Digesting Jung: Food for the Journey - Inner City Books

30 Reality As We Know It
suspicious mate actually has an unconscious desire for another
partner, which secret wish is projected onto the other.
On the whole, it only becomes necessary to withdraw projections
when our expectations of others are frustrated. If there is no obvious
disparity between what we expect, or imagine to be true, and
the reality we experience, then there is no need to speak of projection
at all. Let sleeping dogs lie, as long as they will.
Also on the positive side, it must be said that projection can constellate
unrealized or dormant qualities in another person. Parental
expectations notoriously lead one astray, but they can also be the
stimulus to explore one’s potential. Many a grown man or woman
owes his or her accomplishments to the urgings of a prescient
friend or lover. As long as power over the other, or the projection of
one’s own unlived life, is not lurking in the shadows, no harm is
done. Indeed, in such cases it is better to speak not of projection but
of genuine human relationship.
Where love reigns, there is no will to power; and where
the will to power is paramount, love is lacking. 18
18 Two Essays on Analytic Psychology, CW 7, par. 78..