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Why We Make Others Feel Bad: understanding projective identification · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Hello everyone. Today we decided we would go back to
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: some core ideas that are psychoanalytic and also inform Jungian work.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: Today we're going to talk about projective identification. Now some
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: of you may think that that's maybe an obscure clinical term,
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: but as we unpack it, I think you'll come to
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: appreciate that it is something that is much more common
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: than we realize. Sometimes we generate this kind of behavior.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: Sometimes we are subject to it. By understanding how this works,
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: we can become more skillful at navigating this kind of
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: provocative defense. Melanie Klein is the one who noticed this
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: based on infant observations. And in a nutshell, What she
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: observed is that infants will actually project certain material into
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: the mother as a way of trying to contain the
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: intensity of their own growing psychological life. And mothers will
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: often report feeling sweeps of intense primal feelings. As we grow,
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: sometimes as adults, we will fall down into that primal
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: level of consciousness and we'll find ourselves as adults doing
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: a similar thing, projecting a feeling into someone else and
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: then subtly provoking that person to demonstrate the feeling. So
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: that's what we're going to jump into today. Great.
• 2:27
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• 2:31
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  Speaker 3: That sounds like that's going to be an exciting, fun time, Lisa.
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: What I'm aware of here is that on many levels
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: and in many ways, we've started out today talking about community.
• 4:07
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  Speaker 2: If you want to know more about my women's retreat,
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: you can go to my website, lisamarchiano.com.
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And with Dream School, we have in-person meetings. Each
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• 4:34
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• 4:40
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• 4:42
  Speaker 3: So jumping back into projected identification.
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: What... Where I went after your introduction, Joseph, is what
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: it is essentially is communication. And I think everybody has
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: had experiences of nonverbal communication. Mothers and babies, certainly every
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: mother has had that experience. And we also, people talk
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: all the time about, oh, I just had a sense
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: that so-and-so wanted this or somebody needed something or whatever
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: it is. And for Jung, Jung posited communication at the
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: unconscious to unconscious level. Projective identification has a real interactional
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: component of, I want you, whoever the you is, to
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: feel something, to do something, to empathize with me, to
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: pick up my feelings to carry something for me. But
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: the reality of unconscious to unconscious communication, I think is
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: quite well established in everyone's experience and in many a theory.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: So why don't we start by trying to define projective identification?
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Because I don't think we've really done that yet. So Deb,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: what do you got?
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: Well, it is part where I start is with the
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: idea that it's part of a theory of early, early
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: development called object relations. And it's one component of that
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: where how our interaction with others is internalized. So what
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: does a baby, for example, make of having to wait
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: for mom? The baby wakes up, the baby's hungry, and
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: mom takes five minutes to get there. or even is
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: there right away. That baby has its own internal experience
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: of what that weight is like. It's not a big deal,
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: or it is a big deal. The baby has feelings
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: of frustration, let's say. So we make of experience something
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: of our own, and then we communicate that to, in
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: this case, the mother. And it's unconscious to unconscious communication.
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: But we have a way, of course, from early, early
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: on of getting our feelings across to another person. And
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: that exerts a pull on the other person. So it
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: may exert the pull on the mother to realize that
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: this baby, when he wakes up, is incredibly hungry right
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: away and she needs to really be right there immediately.
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: So the baby has affected the mother with his representation
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: of emotional experience that then gets communicated back to the
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: mother and influences the mother's behavior.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: I'm going to try something here from Thomas Ogden, which
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Nancy McWilliams quotes. So this is a little pithier maybe.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: But it's a hard concept to understand, so I think
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: it's important that we set this up at the outset.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: So Ogden writes, in projective identification, not only does the
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: patient view the therapist in a distorted way that is
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: determined by the patient's past object relations, in addition, pressure
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: is exerted on the therapist to experience himself in a
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: way that is congruent with a patient's unconscious fantasy. So
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: let me try translating that into English. We're talking about projection.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: We're talking about what we project on someone else. So
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: that's a fairly familiar term to us. If we felt
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: abandoned by our parents, we might project onto our partner
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: that he's going to abandon us. The next part of it,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: the identification, is that the person who is receiving the
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: projection feels an unconscious pull to behave in the way
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: that matches the projection. So that's as sharp as I
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: can get it, I think.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that is a parallel with very, very early experience.
