Projection: Defense Mechanism or Deeper Psychological Phenomenon

The lengths we go to not acknowledge the worst traits. Projection is a defense mechanism in which an individual recognizes their unacceptable traits or impulses in someone else to avoid recognizing those traits or impulses in themselves subconsciously.

For example, someone who bullies another for being anxious and insecure may be doing so to avoid acknowledging they exhibit those same tendencies.

Origins of Projection

Sigmund Freud proposed the idea of defense mechanisms as part of his psychoanalytic theory. A defense mechanism is an unconscious strategy people use to defend the ego against uncomfortable personal characteristics that would cause anxiety if they recognized them consciously.

Freud initially proposed projection as one of several defense mechanisms, which his daughter, Anna Freud, expanded on in her book, "The Ego and the Mechanisms of Its Defence."

Examples of Projection

The projection may be used as a defense mechanism in any circumstance. People protect their self-esteem by denying characteristics, impulses, or feelings they find threatening while seeing those same characteristics in someone else. Some examples include:

• A wife is attracted to a male co-worker but can't admit her feelings, so when her husband talks about a female co-worker, she becomes jealous and accuses him of being attracted to the other woman.

• A man who feels insecure about his masculinity mocks other men for acting like women.

• An athlete instinctively dislikes a hockey team member, but over time begins to believe their teammate hates them.

• A woman criticizes her daughter for interrupting her while she's talking, when in fact, she regularly interrupts her daughter.

• Someone feels guilty for feeling the urge to steal, leading them to suspect that others are planning to take their wallet or other valuables.

• A young man ignores his aggressive impulses and instead inaccurately believes his friend has aggressive tendencies.

Projection as a Defense Mechanism or Something Else?

Since Freud first introduced projection as a defense mechanism, people have often used the term in everyday conversation. However, when they discuss projection in simple terms, they usually don't think of it as a defensive element.

In these instances, projection describes seeing one's traits in others or, slightly more specifically, seeing traits in others that one incorrectly believes they don't possess. Yet, neither of these cases is the projection used to protect the ego against threatening features. The personal characteristics of one.

Impact of Defensive Projection

Like many defense mechanisms, in the short term, projection can be helpful. By denying uncomfortable truths about themselves, people can better cope with their anxieties and maintain their self-esteem.

However, projection can ultimately become harmful because it can disrupt interpersonal relationships and lead to issues like bullying, jealousy, and victim-blaming. It also may cause the individual to subconsciously create a hostile social world they believe is populated by people who exhibit the traits they dislike most and are least willing to confront in themselves.

Furthermore, studies have shown that frequent use of defensive projection is associated with features related to borderline, narcissistic, histrionic, and psychopathic personality disorders.

Therapy

Cognitive behavioural therapy CBT is one of the most used therapies in the treatment of anxiety and stress, helping you identify negative thinking patterns and also providing you with important management tools and skills. Through hypnotherapy CBT and NLP, we can help you manage stressful situations more positively and calmly. We work with an integration approach to tackle automatic responses to stressful triggers that might be triggering projection traits, so you can think feel and behave differently in these situations. The integration of hypnotherapy and psychotherapy is more effective than using NLP alone. The self-awareness integrative approach has proven to be a successful way to quickly eliminate negative thoughts, emotions and limiting beliefs allowing you to generate a more positive future, improving stress sensor response.