Contents
All of us, to one degree or another, tend to condemn others or attribute to them traits that they do not possess. Sometimes what we reproach others for is characteristic of ourselves. How to understand the true reason for our projections and what “sins” do we pay attention to more often?
“In projection, we shift the boundary between ourselves and the rest of the world a little in our favor,” wrote psychiatrist Frederick Perls. However, projections are not so harmless. Awareness of projections will help to more sensibly perceive what is happening around and inside.
When we project negative emotions too often, we experience discomfort. Perceiving reality as a threat, in our own eyes we create the illusion of an ideal “I” – a “victim” or “righteous person”, which, with all our desire, we are not.
1. “He/she hates me!”
We may feel that bosses, colleagues, relatives do not like us for no reason. We are convinced that this unreasonable hostility is seen in every word, intonation and look, and we do not think that such a slight paranoia usually arises as a result of the projection of our unconscious antipathy towards others.
2. “Well, fat / ugly / debauched!”
How often we are indignant about someone else’s appearance gives us reason to think about ourselves. Offensive comments on photos of bodypositive models convince: such rage is unlikely to be born in people who are able to accept their appearance. Harmonious personalities are indulgent towards others.
3. “Heavy people surround me”
Anxiety and tension in dealing with people may not be evidence of their complex nature, but of your low self-esteem. The lower it is, the more often we look for the source of problems outside. This form of projection underlies social phobias.
4. “If I can do it, you can do it too”
One of the common types of projections that can flatter and then cause frustration. How often do we hear in commercials: “I lost 30 kilograms in two months, and you can too” or “I made 100 thousand in two hours, and you can do it.”
Parents also tend to project these beliefs onto their children.
“At your age, I was an excellent student (athlete, soul of the company) – what about you? Come on, go ahead, you’re just as good!” they say. The creators of this projection do not take into account that each person is individual and has his own input data.
5. “What a mess, get this away from me!”
The more acutely we react to a topic, the more likely it is that a repression mechanism is operating in us. A typical example is hatred of homosexuals. So, psychologists Henry Adams and Lester Wright conducted a study of homophobia. According to the results of the survey, they divided the men into two groups: homophobes and non-homophobes.
Then they were shown erotic stimuli of a heterosexual, female and male homosexual nature.
All subjects showed arousal when showing images of a heterosexual and female homosexual character, while a similar reaction to male homosexual subjects was observed only in homophobic men.
6. “He/she is cheating on me”
The constant, unmotivated fear that your partner is having an affair may reflect the fear that we, in a permanent relationship, feel about our completely natural attraction to attractive members of the opposite sex. This does not mean that we should turn a blind eye to the obvious facts. But inveterate jealous people should take a closer look at whether they are too strict with themselves.