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: It spirals up and becomes more sophisticated, but we learn
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: that we have emotional experiences from day one, and they
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: become templates for interaction. So to use your example, Lisa,
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: if a child felt abandoned or left alone too much,
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: then when that person's partner is 15 minutes late, it
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: may generate feelings of, oh my God, he doesn't care
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: about me. I feel abandoned. I've dismissed, not cared about,
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: et cetera. And when that person gets there, he or
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: she may be induced to feel a particular guilt or
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: remorse or regret in order to be in alignment with
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: the projection of abandonment.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: But he also might be induced not to feel remorse,
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: but to feel like annoyance, like he wants to get
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: away from the person. So that, you know, it has
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: a self-fulfilling prophecy quality to it where you induce the
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: other person to do the thing that you are worried
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: that they'll do. I mean, I remember when I first
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: learned about projective identification in graduate school, I was like, oh...
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Like suddenly all these things made sense. It was like, yeah,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: you know, I've done that. And I've been on the
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: other end of that. Like we can make others behave
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: in the way that we are afraid they will behave.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: And as analysts, we see this again and again and again.
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And sometimes people feel and say, you know, I
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: really feel manipulated. by him or her, but what's important
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  Speaker 4: to know about projective identification is that it is unconscious.
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  Speaker 4: It's not a conscious decision to, you know, I'm going
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: to get him to invite me out to dinner. It
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: is automatic, and it comes straight from the unconscious.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: And the difference between projection and projective identification is that
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: projection can happen without any interpersonal relationship. So therefore, you
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: can project things onto movie stars, onto your neighbor, onto
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  Speaker 3: somebody that you just caught a glimpse of in the store.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: And the experience stays really inside of you. In that way,
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: Jung would say the psyche is trying to get you
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: to be aware of something through the act of projection.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: Projective identification, as we were just saying, can really only
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: happen in a relationship that we are pulling somebody into
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: what we would call an enactment. Now, the early analysts
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: generally assumed that the enactment had something to do with
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: early childhood dynamics between the child and the primary caregiver.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: So there's different theories as to why that happens. One
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  Speaker 3: very basic idea is that we are comforted by re-experiencing
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: our early childhood dynamics even if they were fraught because
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: it still was an attachment. So we will sometimes be
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: attracted to people who mistreat us perhaps in the way
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: that our parents mistreated us because it is something that's
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: familiar and there's a safety in what is known.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very well put, Joseph.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: Now when adults are still doing that, in their lives,
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: it may be that they do it infrequently when they're
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: put under massive amounts of stress. And this is true
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: for any of us. If you've ever been in a
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: car accident, you know, and the next few hours afterwards,
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: you find yourself saying things or doing things that just
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: were highly unusual. But that's often because we've been cast
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: backwards in time because of the stress. There may be
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: other circumstances where we We behave in ways that are
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: not familiar to ourselves. But when we become very, very young,
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: one of the things that we are reaching for is
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: a state of oceanic union with another person, which sometimes
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: is called an ouroboric relationship with someone. The Freudians said
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: this was a pre-Oedipal stage. It's very, very early. And
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: so the psyche wants the safety and connection of that
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: oceanic merging with another person. And in that way, the
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: traits of the distressed person becomes distributed in the oceanic field.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: So there is no clear sense of where I am
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: and where you are. And of course, this is probably
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: the experience that a child has, an infant has.
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: One of the hypotheses about that very early experience of
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: the infant and the infant's lack of ability to really,
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: of course there's no ego yet, so there's no sense
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: of I'm here and you're there and we're two separate people.
