Projection in psychology. Personality in psychology. Psychological protection

The term "projection", which is used in geometry, physics, psychology and other sciences, comes from the Latin word projectio, which literally translates as "throwing forward." Specifically in psychology, they designate one of the mechanisms of psychological protection of the individual.

Basic methods of psychological protection of the individual

Before proceeding to the disclosure of the essence of the projection, it will be superfluous to give a general definition of such psychological processes as protection mechanisms, and also to find out what methods of this protection exist.

The concept of psychological defense was born within the framework of psychoanalysis. He was introduced by the founder of this doctrine, Sigmund Freud, in 1894. According to him, the personality to combat various painful and difficult experiences begins to use the mechanisms of psychological protection. In a difficult moment for a person, they help to maintain mental health and the integrity of the personality by distorting reality. That is, the primary function of these mechanisms is to protect the individual from the negative impact of external and internal factors (that is, from himself). In psychology, it acts as the bearer of the individual principle, which is made up of its own special inner world. Therefore, the protection mechanisms for each individual case are individual. Nevertheless, scientists as a result of multiple studies were able to systematize them and identified several basic methods of psychological protection. Almost all mental functions (memory, attention, perception, imagination, emotions, thinking, etc.) take part in them, but in each case only one of them dominates. Depending on this, the following methods of psychological protection are distinguished:

1. Negation.
2. Suppression.
3. Crowding out.
4. Rationalization.
5. Reactive formations.
6. Substitution.
7. Irony.
8. Dream.
9. Sublimation.
10. Projection (in psychology).
11. Identification.
12. Fantasy (a dream).
13. Transfer.
14. Introjection.
15. Depersonalization, etc.

Each of these mechanisms is a specially formulated program to combat anxiety and stress. They help a person in resolving not only external but also internal conflicts. For example, thanks to a projection, a person can, on an unconscious level, transfer responsibility and blame for some of his shameful (in his understanding) inclinations to another person or attribute his qualities or feelings to others.

Forms of psychological protection

In science, there are four main forms of psychological defense, namely: active, "capitulation," super-protection and "rationalization."

Active protection form

It can occur by searching for a "target" - someone or something on whom you can knead your bad mood or accumulated aggression, also by extrapunity, in which there is a tendency to blame someone else for your mistakes or failures, but not yourself . This form of protection includes "righteous anger" when a person falls in with reproaches to someone in order to justify the negative feelings that arise in him, for example, envy. Self-affirmation at the expense of belittling the dignity of another person is the most negative form of the mechanism of psychological defense. And also belongs to this category. In addition, an active form of protection can be attributed to the devaluation of the object of anxiety, that is, the attribution of this personality to negative characteristics, which it actually may not possess.

Psychological protection by surrender

When a person, evaluating his achievements in life, feels an inner dissatisfaction, he resorts to such form of protection as surrender. It can be expressed by gerontolism or puerilism. For example, he can console himself with the fact that he is still ahead, or, on the contrary, blame his failures on age, they say, if I were young, everything would be different. By the way, this type also includes intropunitivnost (the opposite of extranunity), when the person blames himself for everything. This form is mainly used by people who have an inferiority complex.

Overprotection

Under the influence of deep feelings or stress, a person ceases to perceive all unpleasant information for himself and hears only good things. This psychological technique is called selection of information, the mechanism of denial or avoidance is somewhat similar to it, when the individual does not want to believe in what happened and denies it.

The so-called "protected façade" also refers to the mechanism of "super-protection", when a quiet person suddenly begins to behave unusually impudently and thus plunges others into shock. Devaluation of the threat, as well as the personalization of anxiety, are also methods of super-protection. And if in the first case a person pushes away the thought of the threat looming over him due to his actions (for example, smoking - as a consequence of the threat of lung cancer), in the second case, he is in his anxieties, which are often causeless, Looking for culprits from the outside. Over-protection also includes reinsurance (never fly on airplanes, eat healthy food, etc.), fixation, displacement, superconservatism, diflexion (the same as withdrawal into oneself), disconnection from reality, depersonalization (when a person is to Disconnect from the main problem, begin to do something insignificant, etc.), "dissecting the Gordian knot" (unconscious risk), symbolic or ritual actions (belief in signs), sublimation (reassessment of life values), etc.

By the way, people with a high level of psychological protection resort to completely different methods, such as optimism, clarity in thoughts, analysis, a realistic view of things, treating oneself with humor, etc. However, only the real person can treat problems like this. In psychology, despite the fact that any person who is endowed with consciousness, speech, creative abilities, etc. is perceived by the word "personality", nevertheless in everyday life speaking of a person, they mean those people who have willpower and character , Are extraordinary and strong people.

Protection through rationalization

To them, first of all, are self-defense installations, or as it is called in psychology "self-advocate". Probably everyone saw the film "The most charming and attractive". In it, the main character uses this form of psychological defense. Projection, distortion, substitution of reality, introjection, identification of oneself with a socially significant person, dilution of responsibility, etc. also refer to protection through rationalization. Sometimes the distortion of reality happens in the form of a time shift. When for a person everything that happened several years ago seems to be almost prehistoric. Further in the article we will try to state the essence of one of the mechanisms of psychological defense - projection. As noted above, protection in this case is carried out through rationalization.

What is a projection?

Projection in psychology is a way of transferring one's own feelings and secret desires to another animate or inanimate object. With the first, it seems, everything is clear, as for inanimate objects, this happens when a person endows objects or phenomena of nature with his sensations, for example, an alarming sea, a hostile sky, a weeping willow , etc. In the simplest Understanding a person, from time to time experiencing outbursts of cruelty, sees in other people cruelty, a liar thinks that everyone around him is deceiving. This is because a person does not accept these qualities, can not really assess himself as if from outside, but this constant conflict with himself leads to the fact that he unconsciously resorts to a projection that, like introjection, is a psychological defense. Freud believed that they are most often found in people with paranoid or hysteroid disorders. In this context, this term refers to the mechanism of subjective perception, which can be both positive and negative.

Negative and positive sides of the projection

When people feel awhile for a while, or they feel anxiety and fear, then some or other protective mechanisms start to work in their minds. For example, a projection. In psychology, this is a way of transferring one's own feelings and secret desires to another object. For example, a person who feels a secret desire to change his wife, but does not accept and even is ashamed of this, begins to design these desires for his wife. As a result, he begins to believe that it is not he, but the wife wants to change him. As a consequence, he continually rolls on scenes of jealousy, accuses her of all mortal sins, although this has no reason. Another example is the story of an aging beauty who, fearing old age, begins to see signs of aging in her contemporaries and express it in their face. In a word, the projection in psychology is a mechanism of subjective perception, which can be both positive and negative. The above examples point to the negative side of this mechanism.

On the other hand, the projection in psychology can have positive aspects. For example, a positive projection is empathy, which can increase the degree of mutual understanding between people. Empathy for someone in psychological science is called empathy. It is based on the same mechanism of projection, when a person, empathizing with another, projects on himself his feelings. As a result, he is able to better understand the state of this "other".

Conclusion

The main problems of personality psychology, which include the problem of her mental health, are closely interrelated with the mechanisms of psychological defense, to which the individual resorts (unconsciously) to maintain the integrity of his mental health.