Psychological
projection was defined by Jung as an unconscious transfer of subjective psychic
elements onto an outer subject—person or object.
Suppose
someone perceived-right or wrong-his father as tyrannical. As an adult he may
have the tendency not only to act in a tyrannical way but also to project in
people with some authority this feature. He will be convinced-again right or
wrong- that the subject of his projection is a tyrant. This is a psychological
projection.(Happiness Academy Online)
As a son raised by a tyrannical mother (and an
emotionally absent father) I have lately become aware that in my youth, it was
my mother’s unconscious projections, both negative and positive, onto her only
son that both entrapped and exaggerated the potential of my own life. She was
determined to put her signature on her offspring so deeply and in 72-point
type, that she quite literally forced her absolute will on the number of hours
of piano practicing that were required every day from when I was five until I
left for university. And within those hours, she also imposed her military marching
orders on each piece, slapping the piano case with some hard instrument as an
overpowering human metronome. And then, of course, there were the expected
recitals, exams, and public command performances. I was convinced then, and am
even more so today, that she was living her failed musical career vicariously
through her dependent child. Some would refer to her as a “Hollywood mother”,
determined to force her child into progeny expectations, whether or not those
expectations were achievable. There were certainly situations, such as her
nursing practice, in which she functioned as a diligent, compassionate,
exacting professional, lauded and much sought after by suffering patients. So,
whether my perceptions were right or wrong, they were indeed my indelible perceptions.
As an adult, this early experience has coloured many of my perceptions, and
thereby my experiences with people in authority, both male and female, but
certainly more frequently among women. Projecting, unconsciously, my perception
of my “tyrannical mother” onto any attitude, behaviour, belief, body language,
verbal expression that even gave a faint scent of the abuse of power, I have
become an over-active radar screen for even potential tyranny, whether or not
the intentions of the other warranted such a reading.
Along with this aspect of my ‘projection’ dynamic, I
have also valued, sometimes too highly, those expressions of support,
compassion and appreciation that have been directed to me, once again,
particularly from women. Having felt starved for such kindness, I have been
like a moth to this often flickering light bulb, without actually acknowledging
whether or not such attraction was healthy for me, or for the other.
Distinguishing between authentic kindness and ‘political manipulation’,
naturally, has been quite tentative, if not misinterpreted. Along the way, of
course, an ex-spouse, and later a few ‘significant others’ have suffered from
my form of psychic entrapment, as I became increasingly conscious that
something about my way of being was ‘not working’ to put it mildly. (These
early patterns neither clarify themselves, nor do they have developmental
lectures and seminars in which to unpack them, in the normal course of seeking
and pursuing both an education and a career! Duh!) Experience, blundering
mistakes, bitter interactions, repeated reflections, and even immersion in
spiritual direction and counsel might provide some light out of a tunnel and
then, perhaps only a faint glimmer. Having been immersed in the white water of
cascading projections for most of my first decades, like a salmon swimming to
the spawning ground, up-stream, I learned that flayling and deep breathing
kinds of hard work were necessary just to stay afloat. And often that hard
work, including intense encounters that were at best unproductive and at worst,
overwhelming, portrayed my person as the most needy nerd on the block.
Complicating my early naivety, in the realm of
masculine-feminine relationships, was the daily, almost hourly presence of a
father who, while compassionate and tolerant in the extreme, nevertheless, was
either fearful of confronting his spouse, or chose what he considered the ‘high
road’, silence, agreement, complicity, and then, when he could no longer hold
his feelings in, passive aggression. As an adolescent, I was never sure when
the complicity and compromise stopped and the passive aggression began. So I
learned both: that men, in order to generate peace and harmony in their
marriages, were long suffering, tolerant and always the compromiser, and that,
if such accommodations were unreachable or unfeasible, then he resorted to P.A.
Mix into this domestic cocktail a puritan ethic that
demanded physical work over mental concentration: “Don’t read, do something!”
was the rallying cry of the ethic, uttered whenever I recall picking up a book
(infrequently) and settling into its adventures. (You have already intuited
that it was not the male parent who uttered such black-and –white commands.) An
over-bearing female parent, coupled with a still silent river (or was it a
swamp?) of a father, fertilized with a protestant, puritan ethic of hard work,
and a maternal ambition to polish her public reputation through piano
performances of her son, (and later of her only daughter), will generate
complex and unresolved feeling and perceptions that are inordinately loaded, at
least in my case, with unconscious projections.
Exploring Literature with high school students, we
continually encountered the recurring theme of the tension between “appearance and reality”.
Delving into the back stories of novels and dramas and mining, with the
students, evidence that helped to inform a degree of discernment among them,
for me always evoked by a silent and private pursuit of my own, pulling apart
the evidence of secrecy, distortion, personal neuroses and projections that
blew through our little salt-box brick bungalow, churning the gestation and the
development of unknown and unacknowledged origins of my own discomfort. Overtly
and almost ostentatiously church-going, scrubbed and clean were our bodies and
our clothes, while underneath, there was always a raging torrent of anger,
discomfort, embarrassment and even despondency that “our truth” was deeply
buried and hidden from public disclosure, through both the complicity of each
member of our family, and through the normalizing of secrecy that came to be
our family rule. We were not living with alcoholics; we were not living with
addicted adults, in the conventional definition of the word. We were not living
in extreme poverty, nor were we living in squalor. In fact, our physical environment
was sanitized into sterility, comparable to the operating rooms in most small
town hospitals. And yet, emotionally, psychically, ethically, and most
importantly, spiritually, we were living in a desert wasteland. Conflict, in
the form of weeks of extended silence, without a single word being exchanged
between each parent, was not unusual, or even irregular; it was so frequent
that when there was what one could term normal conversation, we actually
breathed differently, wondering just how long the pastoral interlude would
last.