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: So one of the early object relations theorists who really
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: lifted up projective identification into the psychological realm was Melanie Klein,
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: a British analyst. She was Austrian and moved to England
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: and worked there. And she theorized that a baby's first
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: orientation is what she called the paranoid schizoid position, which
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: sounds pretty sort of formal and strange. But what the
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: infant could do was simply to have two separate feeling
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: level categories of what is good and what is bad.
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: And it got, you know, sort of shortened into the
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: good breasts and the bad breasts. So when the baby
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: is hungry and mom appears to feed, that is good.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: When mom does not appear or the baby is uncomfortable
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: in some way, that is bad. and that those two
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: things are very, very separate realities for the baby. This
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: stage is succeeded, she thought, in the latter part of
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: the baby's first year of life by what she called
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: the depressive position, which is the dawning realization that mom
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: is one and the same person all the time. But
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: sometimes I am gratified and sometimes I am not. And
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: that there's a stage of kind of mourning for that
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: previous stage of the good mother that gratifies me. Whatever
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: I want and whatever I need comes from the outside
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: from some good source. And then there is something separate
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: that is distressing or bad. No, there's an other person here.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: So there's the movement from that oceanic blending eventually into, oh,
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: there's a me and there's a you. And so it
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: finally becomes a daya. It goes from the unos mundus
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: into the ego and other state, which is developmentally normal.
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: Yes. I'm smiling because of what you just said of
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: there's a you. And part of us, I think, for
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: our whole lives goes, no, no. damn, you know, you
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: don't always match up with exactly what I want. There
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: is no you who is perfect. We're going to be
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: disappointed and loving and receive love. And, you know, all
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: of the other shades of interaction that go along with
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: human beings.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: Now, this expectation in the Unus Mundus and the blended
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: state is something that is ubiquitous on social media. I mean,
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: if you go on TikTok or Instagram, you're going to
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: see just hosts of TikTok stars that will talk about
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: having a date. She had a date with a guy
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: and that if he doesn't meet her needs, he is out.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: He is just worth nothing. He better, you know, treat
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: me like a queen. which is also saying, treat me
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: like a baby, where any need that I have, this
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: person is going to instantly meet. And if this person
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: doesn't make me instantly happy, they are out the door.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: And that's part of that splitting. Either my frustrations and
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: needs are going to be met, or the person is
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: bad in some fashion, and I'm not going to be
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: okay until I get somebody who is always going to
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: be the good breast for me.
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: Gratifying, right. That other person should be gratifying.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: At all times. And that's the thing is there's no
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: tolerance for frustration in the relationship. And when we're around
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: any adult who can't tolerate a reasonable amount of frustration,
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: we know that they're in that very early stage place
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: and they're looking for the comfort of a merged relationship.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: And so projective identification is considered to be, uh, you know,
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: a fairly primitive defense in the language of, of psychoanalysis. So,
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: you know, it's kind of classically thought of as sort
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: of a borderline defense, uh, you know, a not very
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: advanced defense, like for example, intellectualization is a much more
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: sophisticated defense. But I would say we probably all engage
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: in projective identification a lot of the time. So I'm
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: not really with the program that this is only something
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: that happens if you're not a well-established, you know, psychologically...
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: refined person. We can all do this. And it actually
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: brings to mind something that you were just saying, Joseph,
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: about people in social media. Edward Edinger, a Jungian analyst,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: has this wonderful thing that he says that I just
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: think it's so brilliant. And I'm only paraphrasing it, but
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: he says something like, we only look to get from
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: others what we do not give ourselves. And I think
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: that this is really in the spirit of projective identification, right?
