Avoiding unconscious projection and transference

One of the commonest mistakes of the human life is the error of living through another person’s eyes.  What I mean is not so much seeking another’s approval—which is not good—but of viewing others as making errors that we ourselves are making and attributing our errors to them.

This is where the two terms of ‘projection’ and ‘transference’ come in.  When a person is unconscious of the pain that thwarts their life, they too easily cast what they don’t like and don’t accept about themselves onto those who have absolutely nothing to do with those problems that that person has.

Not only do they cast their own self-judgement and self-condemnation on others, so that others are judged and condemned even as they themselves stand judged and condemned, people who do this cast all their control away from themselves.  This is classical ‘external locus of control’.

And all this projection and transference occurs, typically, through the jettison of agency.  That is, unconsciously.  That ‘agency’ of a person’s personal power to be the master of their own destiny.

Whenever people are unconscious of their attitudes and behaviours that don’t abide in truth, they lose a part of themselves in not being true to themselves and truthful with others, even as you can see, they let others down in the process.  They seem either unaware of or they don’t care about the phenomenon—or their unawareness translates into lack of interest in caring.

Either way, when an individual checks-out of being intrinsically and socially conscious, it shows in more ways than one.

The trouble is, the thinking and acting in ways that projects their individual problems onto others—transferring individual responsibility to others in blame shifting—always boomerangs back upon the person themselves, even as they let others down and find themselves with a tarnished reputation.

Others are always scapegoated and gaslit in the process, but it’s the person who projects and transfers their own responsibility that is most obviously wrong.  And it’s witnessed almost universally, even if they do seem to get away with it a lot of the time.  It’s enough to know that a person who’s in the wrong is wrong, and nothing will vindicate them in the long run; but that takes faith in the shorter term. 

Avoiding unconscious projection and transference of one’s responsibilities onto another is about heeding the call of emotional intelligence, which is individual and social awareness converted into action.  In the simplest terms, owning our responsibility.

A person who intends on staying aware of the temptation to cast the blame on others has power over their management of their social situations at least as far as their own behaviour is concerned.

Such a person accepts that others may not heed the opportunities to honour truth, even though it’s hard being blamed for something that isn’t theirs to own (isn’t their fault).

So it is one thing to manage one’s own responsibilities, but it’s another thing entirely not panicking when others attack.

Repelling the slurs of others is something we typically do as a reflex action, yet the person who anticipates the projections of another has the advantage for themselves and those around them of personal control and social acumen.  Nobody else’s behaviour proves a threat.

The person who manipulates, gaslights, and scapegoats, etc, is judged in their judgement of the other and condemned in their condemnation of the victim.  Their own malevolent behaviour attests to their own aggression, and they stand without defence.

It’s important to live in the light of this truth.  When we see that another person’s malevolence is its own evidence, whether people readily see it as it is or not, there is vindication in the moment.

Better always to be blameless by being hyperaware of our own responsibility and to act in accord with that.