Marie-Louise von Franz outlined a five fold process related to projection and reclamation of ourselves. Here goes:
One
We are convinced that our inner experience is truly an outer experience. What is going on inside us appears to be because of what is going on “out there.”
Two
This is the gradual awakening to the discrepancy of our actual real life experience. We begin to see the widening gap between who our Other is supposed to be and our actual experience with them and of them. I call this the doubt phase. We begin to see that who we think our Other is doesn’t completely match with our actual experience of this Other. James Hollis says this is the place where couples begin to jockey for power. If I can’t make you be the way I want you or need you to be, then I will seek other ways to bring you into compliance. This is where the neglect, abuse, criticism, control and sabotage begins. Of course, we don’t see it that way, but it is happening nonetheless.
It is in this stage that couples usually enter into therapy. And by this time, they are both pretty mangled. The therapist is not engaged as a neutral, but as an arbiter of the parties’ history, each one seeking validation and praise for their endurance in this horrible battle with this failing Other. Love has left the building and all that remains is a power struggle.
Three
You begin to see your partner differently. Some sort of new process to navigate your own ideas about who they are and who they actually are has to come into existence. This is where you really allow yourself to SEE this Other person upon whom you have projected so very much.
Four
This is the place where you realize that there are two Others you have fallen for. The actual person who is not really anything like what you imagined. And the Other who exists in your mind and head. And you begin to accept that all you thought was true and real, was in fact, just things your mind made up that largely contributed to you being in therapy with someone you now greatly dislike and feel hurt and abused by. It is here that you can see your part in this whole debacle. You were never really interested in seeing this Other for who they really were, only what you needed them to be. Ouch.
Five
This is the place that not very many people get to...for this is the place where you turn around all those pointing fingers and look within yourself. You begin to “search for the origin of that projected energy within yourself.” And since all projections occur in the subconscious, we really have to dig for this one. The only way to withdraw projections is after we have sustained the suffering in the discrepancy.
This is where we ask the very hard question, “which part of me was projected, and to what end?” James Hollis.
Not an overly complicated process really. Project. Begin to see the discrepancy between who the person is and who you need them to be. Suffer greatly because of this discrepancy, refuse to acknowledge it your projection that is causing you to suffer, suffer even more because of that. Attempt to control the situation with might, and all kinds of other maladaptive strategies. Realize that your reaction to this other person is only making it worse. Awaken to the fact that you are the one that is really creating this whole debacle by your previously unconscious childhood needs not being met. Own those are your own, not this Other person’s to heal, and begin to walk back the relationship to a point where this other person can be who they are instead of who we insist they be.
Maybe the relationships ends there. Maybe you see the person for the very first time and fall in love all over again. Maybe it is a mixed bag...
Projections, for me, are like psychic fragments that we implode all over the others in our lives. We just send these flying fragments everywhere, and pierce and are similarly pierced by Others missile like psychic parts being flailed all about. It is like each piece of our wounded child is tethered to a filament that is invisible but almost unbreakable in strength. And we hurl these parts of ourselves at others like some sort of javelin. We pierce them and they pierce us. Some sort of modern day cupid's arrow that isn’t landing love, but the love of our projection for all the love we didn’t get, and still desperately need.
Please re-read that.
I am going to leave that right there. Because I don’t know about you, but fuck if that isn’t an image, a thought and a lot to take in. Maybe not for you, but the image of all of us running around throwing spears of unmet needs and wants and ideas, really captures me this morning. I can’t unsee it now. It is how I see my clients every single day. It is how I see myself now. And it is how I see the world.
Apparently in this gathering of my own psychic fragments, I begin to see myself anew. More whole, in all my lack of wholeness. And perhaps, just maybe I see a path forward...to something greater than I have been able to know or experience before...
I am gonna have to get back to you on that...I apparently have quite a lot of projections to own as my own first.
Comments