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: So if you are very anxious, for example, about, let's say,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: let's say you're a young person about to graduate from
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: college and you're very, very anxious about your career and
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: you haven't really gotten your feet up under you. You
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: haven't maybe taken advantage of some of the things that
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: you might have taken advantage of. You don't know what
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: you want to do. You feel lost. You feel scared.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: you know, one of the things you could do in
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: that situation is say, right, well, I better figure my
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: stuff out. Let me go to the career center. Let
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: me take stock of my strengths and weaknesses. Let me
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: come up with a plan. But if you're feeling rather
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: more dysregulated than that, you might engage in projective identification.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: You know, for example, you might lash out, you know,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: at someone and And what you want to do in
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: that sense is you're really trying to induce in the
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: other person the distress that you're feeling. That's where it
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: goes back to like this is one of you said earlier,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: projective identification is really just communication.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: So, you know, you don't have the ability to really say, well, gosh,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: I am feeling really terrified. I need to really take
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: that on board and maybe I can ask for empathy.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: It's like too much. It's too overwhelming.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: So instead, you revert to, let me see if I
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: can make you feel as distressed as I feel. And
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: so you might lash out at your parents, for example,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: and why didn't you send me to a different college? Or,
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: you know, why can't you buy me an apartment or
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: something like that? You know, sort of really, really kind
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: of itching for a fight. I mean, it might be
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: something completely absurd, like, you know, don't you realize, you know,
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: how How, you know, how expensive living, the cost of
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: living is, you know, and so you're kind of lashing
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: out at someone, really trying to, unconsciously, the aim is,
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: let me induce you into having this big reaction. So
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: it's like an invitation to dance.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: And let me induce you into feeling like I feel. Yeah.
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: Now we both feel that way. And just as you
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: said before, Joseph, I mean, I think part of it
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: is like we have, you know, the reaction is like,
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: oh my God, let me fix it. And the other
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: reaction is, you know, this person is being a pain
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: in the tail and we're going to have a fight.
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: People who are partners in life, you know, married couples,
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: for example, you know, often get into this All the time.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: Oh, yes.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: All the time.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: You know, let me just go back to my example
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: for one minute because I didn't get it quite right
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: and I really want to peg it in. So in
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: this case, right, the young person is making the parents feel,
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: you know, his distress, right? So there's that level of communication.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: But the young person also wants to blame the parents
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: for what is wrong in his life.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: Ah, okay.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: And so if he can pick a fight with his
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: parents and get them to react as, you know, eventually
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: if you've got a screaming kid blaming you for their
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: everything is wrong, you're going to be like, wait a minute.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: You know, this is your responsibility and you need to, right?
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: And then you've become the thing that your kid– It's
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: like your kid has put you in that role. You're this,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: you're this parent who's, who's to blame for everything wrong
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: in my life. And then eventually if, you know, if
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: there's enough and the person, you know, the parent can't
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: like kind of white knuckle it, the parent becomes the bad, oppressive,
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: withholding parents that the kid is trying to turn them into.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: And then what's happened in that little, in that little
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: dynamic is, is that young person does not have to
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: take responsibility for his life because he's created a story
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: where it's all his parents' fault, and now they've acted
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: that out.
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: It's a great strategy, isn't it?
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: It's really devilish.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: If the parent or the spouse that you is to
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: blame for how I feel And there's a negative, defensive,
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: angry reaction. See, you proved my point. Because here you
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: are being difficult and refusing to understand me. And the
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: parent is refusing to take responsibility. See, I'm right. It
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: is your fault.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: And one of the clues that we can see with
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: projective identification is those relational dynamics will show up in
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: many different places. If we've lived long enough, I seem
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: to get fired after two years, and the same complaints
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: come my way, or my relationships only last six months,
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: and I'm always feeling this way over and over again.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: And so we're often not terribly creative in this unconscious way.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: There's a very specific content that's very hard for us
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: to hold on to, So we have a tendency to
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: slip that same content over to the other person. So
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: let's say that anger, for whatever reason, was very dangerous
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: for a child to hold when they're young. Maybe the
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: parents were brutally savage towards the child if they evidenced
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: any anger. So the anger really falls out of memory.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: And when that person winds up feeling comfortable or in
