Self
What I brought
Association, expectation, fear, memory, fantasy, interpretation. Projection is a question about this contribution.
English / Latin · proicere
projection
To throw forward. A psychological word that can heal or erase.
Because a house about seeing must distinguish what is perceived from what the observer may have placed upon the other.
Latin proicere · pro- + iacere · to throw forth1
Between
History, what was said, shared context. The relation is not only mine.
Other
Remains other
Documented events. Another person’s perception. Withdrawal of projection is work, not a taunt.
Latin proicere, from pro- (forth) and iacere (to throw). Lewis and Short: to throw forward, to stretch out, to give up. Optical projection is later. Psychological projection is later still. The Latin is history, not destiny.
Freud, 1915
An inner excitation treated as though it came from outside. A defense: what I cannot keep is thrown.2
Jung
Unconscious contents appearing as the other, including anima and animus. The throw can be withdrawn. That is work.3
Projection is a question about contribution, not a verdict that the relationship is unreal.
‘That’s just projection’ can refuse genuine relationship. The word is a tool for sorting, not a verdict on the other person.
Misuse
Confusing subjective association with an external fact about another person.
Later popular speech uses “you’re projecting” to close a conversation. That is not Freud’s office, and not Jung’s. It erases documented events and another person’s perception.
What belongs to the other, and what did you add?
Notes
- Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879), s.v. proicio.
- Sigmund Freud, “Instincts and Their Vicissitudes,” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 14, 109–40 (London: Hogarth Press, 1957).
- C. G. Jung, Psychological Types, trans. H. G. Baynes, rev. R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971).
