Projective Identification: How Our Unspoken Feelings Can Influence Relationships

Relationships can sometimes draw us into patterns of feeling and behaving that are difficult to understand, particularly when our reactions seem disproportionate to what is actually happening between us. We can find ourselves becoming uncomfortably defensive with one person, or responding with frustration when we had initially wanted to offer reassurance to another. At times, the interaction itself can seem to take on a power of its own, leaving both people feeling misunderstood and neither entirely sure how they even got there.

We often try to make sense of these experiences by looking at the individuals involved, considering their personalities, attachment histories or ways of communicating. While these are important, psychoanalytic thinking invites us to consider something less immediately obvious: how our internal emotional experiences can become part of what happens between us, influencing not only how we perceive another person but potentially how they come to feel and respond in our presence. One way of understanding this is through the concept of projective identification.

What Is Projective Identification?

Projective identification was first described by psychoanalyst Melanie Klein in 1946 and developed by Wilfred Bion and Thomas Ogden. Although the term may sound a bit technical or abstract, it describes something that may be very familiar in everyday relationships: the possibility that feelings we struggle to acknowledge within ourselves can become part of our interactions with other people.

To understand this, it helps to distinguish projective identification from the more familiar concept of projection. Projection involves attributing aspects of our own internal experience to someone else. For example, someone struggling with anger they find difficult to acknowledge might repeatedly perceive other people as hostile or critical, even when there is little evidence to suggest this is the case.

Projective identification goes a bit further. Rather than just perceiving another person as carrying an unwanted feeling, we may unconsciously interact with them in ways that encourage them to experience or respond to something of that emotional state themselves. The other person is not merely the subject of our assumptions; they become involved themselves in the relational process.

Klein originally described projective identification in terms of unconscious phantasy, where aspects of the self are experienced as being placed into another person. Later theorists explored how our feelings can influence the way we interact with others. Importantly, this is not necessarily something we do deliberately, and we may be entirely unaware of how our feelings are influencing the interaction.

How Projective Identification Can Appear in Relationships

If we think about someone who carries a longstanding expectation that people will eventually reject or abandon them, it could be likely that this expectation developed through earlier relationships in which care was inconsistent, criticism was frequent or emotional needs were difficult to express safely. As an adult, they may enter relationships wanting closeness while simultaneously anticipating disappointment.

They might frequently seek reassurance, question their partner's commitment or interpret ordinary moments of distance as evidence that something is wrong. Their partner, initially willing to offer reassurance, may gradually begin to feel frustrated, inadequate or unable to provide enough security. Eventually, they may withdraw, creating the very distance that the first person had feared.

From the outside, this could appear to be a relatively straightforward example of a self-fulfilling expectation. And indeed, not every interaction of this kind would constitute projective identification. What makes the psychoanalytic concept more specific is the possibility that an emotional experience which is difficult for one person to recognise or manage becomes something the other person feels drawn into experiencing or expressing.

The fear of rejection, for example, may become part of a wider interaction in which one person increasingly experiences the other as rejecting, while the other finds themselves feeling or behaving in ways they would not ordinarily recognise as their own.

This does not mean that one person has somehow transferred their feelings into another, or that the recipient has no independent emotional life. Both people bring their own histories, vulnerabilities and capacities to the relationship, and these influence how the interaction develops. It is also important to distinguish such processes from situations involving genuine mistreatment, where another person's withdrawal, criticism or hostility may be an accurate perception rather than an unconscious projection.

Thomas Ogden: What Happens Between Two People?

In his influential 1979 paper, On Projective Identification, Thomas Ogden developed the concept beyond its original emphasis on unconscious defence, exploring how it could also function as a means of communication and a potential pathway towards psychological change.

Ogden was interested in how feelings we struggle to recognise or manage within ourselves can influence our relationships with others. He suggested that projective identification is not just a way of distancing ourselves from difficult emotions, but can also be a way of communicating them without necessarily being aware that we are doing so. Through our interactions, another person may begin to experience something of what we have been unable to recognise or express ourselves.

