3. Projektive Identifizierung und Introjektion: Ergänzungen zur Projektion

Last updated on 22 Oct 2025

Projective Identification and Introjection: Additions to Projection

As a complement to the process of projection, it can still be important in psychotherapy to understand two additional terms that are connected with projection—simply so that you have a complete picture.

Term 1: Projective Identification

The first term is projective identification.

That sounds complex, but ultimately it's relatively simple.

What Is Projective Identification?

Projective identification is the creation of a projection in the other person.

Very roughly expressed, like: I project something, and my counterpart begins to create in themselves whatever I'm projecting onto him or her.

The Difficult Distinction

This is one of the points that for many people who also come to our training is one of the most difficult distinctions: the question "What's mine? What's yours?"

And very often this "What's mine? What's yours?"—something of what I perceive:

Is it actually mine?
Or what are, for example, things that I create in myself?
Or—as also soon with transference—that are actual transference techniques

How This Re-Creation Takes Place

This re-creation in me actually takes place in two ways:

Variant 1: Creating the Same

That is, first: I create the same in me as you.

Example: Fear

You actually have fear, think: "This situation is dangerous"—even if it's not true that there's a feeling of fear there.

You notice: "This situation is dangerous."

And then here immediately begins: Fear coming up. And I say: "This situation is dangerous—true! I also have fear."

I create what you're projecting onto me—I get fear.

Variant 2: Creating the Opposite

The opposite could be that I create in myself what corresponds to what you're projecting—in the sense of:

Example: You Project "You Are Dangerous"

If you project onto me: "You are dangerous"—not just "This situation is dangerous," but "You are dangerous"—that in my future, I perhaps even become like what a perpetrator dynamic or similar becomes active in me.

Simply because it corresponds to what's being projected onto me. That's like a natural response to it—it's a re-creation in me of what's being projected onto me.

The Anger Example

Also here: This is again particularly well seen with the topic of anger.

In the moment when I project anger—I perhaps don't even notice that I'm angry—but I project this anger onto others, it can be that they become angry.

In Groups

Something you especially experience in groups: Where someone perhaps doesn't even notice themselves that he or she is angry, but the anger—as it radiates outward—suddenly the whole group becomes angry.

I believe most people who are in group contexts have experienced something similar at least once.

That is: Anger is projected and re-created.

The Opposite: Projecting Anger, Creating Fear

The opposite of this is: I project my anger, and my counterpart gets fear.

And this form of projective identification is something that's especially used in certain personality disorders as a strategy to create safety:

"I project so much anger that fear arises around me."

But that's a projective identification, and I notice: "God, I correspond to that—I create that in me. But I create it as a response to it"—with the fear.

Summary

You could basically say projective identification: Projective identification is an extremely well-running projection.

Because my environment or the people in my environment begin to create in themselves what I'm projecting outward.

Where Does This Especially Occur?

If you look at this a bit more broadly, projective identification is something that especially occurs in two population groups:

1. Babies

Babies actually communicate through projective identification.

They project their experiences outward, and in the parents—especially attuned parents—quasi the feelings that are in the baby arise.

That means: We identify with what's being projected outward.

2. Personality Disorders

And especially frequently with personality disorders, which partially—through the unconscious aspect in them—project these so strongly outward that they can thereby very strongly influence:

Whole groups of people
And especially also therapeutic relationships

That's projective identification.

Term 2: Introjection

Another term that fits with projection and is important is introjection.

This is also again a term classically from psychoanalysis.

What Is Introjection?

And introjection actually describes the process of how we've taken on very many of our beliefs, standard emotions, and all that psychological material in us.

When Does Introjection Take Place?

Introjection takes place in the phase where a child actually hasn't yet developed clear boundaries—that is, this separation between I and you, I and outer world hasn't quite emerged yet.

The Mechanism: Osmosis

And thereby many of the things like:

Beliefs
Attitudes
Emotions

quasi as with osmosis simply come up in us and are simply there in the system.

Because I don't yet have boundaries, because I can't yet distinguish at all: "What's mine? What's yours?"—things simply come in and are there.

What Can Be Introjected?

The whole thing can happen with feelings:

My family always feels in a certain way
And then I also start to feel that way

Tension patterns—in the sense of: A family walks—simply everyone walks like this, I also walk like this.

Cultural assumptions—they're simply in there, aren't checked at all, because at the beginning I also can't yet distinguish: "What's mine? What's not mine?"

And also very many, especially implicit behaviors, can simply be taken on like that and are then there.

Memorandum

Interesting is—and as a memorandum you can very often say: Many things are introjected that are then later projected.

So: I took it on at some point, and later I see it in the world.

Special Form: Perpetrator Introjections

A special form of introjections can occur again in emotionally extremely challenging situations and especially abuse situations.

How This Happens

Where our system is in such a shock state and in such agitation that also there again the boundaries between inner world and outer world disappear—and then things like for example perpetrator introjections and similar things can arise.

That means: That I take on the feelings of a perpetrator, for example:

The anger
Perhaps even the self-contempt
But also the disgust or similar that a perpetrator perhaps feels

And I take them on as my feelings.

The Consequences

Which then makes it so complicated for many abuse victims to also digest and process these situations—because at that point not only are their own feelings there, but also these introjected feelings and beliefs are connected with it.

Which can be very hard to distinguish.

These are again special introjects. In technical language, they're also called perpetrator introjects.

Summary: The Three Terms

1. Projection

Projection: I project my unconscious material onto the outer world.

2. Projective Identification

Projective identification: People in my outer world begin to create it in themselves.

3. Introjection

Introjection: What comes into my system like through osmosis at a point where inner world and outer world aren't clearly separated.

The three terms in the area of projection.