From The Daily Dialogue
From The Daily Dialogue
Broadcast of 6/2/98
Subject: [DailyDialogue #152] Projection
Projection
"When you project:
You automatically divert responsibility for wrongdoing away from yourself.
You accuse others of your own unacceptable feelings or motivations.
You also discover your weaknesses in others and often hate them for it."
David Viscott, MD. We tend to blame another when we're upset or frustrated. When one habitually diverts responsibility for one's own mistakes or frustrations on others, this blaming is called projection. Projecting is a defense because it helps one avoid unpleasant feelings of guilt and anxiety. "Why should I feel guilty when it's all your fault?"
Partners are a most convenient target of our projection. This partly because they are handy and partly because we have noticed their mistakes and made a mental list of their shortcomings. People in authority are another convenient target.
It's hard to maintain the fiction of projection when we practice dialogue. We catch ourselves in our fiction as we disclose our thoughts and feelings and hear them mirrored flatly by our partner.
Experiment: Dialogue with your partner about something you've been blaming her for. Search for evidence of a pattern of projection in your thoughts.
Affirmation: We are discovering rigorous honesty together. The Daily Dialogue is published each day of 1998 by e-mail. Copyright 1998, Eddy Brame and Marty Crouch, All rights reserved. To share this with a friend, encourage them to subscribe by visiting our website at http://dailydialogue.com/. You may also unsubscribe at the website.
