Projection - You Are What I Imagine You Are

Sometimes we tend to short circuit the process and give up the relationship before recognizing and bringing into consciousness what really is our projection. I think this can be especially true if projections are negative. I have a strong streak of wanting to be right. If I project that onto another in a relationship and refuse to see it in myself, we could easily come to loggerheads and never get past the conflict it could cause.

Ultimately a part of individuation is the process of withdrawing projections and learning what and who we really are. We need the relationship and the chance to project in order to come to work through that process. Without mirrors, how would we know what we look like. But each of us has to recognize that the image in the mirror is oneself and that it is the person that is real; the image in the mirror, only a reflection.

References and Suggestions for Further Reading:

Jung, C. G., The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Second Ed. (Bollingen Series XX). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969

Singer, June, Boundaries of the Soul. New York: Doubleday, 1972

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