Many therapists struggle with this concept. Projective identification (PI) has several elements:
1️⃣ Person is unaware of a part of themselves that may feel terrifying and unmanageable (eg., intense
6️⃣ If the person who is projected onto and into reacts to the provocations, this is confirmation that the projection is accurate and they are indeed the evil person
The reason it’s a projective identification and not just projection is because, after getting the tweet, I actually did start to feel pretty reactive & felt a strong pull to abuse and denigrate the person in kind.
Projective identification is a defense characteristic of fairly severe personality pathology, although we can see it across the full spectrum of personality health-pathology. It is seen most often & clearly with