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: a relationship, sooner or later, that anger is going to
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: get inserted into the people around, and then it'll get
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: pulled forward, yanked forward. This happens with passive-aggressive personality types.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: The passive-aggressive person often has no sense of their own
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: anger about something, and so they'll behave in ways that
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: induce anger in other people, and then distance themselves because
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: the other person is so unpleasant and they feel that
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: they're being mistreated in some way. So of course the
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: healing comes from recognizing what it is that we are
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: disowning and to actually have a conscious experience of the
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: thing that we keep inducing in other people.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: And Joseph, I'm thinking based on what you just said,
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: you know, we talked about how it's a communication. Yes.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: But I think it's also a way of managing feelings
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: that feel too big and overwhelming. So you were talking
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: about anger. It's like, like putting it in someone else
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: and having them become angry. That's like, that's like a
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: way of like, okay, well, I dealt with my anger.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: You're doing it for me. Or in the little made
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: up vignette that I shared, it's like, I feel too
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: scared about my future. And instead of dealing with that,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: I want to externalize it and make it someone else's fault.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: And so it is a way of, you know, kind
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: of like eliciting empathy in a way or connection. But
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: it also is a way of not feeling our feelings,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: like sort of having someone else do it for us.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: The example you gave of the parent-child dynamic is complicated
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: because I can imagine several different dynamics happening there, some
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: of which are developmental, some of which may have to
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: do with an intense sense of stress. So I'm still
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: wondering how I imagine, what is the intolerable emotion that
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: the child is experiencing that they're pushing into the other person?
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: And I'm wondering if it's powerlessness, that the child feels.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Powerless yeah yeah yeah.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: And then the parents have the sense that they're powerless
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: like nothing i say works every bit of advice is
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: rejected i have there's nothing i can do to help
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: help my son finally you know get launched and so
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: the parents how they um experience the helplessness can sound
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: different topically from the young person the underlying strata there's
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: a There's a similarity of feeling that's being pushed around.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: That's my understanding of it. The idea. of being provocative
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: can have a lot of other developmental experiments that are
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: happening in young people in terms of learning how to
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: be powerful and dominating and trying out new strategies of
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: getting your needs met.
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: I think the flip side of the powerlessness is rage.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: You know, little infants can be just rageful. It's not
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: conscious enough to be angry of, you know, I wanted
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: that cookie and you won't give it to me, so
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: I'm mad. It is much more primal and much more basic.
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: And that rage and powerlessness are often heads and tails
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: of the same coin. You know, to go back to
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: your example, Lisa, of, you know, many, many, a college
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: senior or high school senior of like, I have to
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: get out into the big wide world and I don't
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: know if I can do it. And I feel powerless
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: and I feel rageful. I feel that sense of primal
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: frustration and, and my need isn't being met. And if
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: I can put part of it into a parent or
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: someone else, I've been able to locate it elsewhere. It's
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: not in me anymore. It's not a real solution, but emotionally, obviously,
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: it works at least temporarily.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: But if it was working, then the child would suddenly
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: become calmer. And if the parent and the child are
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: still raging at each other, then it wasn't rage that
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: was passed over. So sometimes, and we've all had this experience,
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: having a friend or acquaintance induce anger in us. And
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: if we express the anger, the other person becomes very,
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: very peaceful and very calm. And will often then accuse
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: us of being a chronically angry person. And maybe they need...
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: You know, we need some help, you know, getting over
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: that and maybe need to go to therapy, something like that.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: So when it's all out in the front, when both,
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: you know, parents and the kids have their AK-47s firing
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: at each other, it doesn't seem like the anger and
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: aggression is the thing that's being suppressed.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to toss out another example. So let's
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: say that you are with someone that you worry doesn't
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: like you very much. And they've kind of made it
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: clear that they don't like you. And you have to
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: spend time. Oh, I don't know. Let's say you're both
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: assigned to kitchen duty for your book club. And I'm
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: just totally making this up. So there you are in
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: the kitchen together. You guys have to make the coffee
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: and put the cookies out or whatever. And you feel
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: a little bit on the back foot because, you know,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: this person doesn't like you. And there's just subtle things
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: that this person does the way she looks at you
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: or don't put that there. And what you find is
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: that you drop the plate of cookies.
