Projective Identification

This clear and thoughtful book by Robert Waska provides an accessible introduction to Projective Identification and the role it plays in internal and external life. Waska explores how Projective Identification is the foundation for much of psychic life, driving internal phantasy, influencing interpersonal behavior, and contributing to the transference/countertransference environment. This book contains several case studies which explore and expand on the concepts described and which demonstrate how a psychotherapist can understand, contain, and interpret the states patients seek help with. Additionally, this book introduces a clinical technique which is intended to tame the underlying emotional conflicts. Part of the popular Routledge Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis series, this book will be essential to students of psychoanalysis, as well as academics and practitioners familiarising themselves with Projective Identification in a clinical setting.

In this book Elizabeth Spillius and Edna O'Shaughnessy explore the development of the concept of projective identification, which had important antecedents in the work of Freud and others, but was given a specific name and definition by Melanie Klein. They describe Klein's published and unpublished views on the topic, and then consider the way the concept has been variously described, evolved, accepted, rejected and modified by analysts of different schools of thought and in various locations – Britain, Western Europe, North America and Latin America. The authors believe that this unusually widespread interest in a particular concept and its varied ‘fate’ has occurred not only because of beliefs about its clinical usefulness in the psychoanalytic setting but also because projective identification is a universal aspect of human interaction and communication. Projective Identification: The Fate of a Concept will appeal to any psychoanalyst or psychotherapist who uses the ideas of transference and counter-transference, as well as to academics wanting further insight into the evolution of this concept as it moves between different cultures and countries.

This book focuses on all aspects of projection and identification, and addresses the problems and perplexities of projective identification. It is based on the First Conference of the Sigmund Freud Center of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

An examination of projective identification and its clinical uses from a Kleinian perspective. The author puts forward the hypothesis that identification is the patient's way of mastering significant trauma.

Seeking to mediate between the "classical" view of countertransference as a neurotic impediment to the treatment process and the more recent "totalist" perspective, which assumes that the therapist's emotional response necessarily reveals something about the patient, Tansey and Burke stake out a thoughtful middle ground. They submit that the therapist's utilization of adequately processed countertransference reactions is in fact integral to treatment success, while arguing against the totalist assumption that the therapist's emotional to the patient must be revelatory in a direct and immediate way.

In this landmark work on object relations, Dr. Jill Savage Scharff addresses the psychological processes of projective and introjective identification and countertransference. She carefully traces the debates about projective identification_the neurotic versus psychotic arguments and the intrapsychic versus interpersonal views. She holds that disagreements stem from unrecognized shifts in meaning of the term identification and unacknowledged differences of opinion as to where the identification takes place. For her, projective identification is an umbrella term for phenomena that can affect the self, the object inside the self, and the external object. Dr. Scharff brings fresh insight to the neglected concept of introjective identification and a new understanding of the therapeutic action of projective and introjective identification. The book's unique distinction is in the author's integration of object relations theory and practice, particularly with regard to the handling of countertransference. The clinical material is written in the vivid and personally candid style that is a hallmark of her work. Dr. Scharff demonstrates how to understand and utilize projective and introjective identification, making this work indispensable for every dynamically oriented therapist.

Misogyny, Projective Identification, and Mentalization looks at how the psychoanalytic concepts of projective identification and mentalization may explain the construction of society and how they have enabled misogyny to be expressed in social, political, and institutional settings. Karyne E. Messina explores how misogyny has affected the perception and treatment of women through analysis of a range of examples of individual women and groups. The first part explores projective identification as a mechanism for the suppression of women, looking at the origins of the concept in psychoanalysis and its expansion. The author examines the story of Clara Thompson as an example, arguing that her virtual disappearance from the history of psychiatry and psychoanalysis itself is a telling example of this process at work. The second part of the book uses four examples of individuals, including the recent election loss by Hillary Clinton in 2016, to show that projective identification can (particularly in political and cultural settings) overtake and motivate groups as well as individuals, and lead to violence, atrocity, humiliation, and dismissal of and against women. Part three then features case studies of four groups of women from the 20th century, including victims of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, showing how projective identification against groups has occurred. With specific reference to the erasure of women’s contributions in society, both individually and collectively, and the trauma that arises from the many effects of regarding women as a group as "less" or "other", this is a book which sets a new agenda for understanding how misogyny is expressed socially. Misogyny, Projective Identification, and Mentalization will be of interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists as well as scholars of politics, gender, and cultural studies.

How do Kleinians work with projective identification? The concept of projective identification, first introduced by Melanie Klein in 1946, has been widely studied by psychoanalysts of different persuasions. However, these explorations have neglected to show what Kleinians actually do with the projective identification phenomenon in their daily casework. Projective Identification in the Clinical Setting presents a detailed study of Kleinian literature, setting a background of understanding for the day-to-day analytic atmosphere in which projective identification takes place. Extensive clinical material illustrates issues clearly identified for clinical practice, including: * the ways projective identification occurs within various psychological constellations; * the role of the analyst in countertransference experiences; * work with difficult patients who experience life within a paranoid or psychotic framework; * the path of projective identification and pathological greed. This comprehensive account of Kleinian literature on projective identification and wealth of clinical material provide a powerful and clear account of clinical practice around projective identification that all practitioners, psychoanalytic psychotherapists and trainees will benefit from reading. Robert Waska has worked in the field of psychology for the last twenty-five years. Certified as a psychoanalyst and psychoanalytic psychotherapist from the Institute of Psychoanalytic Studies, Dr Waska maintains a full-time private practice in San Francisco and Marin County.