For example, someone who grew up feeling helpless may not fully recognise how much this experience continues to influence their relationships. Yet they may find themselves repeatedly in situations where others begin to feel helpless too, perhaps feeling that nothing they say or do is ever quite enough to help.

Ogden recognised that projective identification could serve several purposes at once. It might help someone manage feelings that are difficult to tolerate, communicate something of their emotional experience to another person, and influence how the relationship develops. He also saw the potential for change when the other person could recognise what was happening and respond without becoming caught in the same familiar pattern.

Rather than viewing projective identification simply as a psychological defence, Ogden's work encourages us to pay attention to what happens between people, and what those interactions might tell us about feelings that have been difficult to understand or put into words.

Projective Identification in Therapy: Recognising What Cannot Yet Be Said

Therapy can be a useful place to explore these patterns, as part of the work involves paying attention not only to what someone says, but also to what happens within the relationship between therapist and client.

An example of this could be that someone who has experienced a great deal of criticism may come into therapy expecting to be judged or to get something wrong. They might apologise frequently, minimise their experiences or interpret an ordinary question as a sign of disapproval. The therapist, in turn, may notice themselves feeling an unusual need to reassure the client or be particularly careful with their words. Exploring these responses can help us understand how earlier experiences continue to influence present relationships.

Of course, this doesn't mean that everything a therapist feels comes from the client. Therapists bring their own experiences and emotional responses into the room too, and recognising these is an important part of the work.

Wilfred Bion's concept of containment is relevant here. He explored how overwhelming emotions can become easier to understand when another person is able to receive and think about them without becoming overwhelmed themselves. Ogden developed these ideas further, considering how responding differently to difficult feelings might interrupt familiar relational patterns and create opportunities for change.

In therapy, this might mean that an expectation of criticism is met with curiosity rather than judgement, or that feelings of helplessness can be explored without either person becoming overwhelmed. Rather than simply offering reassurance, the therapist can help create an opportunity for someone to experience a familiar situation differently. Over time, this may begin to change how they understand their feelings, relate to others and see themselves.

Recognising the Pattern Without Assigning Blame

One of the difficulties with psychoanalytic concepts is that they can become ways of explaining another person's behaviour while overlooking our own contribution to an interaction. Projective identification is particularly vulnerable to this, because it can be tempting to assume that if someone makes us feel angry, inadequate or helpless, those feelings must somehow belong to them.

Yet this would miss much of the relational complexity that Ogden was attempting to describe. The feelings experienced by the recipient are their own, even when they have been influenced by the interaction, and the process cannot be understood independently of the particular relationship in which it occurs.

There is also a distinction between understanding why a relational pattern develops and excusing behaviour that causes harm. Recognising that someone fears abandonment does not make their controlling behaviour acceptable, just as understanding another person's emotional history does not mean we must take responsibility for managing their feelings.

The usefulness of the concept lies less in identifying who is projecting what, and more in becoming curious about the emotional expectations, responses and interactions that may

be keeping a particular pattern in place.

Can We Respond Differently?

Our earlier relationships influence what we come to expect from others, including how comfortable we feel expressing anger, asking for reassurance, being vulnerable or managing disagreement. When these expectations have developed over many years, they can become so familiar that we may not recognise how much they continue to influence our responses to others.

Projective identification offers one way of understanding how these earlier experiences can become part of our present relationships, and why recognising a pattern doesn't necessarily mean we can easily change it.

What I find particularly interesting about Ogden's work is his recognition that these patterns don't have to continue indefinitely; when difficult feelings can be acknowledged and responded to differently, we may begin to question some of our long-held expectations about ourselves and others.

This doesn't mean we need to analyse every uncomfortable interaction or assume that all relationship difficulties have an unconscious explanation. Sometimes frustration is simply frustration, and sometimes another person's behaviour really is difficult. But when we find ourselves returning to familiar patterns, it can be worth considering not only what we are feeling, but also how we might be contributing to what happens in the space between us.

Understanding these patterns may not immediately change them, but it can give us more room to recognise our responses, consider those of others and gradually find different ways of relating.