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: So it's like what's being projected on you is that
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: you're incompetent. And then you actually become kind of tied
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: up and gummed up and you're doing things like dropping
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: the cookies. Has that ever happened to you?
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: It's happened to me.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: So that's projective identification too, right? Where you know how
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: the other person is perceiving you and you're thinking, I'm
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: not incompetent, but somehow there's a subtle feel that gets created.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: And sometimes when I'm talking to an Alizands about this,
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: I'll be like, you know, it's very much like a
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: spell gets cast. It's like the other person has a
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: magic wand and turns you into something that you're actually not.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Like you're not a Butterfinger. Like you don't just routinely
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: drop plates of cookies. But something about the emotional field,
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: it's like a spell has been cast and suddenly you're
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: dropping the cookies.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: This is very subtle and often if we're caught in it,
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: it's kind of slipped in without our noticing it. And
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: then we're suddenly find ourselves dropping the cookie and we're like,
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: why did that happen? So I'll give a clinical example.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: Many years ago, I had a brilliant scientist, brilliant scientist
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: in analysis who had a lot of childhood trauma and
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: an awful lot of struggle. And it created this sense
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: of inferiority inside of him. Although, by all accounts, I mean,
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: you would think this person was wildly successful. And about
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: a couple of months into the analysis, this person decided
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: that they had to teach me about quantum physics. Like,
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: literally wanted to give me, like, get out a pen
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: and paper. And it started showing little YouTube videos and
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: trying to explain quantum physics, which of course, I know
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: nothing about quantum physics and don't have much capacity for that.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: And what they were trying to do, now I was able,
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: it was kind of heavy handed, so I kind of
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: saw what was happening. But this person was trying so
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: hard to make me feel stupid and make me feel inferior.
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: Not only just so that he could feel good about himself,
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: but that the sense of inferiority is going to be
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: slipped across into the analyst because they don't know anything
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: about quantum physics. So these kinds of things can happen.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: At first, it took me a little bit of time
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: to try to figure out why does this person think
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: I need to know this? And maybe there's some symbolic
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: level to what's being said here, which I still think
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: is rather interesting on a certain level. But orchestrating this
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: theater almost with the hope that something will be slipped
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: under the table. I have a couple of little scripts
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: that we could have fun playing out so that people
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: might have a sense of what this looks like relationally.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: And there's two values in this. As we're doing these,
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: Some of you who are listening may realize, oh, I
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: do that to people. And I never saw that I did.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: And if that happens, thank goodness, that's just gold. That's
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: just striking gold. Because we don't know that we're doing
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: these things and we're mystified by the negative reactions that
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: people have. And the first step is to really get
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: a hold of what we're projecting. For those of you
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: that are receiving these, maybe you'll be able to see
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: how you're being provoked and be able to understand it
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: differently and be somewhat more resilient and bring it to
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: the forefront.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: Before we go to the scripts, I just want to say, Joseph,
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: you just said how we're being provoked. I also just
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: want to introduce the word seduced because all of these
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: are little seductions as well.
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: Right. And they are They are part of the warp
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: and weft of human interaction. This is not something that
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: only people in extremis in some way do or experience.
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: This is stuff of human interaction.
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: So let's start with scenario number one. Okay. Who would
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: like to take the role of Alice?
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: Oh, I'll go for it. So I'm Alice, and I say,
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: you obviously don't care about anyone but yourself. That's why
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: you're alone.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: Well, that's not fair. I do care, and why would
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: you say that?
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: Because you're a heartless person. You're just pretending to care.
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: I am not heartless. You're the one being unreasonable right now.
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: Okay, we're off to the races.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: So Deb would be seen to be projecting her feelings
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: of insecurity onto me. and then accusing me of not caring,
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: which may not have been anything that was on my
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: mind at all. I'm just sitting there, you know, plucking away,
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: making dinner. So what we can hear in Alice's comment
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: is her own fears about her worthiness to receive any
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: care or affection.
