Projective Identification in Music Therapy

Projective Identification

Today, I will be discussing the oncept of projective identification with you.

Overview

First I will give you a brief insight into Melanie Klein’s life, then I will outline the theory, discuss it further with application to Music Therapy, followed by a clinical example, and finally a conclusion.

Melanie Klein

Melanie Klein, of Jewish heritage, was the youngest of 4 children, born in Vienna in 1882.

She first sought psychoanalysis for herself from Sandor Ferenczi when she was living in Budapest during the First World War. Whilst in Budapest she became a psychoanalyst herself in 1919, working with children. She moved to Berlin in 1921 where she worked and studied with Karl Abraham, also a psychoanalyst; however her ideas were not received very well in Berlin and she was eventually invited to move to London in 1926 by Ernest Jones, the psychoanalyst, not the jeweler, who was impressed by her innovative ideas. She remained working in London until her death in 1960.

She had great influence on the theory and technique on psychoanalysis, especially in Great Britain.

Theory

Before Melanie Klein introduced concept of PI, the idea of ‘identification’ already existed in psychoanalytic language with much contribution by Freud, amongst others, although as an idea, it was rather “unsystematised” (Spillus and O’Shaughnessy)

She introduced the concept of PI in 1945, but without a name for it at this point, where she described a simultaneous process of projection and introjection, so that the ego has “an orientation outwards and inwards” with a “constant fluctuation between internal and external objects and situations” – 1945 The Oedipus complex in the light of early anxieties – Ref from Spillus and O’Shaughnessy

Projection and Introjection

Before discussing PI further, I will first define both projection and introjection:

Projection: “An internal perception is supressed, and, instead, its content, after undergoing a certain kind of distortion, enters consciousness in the form of an external perception” […] “The distortion consists in a transformation of affect; what should have been felt internally as love is perceived externally as hate” (Sigmund Freud – Case Histories II (Penguin Freud Library 9) p.204

I perceive this to mean that projection is a process in which people defend themselves against their own unconscious feelings. These feelings can be either positive or negative. The person denies, or is unaware of the existence of these feelings within themselves and attributes them to others.

e.g. a person who is habitually rude may constantly accuse other people of being rude and claim that they are incredibly polite themselves – this incorporates blame shifting

Introjection: “The object is absorbed into the ego”

This can be seen as the reverse of projection, a process in which the person replicates behaviours, attributes or other fragments of the surrounding world within themselves, especially of other subjects. E.g. A child may take on the opinion that dogs are dangerous because their parent may be scared of them. The child takes on this view automatically without consideration or thought.

Projective Identification

Melanie Klein gave the name PI to the concept in 1946 where she further described it as – “A defence mechanism used by the early ego in states of anxiety when, in an omnipotent phantasy, it splits off and projects parts of itself into the object with consequent identifications for ego and object that structure their ensuing relations” (Spilling and O’Shaughnessy p.xx)

I found this definition to be quite confusing, so upon further reading, I found Patrick Casement’s interpretation of Klein’s definition, which to me seemed easier to digest:

“Klein describe(s) a process whereby parts of the ego are thought of as forced into another person who is then expected to become identified with whatever has been projected” (Casement 1990 – further learning from the patient, p.177)

In other words, in a close relationship, such as between a primary caregiver and child, or between therapist and patient, parts of the self may be thought of as being forced into the other person. It involves a more active getting rid of something belonging to the self into someone else, this may be accompanied by evocative behaviour which may unconsciously provoke the recipient of these projections to feel or act in accordance with the projected feelings. It can be a very powerful means of communication of feelings.

Projective Identification, according to both Melanie Klein and Wilfred Bion, is a process that is quite normal during infancy. In Melanie Klein’s 1952 paper, ‘Notes on some Schizoid Mechanisms’, she writes;

“The […] line of attack derives from the anal and urethral impulses and implies expelling dangerous substances (excrements) out of the self and into the mother. Together with these harmful excrements, expelled in hatred, split-off parts of the ego are also projected […] into the mother. These excrements and bad parts of the self are meant not only to injure but also to control and to take possession of the object. In so far as the mother comes to contain the bad parts of the self, she is not felt to be a separate individual but is felt to be the bad self. Much of the hatred against parts of the self is now directed towards the mother. ”

The infant cannot bear to deal with their internal ‘waste’, they project it onto their primary caregiver, in this case, the mother, to deal with. The infant is essentially controlling their mother to take care of their excrements for them and posses the waste as part of herself. The mother deals with the waste for the infant and contains their internal battle with their ‘bad self’.

The Process

A subject projects material into an object

Let’s take a hypothetical situation between a Boyfriend and Girlfriend, (just a small disclaimer – the following situation is as stated, purely hypothetical and not an example of my own relationship).

e.g. Boyfriend (subject) projects anger into his Girlfriend

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