What is projective identification?

Abby and Patrick welcome psychoanalyst and clinical social worker Brian Ngo-Smith for a conversation about one of the most difficult but powerful concepts in psychoanalytic theory: projective identification. A notion that demands simultaneously thinking about infantile development and adult behaviors, normal defenses and pathological patterns, the idea of projective identification captures an essential dimension of all kinds of interpersonal relationships – but it also throws some of our most basic assumptions about the distinction between self and other into question. In the first of a two-part series, Brian, Abby, and Patrick unpack the concept of projective identification, setting it in historical context, and considering it from a variety of perspectives. They explore topics including classical Freudian versus object relations approaches to development; the works of Melanie Klein and Wilfred Bion; the defense mechanisms in general and ideas of projection and introjection specifically; projective identification in therapy, romantic partnerships, and professional life; and more. In part II, which comes out next Saturday, Brian, Abby, and Patrick put the idea of projective identification to work in considering group behavior, institutional cultures, and politics.

Texts cited:

Melanie Klein, “Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms” 

Wilfred Bion, Experiences in Groups

Teresa Brennan, The Transmission of Affect 

Nancy McWilliams, Psychoanalytic Diagnosis: Understanding Personality Structure in the Clinical Process

JL Mitrani, “'Taking the transference': Some technical implications in three papers by Bion”

Anna Freud, The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense

Jerome Blackman, 101 Defenses: How the Mind Shields Itself

More about Brian at https://ngosmiththerapy.com/ and https://ngosmithconsulting.com

Our previous episode with Brian, “Hate, Help, and Housing: Psychoanalysis and Social Work”: https://ordinaryunhappiness.buzzsprout.com/2131830/episodes/14213981-36-hate-help-and-housing-psychoanalysis-and-social-work-feat-brian-ngo-smith

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