Projection: Is that too, me?

Projection. An automatic process whereby contents of one’s own unconscious are perceived to be in others. (Jungian analyst, Frith Luton @ frithluton.com)

One of the tasks of consciousness is to learn what is 'I' and what is not. For the personality, that means distinguishing what is Me, and what is not Me. It is nowhere as simple or as easy as it sounds, because of a natural psychological mechanism called Projection. On the level of personality - small self - we often project much of the worst - and of the very best - of us in others. "What a liar man that is!" "She is so disagreeable!" "How creative he is!" "I wish I were as desirable as that woman!"

 

Negative projections blind us to shadow aspects of our own personalities that need to be recognised, and for which we need to take responsibility. In so doing, they hinder our psychological maturation, trouble our relationships with others, and foster misconceptions and prejudices that prevent us from recognising and appreciating the true nature, qualities and potentialities of the person, race or group onto which we have projected.

 

Positive projections can hold us in destructive patterns of self criticism, helplessness and unworthiness, keeping us ignorant of our qualities. They also hinder us from seeing the person on whom we have projected as who she really is, which means that we do not genuinely relate to them.  Until we recognise and claim back our positive projections, we remain ignorant of totally acceptable, desirable or even exceptional qualities, and our unexpressed, undeveloped potential, so that we fail to grow into the person we could be.

“Just as we tend to assume that the world is as we see it, we naïvely suppose that people are as we imagine them to be. . . . All the contents of our unconscious are constantly being projected into our surroundings, and it is only by recognizing certain properties of the objects as projections or imagos that we are able to distinguish them from the real properties of the objects. . . .Unless we are possessed of an unusual degree of self-awareness we shall never see through our projections but must always succumb to them, because the mind in its natural state presupposes the existence of such projections. It is the natural and given thing for unconscious contents to be projected.”

Carl Jung, "General Aspects of Psychology," par. 507.

“ Everything that is unconscious in ourselves we discover in our neighbour, and we treat him accordingly.” ( Carl Jung, Archaic Man). 

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, as veils are dropping and exposing to me so much that I had thought was real, but is not. My ego is taking quite a beating, and it is not pleasant, though necessary.

"The best political, social, and spiritual work we can do," said Jung, "is to withdraw the projection of our own shadow onto others.” 

It feels a lot like finding fine silken threads in the mud, and one by one, drawing them out. No Aschenputtel (Cinderella) trying to pick lentils or peas from out of the ashes ever had to work so hard. 

Where are my birds?