Source: Donald Gianatti / Unspalsh
“We always see our unavowed mistakes in our opponent.”—Carl Jung
If you want to read someone’s mind, learn how to recognize projection.
Anthony, a man in his early 30s, struggled for many years with anxiety that, at times, was so severe he had difficulty leaving his apartment out of fear of having a panic attack in public. A quiet and unassuming person, he worried that he looked pale and sickly. Indeed, his anxiety peaked when he thought others were concluding that he was ill in some way.
This man, who came to my office every week, looked robust and healthy, so there was certainly a fracture in his self-perception. After investigating this for months, I asked him one day if he was judgmental of other people’s appearances. Without hesitation, he admitted that he was very critical of others, a trait he inherited from his mother.
Anthony was projecting. He was unconsciously assuming that everyone thinks exactly as he does. Many of us do the same thing: We make assumptions about what other people think without challenging our own processes.
The concept of projection was first introduced by Sigmund Freud and has since become a part of psychoanalytic theory. While projection is a defense mechanism designed to protect us from the parts of us we may not recognize consciously, it also inadvertently reveals our true selves. Take Anthony: The traits and emotions he projected onto others were the very qualities he struggled with internally. Projection can reveal an under-realized emotional state. More often, it is attributed to individuals with lower-level functioning, but not exclusively.
Katrina often complained about her step-sister: “Paula brags about how popular she is. Even worse, she insinuates that I’m jealous of her Instagram following.” Another time, Katrina remarked that Paula told their family that Katrina was dishonest about finances. Katrina was seeing me for other reasons, but Paula was a constant throughline that started to interest me, especially since I knew that Katrina had a small group of lifelong friends and scrupulously budgeted to save money for her first apartment.
Katrina was confused about Paula’s running commentary about her. Should she be envious? Should she try to connect with more people? Was she not saving fast enough? I asked her to tell me about how Paula navigated her relationships and how she handled money. Katrina started paying closer attention and realized that Paula had been in a series of empty relationships, and that she was always borrowing money from others. In other words, Paula was the one with jealousy and money issues, not Katrina. Paula was projecting.
Recent research suggests that projection often occurs unconsciously, allowing a person to distance themselves from aspects of their personality that they find uncomfortable or undesirable. While projection serves as a way to protect one’s self-image, it also inadvertently reveals a great deal about the projector’s difficulties. For example, it often shows that they are less self-aware and less able to regulate their emotions or accept their own bad decisions. It offers insights into others’ inner conflicts, insecurities, and unacknowledged desires.
Here are two ways to use projection to your advantage:
1. Recognize it in yourself.
Examine your assumptions about what other people are thinking. What is your go-to worry about other people’s opinions: That you will say something that reveals you are stupid or unsophisticated? That your clothes don’t fit right or your running pace is too slow? Now ask yourself if you think that of other people. Do you breeze past someone in a race and assume the person didn’t train very much? If you can catch your own projection, you can clear up a lot of internal misinformation.
Self-reflect. Spending time alone and pondering your own thoughts and behaviors can result in decreased anxiety and better self-understanding. It’s important to gaze inward with curiosity but no judgment. The more Anthony considered his own prejudices about other people and understood how he inherited the tendency from his mother, the more he was able to recognize that he had no idea what anyone was thinking and stopped trying.
2. Recognize it in others.
Look for patterns. Repeat accusations are a major tell. Are there people in your life who manage to consistently either confuse or upset you with their assumptions? Pay attention to patterns of comments they make about you or others. If you can identify themes from another person’s negative suggestions—for example, if everyone around them is “selfish” or “lazy”—consider whether the individual is projecting worries about their own weaknesses.
Fact-check. The more in touch you are with your own internal makeup and clearer you are on your positive qualities and values, the better you can identify projection in others. When Paula projected her own jealousy and money issues, Katrina initially wondered if she was indeed jealous and reckless with her finances, which brought a lot of internal strife. As she began to clean out her emotional closet, she was able to see that while she didn’t have a lot of money, she handled it quite well; Paula, on the other hand, spent money quite recklessly on designer handbags to look good for her Instagram following.
Anthony occasionally asks me if he looks pale, and Kristina may ponder the value of Instagram likes. But today they can spot projection in themselves and others. Now that they each have their own internal polygraph test, they can see their lives, and the world around them, much more clearly.