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: You know, right in this moment, I can experience what
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: got projected. the poignance of that, of Alice's fear of
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: not being cared about, and Bob's feeling of, but I
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: do care. You know, the sadness and the loneliness and
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: the abandonment in that, and abandonment is a primal human fear.
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: Human infants need so much attention and care and protection
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: and empathy and all kinds of things. I wonder if
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: that might be a hint for people experiencing these dynamics
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: is just check inside and see what else you feel.
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: See if there's a disappointment or a sadness or a
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: loneliness that or a wishfulness in addition to the protest
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: or the anger or the lashing out.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: And could you hold that feeling?
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: Yes, could you hold that feeling? Alice's technique is not
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: going to get her the care and affection that actually
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: deep down she's hoping for. She's very unlikely going to
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: get a hug or a back rub or a nice
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: warm kiss and an affirmation if she comes to Bob
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: and says, you know, you obviously don't care about anybody
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: but yourself. And it's very hard for Bob to be
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: able to translate that into a bid for affection.
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: Yes, exactly. The problem with something like that is that
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: it winds up getting you exactly what you don't want.
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: And wouldn't it be great, I mean, we can only
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: strive for this, if our fictive Bob could have said, oh, honey,
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: you know, what's up? Are you feeling bad? Talk to me.
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: What's going on?
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: Although I do want to say on Bob's behalf is,
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: you know, sometimes if you do that, you know, Alice
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: is going to go, You know, Alice wants to push
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: the feeling into Bob. So if Bob comes at her,
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: you know, that may just actually enrage Alice more. You know,
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: one of the ways that I think I see this
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: a lot in my practice, I'm sure you guys have
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: seen this as well, is when, and it's often a woman,
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: although sometimes it's a man, a woman says to a man,
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: are you cheating on me? Why are you staying an
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: extra half an hour at the office? You know, who
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: are you talking to? And it's like the guy is
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: not cheating. He doesn't have any intention to cheat. But
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: she does this so unrelentingly that eventually he starts to
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: cheat because it's such torture to be accused all the
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: time of being unfaithful. And it erodes trust. And then
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: there can be this perverse little, oh, she's going to
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: accuse me of it all the time. I might as
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: well do it. I mean, I've seen this happen. I'm
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: sure you guys have too.
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: I think this is really common and those kind of
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: relational betrayals are so deep. If we go back to
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: early childhood though, this feeling of distrust that somebody is
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: not going to be an abiding love and attachment object.
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: And so I think this cheating or this neurotic fear
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: of someone cheating is this fear that they're going to abandon,
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: that I can't count on you to be around. And
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: the false accusations actually reproduce what's the likely childhood dynamic,
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: which was the young infant needing to trust the caregiver
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: and something interfering with the caregiver's ability to provide that.
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: You know, this dynamic also leads into the the psychological
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: syndrome of repetition compulsion. That by inducing a reaction in
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: the other, such as, you know, I just know you're
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: cheating on me. That's why you're staying at the office late.
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: And then the denial, and then the, hey, you know,
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: as long as I'm being accused of this, I might
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: as well go out and have a few drinks or
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: have a little fling. It is fueled by the desire
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: to both master an early dynamic, an internal dynamic, and
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: the belief because of early relational templates and how they
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: get set in us that things can't change. So we
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: go back over and we have these patterns, interactive patterns,
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: where we're both trying to make it come out differently
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: this time and ensuring that it will not come out
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: any differently. So it's sort of like the needle that
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: gets stuck in an old vinyl record. It just goes
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: around and around to no constructive purpose until or unless
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: we can lift it into consciousness.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: You know, this is the thing is that it does
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: show up in the office there. And this is how
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: it was originally talked about, as you heard when I
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: read Ogden's description of it, is something that happened within
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: the therapy so that the analysand might try to push
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: something into the analyst. And part of what we've learned
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: to do, hopefully, is to have some consciousness about when
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: a feeling comes up, like an urge to get really
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: angry at a client. It's like, wait a minute, is
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: that coming from me? Is that being pushed into me?
