety of what I call non-semantic theories (aka error theories) which they claim account for the relevant felicity intuitions independently of moderate invariantist semantics. Some critics have responded by arguing that these non-semantic theories are implausible for one or more of the following reasons: (i) they do not have a basis in empirical data or established theory; (ii) they do not account for all of the relevant felicity intuitions; (iii) they are ad hoc; or (iv) they in fact explain too many felicity intuitions and thus undermine the case for moderate invariantism. I develop a new non-semantic theory––projective adaptivism––that I argue escapes issues (i) to (iv) above.     

Cross-Racial/Ethnic Eyewitness Identification: A Field Study1

Using a method similar to that of Brigham, Maass, Snyder, and Spaudling (1982), 86 adult convenience store clerks were asked to identify 3 confederate/customers, one Anglo-American, one black-American, and one Mexican-American who had visited their stores 2 hours earlier. Wilcoxon matched pairs signed-rank test showed that clerks were superior at identifying customers of their own racial or ethnic group, Z= 2.84, p < .002. For clerks who made an identification, the correlation between the recognition accuracy and confidence in their identification was not significant, r_pbis (56)= .05. The results of this field study paralleled those found in most laboratory experiments of cross-racial/ethnic identification and demonstrated that Mexican-Americans are subject to the own/other groups identification accuracy phenomenon as well.