Projection

Projection is an extremely common psychological process and personal experience. Ironically, it's one experience of which few people are aware. Why is that? That's because it is an unconscious process, a process from our hidden psychology.

I'm fond of describing this process using a movie theater analogy. The projection booth represents the unconscious. The movie projector represents the process. When we look at the screen, we see images from the film, our unconscious psychology, projected by the movie projector. The screen represents a person, situation or object. The actual screen is not visible because the film images (the psychological projections) cover the screen. We only see our unconscious psychology on the screen.

This is important to realize since we often project in our relationships, when meeting someone new, when reviewing a newscast, virtually anytime and everywhere. As a result, it's our projections we experience, not the actual person, situation or object. Therefore, it's easy to make judgments, express prejudices, make derogatory statements and so forth. Of course, these are inappropriate and not accurate.

Knowing that we project, provides an opportunity to recognize our projections and realize that our feelings and judgments are not related to an actual situation or another person but to ourselves. This realization means we can change our interaction with others, situations and ourselves.

Perhaps our earliest experiences of projection occur when we believe we encounter love. In this case, the power of projection leads us to believe that our loved one has no faults, can do no wrong, fulfills or completes us, and on, and on. But we are not truly experiencing the other person! We are experiencing a deep and important part of our unconscious psychology projected onto the person. When the projections wear off, the feeling of love does too. But don't despair! Another person will soon come along and receive our projections and our so-called love returns.

Projections lose their influence when we change our psychology and recognize the influence of our projections. Recognizing our projections, means we must not automatically believe or see through the lens of our projection, as in the movie theater. We must self-reflect and consciously meet the projection to diminish its influence. This requires serious effort but is critical.

As mentioned, projections occur all too frequently. What does that tell us? It informs us that we are unconscious much of the time. In other words, we are not nearly as conscious as we think. This is a huge problem for us, the people around us, our pets, wild animals and the environment in which we live.