I Hate You! Oops, Maybe It’s Someone Else.

In an earlier article I wrote about psychological projection in business. See http://tipsbuscom.blogspot.com/2006/07/i-hate-you-psychological-projection-in.html. The article explains psychological projection (PP) this way: ”PP occurs when a person is operating in a social setting and unconsciously overlays some internal phenomenon on an external situation or person. The person then reacts to the internal overlay instead of to the external reality. To an outsider or to one on whom the PP has been overlayed, the person's actions and responses seem inappropriate to the real situation.”

But how do I know when I am projecting? Here’s a short set of indicators and questions:
1. Are my feelings about the person unusually intense, given the subject matter or situation?
2. Do I have trouble even looking at the person, or feel intense anger, depression, impotence or even hatred when I do look at the person?
3. Does this situation remind me of other difficult and frustrating situations that seem to recur in my life?
4. Do I think the other person is evil or has evil motivations?
5. Does the person or situation remind me of someone or something from my immediate family in childhood? For example, a manager is overbearing and so was my father.
6. Is this situation clearly like one in which I have failed before? Is this person clearly like one I have had difficulty with before?
7. Do I distrust someone without a good reason why I should—for example, a prior betrayal?

OK, so I suspect there may be PP going on. What can I do about it? I can use my imagination. How? Remember, a PP is an overlay, so I can use my imagination to remove the overlay.

Next time I feel the fear, anger or other strong emotions attached to a person, I can identify who in my past they remind me of—hint, it’s usually someone in my immediate childhood family. I can imagine their face and feel the fear, anger, sense of impotence, hatred or other feeling I experienced in dealing with them.

Now, holding that image of their face, I can imagine the face of the person I’m currently dealing with. If I move, in my imagination, the face of the family member over the face of the current person, then take it off, I may experience a strange phenomenon—the strong emotion follows the face of my relative (the overlay). When I remove it from the current person, they don’t seem so formidable, evil, or whatever I imagined them. I can clearly feel the overlay.

Now, next time I see the current person, I can also imagine the overlay out beside them. I can see the difference and deal with the real person without the overlay. Dealing with a real person without overlays is much easier! David Orr