Conflicts were resolved through the only method
available, apparently, maternal edict. Father did not dare to ask,
“Could we re-think this decision and talk about it
some more?”
Nor did he consider, as was the case with all of his
peers, seeking counsel outside the home, given the masculine requirement to fulfil
the maxim: “You made your bed, now lie in it!” without public complaint or even
public discussion among close friends. Questions about the length of piano
practice were never a matter of discussion; they were ‘settled’ by a unilateral
edict, with which I completely complied. I never recall even once uttering a
voice of protest that I really wanted to ‘take a break’ and go outside to play
with my friends, who would sometimes knock on our door in their attempt to ‘free’
me. Of course, it was inevitable that our public “mask” would crack, and, also
apparently it would be inevitable that I would be the agent of the cracking, unknowingly:
Taking my father’s half-ton truck out on a Saturday night, without formal
permission, I rolled it into a large immoveable boulder, on our return from the
local YWCA, where three of us had been visiting counsellors in training. The
next morning, Sunday, the whole town could witness the crushed truck, blazing
my father’s name, keeled over on the lot of the most prominent car dealership
on the main street in town. Whether walking or driving, everyone rounded that
corner almost daily, and my embarrassment was extremely difficult to hide. I
doubt I was successful.
In school, I was a generally compliant student, as I
found the atmosphere collegial, although I could not have described it that way
then. I deeply enjoyed learning, reading, answering questions, and especially
discussing the various nuances of a situation, whether in history class or in
language class. Teachers, too, were collaborative, collegial, and fair
disciplinarians, for the most part. ( The incident in which I was strapped, in
grade four, and later punished more severely at home, is told elsewhere in this
space. However, another angry, controlling female, this time the teacher, was
the agent of the unwarranted punishment. I say, unwarranted, but so do all
other witnesses of the event).
Later, in college, I ran up against two notable
female professors, one in Child Psychology, the other in Zoology. Both had
eminent and laudable credentials; both were engaged in honourable research and
both were fully committed to their teaching assignments. Neither, however, even
seemed to make it to my list of role model educators. And that reality was the
result of no action or omission on the part of the two professors. It was, on
deep and long reflection, the sole result of my own unconscious projections,
about which neither they nor I were ever fully conscious. As proof of my conviction
of my responsibility, I failed in my first attempt in Child Psychology as well
as in a supplemental examination. The professor’s memorable quote, on appeal
was, “I can only conclude that you know absolutely nothing about Child
Psychology!” As far as Zoology goes, I also failed that course, and had to
enrol in an alternative science course, before graduation. These were in years
when I was just entering my twenties at least chronologically. Emotionally and
developmentally however, I was still a very young, naive and innocent
adolescent, blinded by my own painting another with a brush that neither of
them deserved.
Projections are, almost predictably and universally,
at root, agents of self-sabotage. People will neither know cognitively, nor
acknowledge psychologically at the time of the encounters, that they are
attempting to cope with another’s projection. They will, just as I and many
others have done, puzzle over why things do not seem compatible. How could they
be? When one comes to the table with an unseen and unknown and unacknowledged
impediment to healthy compatibility, one tilts the scales in the direction of
turbulence, fractiousness and potentially disappointment, if all parties remain
connected.
Seeking to fill the gaps in my own development,
especially those in the realm of emotional intelligence and maturity, I have
fallen into unhealthy relationships with various women who, themselves, were
projecting their own unconscious “hero” or “rescuer” onto me, without their, or
my knowing I was the target of their projections. Of course, such
encounters take inordinate amounts of psychic energy, rise to inconceivable
heights of joy and fall almost immediately to deep and dark caves of
disappointment.
It is no surprise then, not only that my father was handicapped
and restricted from taking healthy and caring initiatives to confront his
spouse’s shadow, but that millions of men and women continue to labour under
the clouds of competing projections, seeking shelter where none is available,
seeking solace from dried-up sources, seeking companionship from another who is
also attempting to break out of her own emotional swamp. However, let’s be very
clear!
There are helpful resources, reflective retreats,
professional psychological and spiritual guides available and open to entering
into professional relationships that can and do lead to enhanced clarity,
enhanced self-awareness and thereby enhanced potential for healthy reciprocal,
dialogic and collaborative, and most importantly mutually supportive
relationships. That is especially not only to be sought, but also attained,
with another who also acknowledges her own unconscious projections, and the
role they play in her life, and relationships.
I can speak with some considerable confidence about
that last statement. For the past fifteen years, I have had the good fortune to
participate fully in such a relationship. Michelle has both her inner and
physical eyes open to the moments when our projections sand-paper each other,
and we continue to identify those moments, and seek the ‘threads of gold’ that
inevitably emerge from a loving unpacking of the entanglement. Words are
inadequate to express my gratitude to Michelle especially, and also to all of
those whose lives have intersected with mine, less than happily and less than
in complete fulfilment. Nevertheless, there is no final termination to these
explorations, except death, and even after death, these projections, and those
of our sons and daughters, will continue
to dance in the universe of their generations.
