A second and closer look at Projection:

        The most difficult aspect in training in psychoanalysis is to get the candidate to translate his findings in the patient's association into therapeutic insights. Freud's clinical cases demonstrate this point well. He did not offer any therapeutic gestures derived from his great discoveries in the psychodynamics of his patients. Possibly because he did not know then how to do that. Therefore, it is imperative Freud's most important findings was projection. It is rather impossible to initiate a dialogue with the other (interpersonal relation) without at least a period of projection. To understand the other, you have to do some projection as a start, and only as start, and then it is an open field of possibilities of understanding or misunderstanding. 

                                             -----------------------------

        I have good reason to get back to the concept of Projection to present some aspects that were dismissed because the concepts of defense mechanisms are no longer in focus. They were -in the sixties of the last century- and were great psychoanalytic theoretical advancements that took us forward to the notion of the "schools". It was the main and first concept that analysts used to explain paranoia.... leading to identifying psychical conditions by the dominant defense mechanism in it (obsession: splitting etc.). In other words: psychoanalysis, fifty years ago, was dealing with conditions that had characteristics and symptoms, revealing some psychical manifestations related to 'defenses' against the unconscious. Presently, it deals with disorders not disease entities. Psychopathologies that we presently encounter clinically make the old concept of 'defense mechanisms' redundant. Yet, we should look closer at what we are abandoning, because there is more to them than what meets the present eye. 

        Projection was the mechanism of paranoia 'par excellence' that gave a good perspective to the difference between denying an unconscious wish by projecting it on the other (he wants to seduce my wife denying his wish for his wife to be seduced) and to detect the subject's own intention. Projection and paranoia have not disappeared, but "projection" has lost its psychoanalytic meaning and function and is rarely detected. The literature that leads to neglecting the concept of projection ignored two central issues in projection: the narcissistic nature of the projective relationship, and the projective nature of a narcissistic relationships.  The paranoid person is narcissistic, and the narcissist (the average person) relates paranoically to his narcissistic objects (the 'projected' part of his-self in the encounter).  This is a reason to go back to the mechanism of projection since we know now that there is no interpersonal relationship that does not have some paranoid projection in it. We should also differentiate between projection as just an initiation of a relationship and as a personal way of relating..period. Since we all do some projecting in our daily life and the literature is well supplied with works on the subject I will try to move to the social aspect of projection because in many cases it is used consciously to deal with group narcissism. 

        Projection: The Social Phenomenon: 

 I am reading a book by T. Dicks entitled Churchill and Orwell about their views during the Second World War in regard to the war. The detailed account of the mental set and psychological reactions of those two insightful persons to the events reveal that it is impossible for a social phenomenon (groups or masses) to take hold of a group or a nation without projection because it encompasses all other different psychological reaction that come individually. The masses do project first and then react in their own individual ways. What attracted my attention to this rarely considered phenomenon is our reaction to change in projection. I was discussing the situation in the Kraimian  war with a well-informed lady whom I agreed with regarding Putin's position and management of the war. Suddenly she said how much of what was said about Hitler could be wrong as the Western media is doing with Putin now. My first reaction was: no way... Hitler was mentally disturbed. But after a short while I thought of Churchill and how we thought of him as genius when in fact the man was not that giant. I remember as a kid that this is what my father said about him: a British Giant. 

        The issue is that in projecting our own wishes onto others we get in return the narcissism that we lose by choosing as our substitute. Thus, projection becomes the psychical mechanism that preserves narcissism when the person is not in a predicable situation, or relationship.  In the case of individual relationships projection is managiable. The analyst has a choice (based on the kind of patient he treats) to replace projection with reality or let the fading away of projection allow reality to do the job. In group situations it is not possible to replace fantasy with reality because reality loses its personal quality and fantasy becomes the will of the masses. The leader keeps the sense of narcissism active because