Digesting Jung: Food for the Journey - Inner City Books

Reality As We Know It 29
projection is completely automatic and unintentional. Our eyes
catch another’s across a crowded room and we are smitten, head
over heels. Or we are immediately repelled by what we “see.” We
may know nothing about that person; in fact the less we know the
easier it is to project. We fill the void with ourselves. Active projection,
also called empathy, occurs when you feel yourself into the
other’s shoes by imagining what he or she is going through. This is
a positive concomitant of most close friendships.
There is a thin line between empathy and identification. Identification
presupposes no separation between subject and object, no
difference between me and the other person. We are two peas in a
pod. What is good for me must be good for him—or her. Many relationships
run aground on this mistaken notion. It is the motivation
for much well-meaning advice to others, and the premise of any
therapeutic system relying on suggestion or adaptation to collectively
sanctioned behavior and ideals.
In close relationships, identification is as common as potatoes.
When you identify with another person, your emotional well-being
is intimately linked with the mood of that person and his or her attitude
toward you. Neither can make a move without double-thinking
the effect on the other, which automatically inhibits the selfexpression
of both. Such a relationship is psychologically no different
from that between parent and child, nor is it easy to tell, at any
given time, who is parent and who is child.
Projection, if it doesn’t go as far as identification, is actually
quite useful in terms of self-knowledge. When we assume something
about another person and then discover this to be an illusion,
we are obliged to realize that the world and those in it are not our
own creation. If we are reflective, we can learn something about
ourselves. This is called withdrawing projections—bringing them
home, so to speak.
A common example of projection is that of a husband or wife
who suspects the other of an illicit affair. Of course this may be a
true perception, but if it is unfounded in reality it may be that the