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: Can I be curious about that? And of course, if
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: you can catch it it can be tremendously helpful for
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: the process, right? Because you're not just acting something out,
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: but you can reflect on it. You may even share
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: with a person, huh, when you said that to me,
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: I noticed that it kind of made me feel this way.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: And that sort of seems similar to a pattern that
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: happens other places in your life. And so it can
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: be a chance to kind of walk some of this
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: back and open it up and understand it a little
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: bit with the eye towards changing it if it's been
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: a consistent pattern.
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: So I am curious, how do you guys introduce an
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: awareness of this in an analytic session? And by extension,
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: how might somebody introduce this topically to a loved one?
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: You know, what comes up right away for me is
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: what our teacher and colleague Jim Hollis says, what it's
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: about is not what it's about. To pick up on that,
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: on a feeling and just a momentary awareness of like, whoa,
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: hold it, wait a minute, what's going on here? Where
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: did this come from? This seems kind of over the top,
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: out of proportion. You know, I was 10 minutes late
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: There was a traffic snarl, and this person is really mad. Whoa!
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: Of just that momentary, what's up here? Is it really
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: because I was 10 minutes late, or is there something
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: else that is stirring so much feeling? So pay attention
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: to feeling and step back a minute. Step back a sec.
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: Get curious. What's happening here? And I know in the
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: consulting room, I'm thinking a good number of clients that
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: I had, especially in years past, of how they were trying,
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: and I hope I got it, to get me to
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: understand something. In the case of one young woman who
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: had not dressed appropriately for the day and the weather
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: had turned cold and windy and rainy, And I knew
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: I had this basement office with a storage closet. I
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: knew that I had a woolen winter cape in that closet.
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: I thought, oh, God, what do I do? Do I
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: offer it? Do I not offer it? She's going to
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: go out. She's upset about the weather. What do I do?
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: What do I do? Well, I didn't have a lot
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: of time to think about it in that moment. But
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: it was... a plea to understand her distress, her neediness.
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: And it wasn't about do I offer her the cape, which,
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: by the way, I did. It was to understand something
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: deeper than that. I will have to go home alone
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: in this wet, windy weather and I'll be chilled to
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: the bone. So there was a way of understanding that
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: deeper need that then sort of superseded the question of
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: do you get a cape or not? And that's what
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to point to is how do we get
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: under some of the words? How do we get under
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: the behavior and under the feeling of, and I was
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: annoyed once. How do we get under that and see
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: what else is there?
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think, Joseph, it's a good question. And
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: the answer in some sense and kind of a classic
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: psychoanalytic sense is, well, you make an interpretation. Interpretation means
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: this very specific thing where you point out someone's kind
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: of unconscious behavior. And every interpretation is an invitation to change.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: So you might say something like, you're getting upset with
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: me right now, and I'm noticing that I'm having an
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: impulse to want to get upset back. And I wonder
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: if it's easier for you to induce an angry feeling
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: in me than.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: Confront your own sense of powerlessness in this situation.
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: I also think that there is a level that gets
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: projected into us which calls us to really process our
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: own feelings. And find that level of empathy, because where
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: I started with this in the example I just gave
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: was like, oh, God, you know, now I have to
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: figure out what to do. You know, I really can't
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: let her go out. I know I have the darn
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: cape and so on and so forth. But the level
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: beneath that was to find my own real empathy, to
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: find the positive feeling of there is a genuine need here.
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: genuine distress. I've had other examples with other clients where
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: it's in the literature about how it is a demand
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: for empathy, but it's not the stated demand. So it
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: looks like it's about, do I have something to offer
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: in the way of garb or protection from the weather?
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: but is also a call to find a genuine empathic
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: connection just in myself that can be part of the field.
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: Rather than being induced or seduced or feeling manipulated, it
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: really is a call to a kind of self-reflection that
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: is hard won.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: You know, Deb, I want to push into that a
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: little bit more because I totally get what you're talking about,
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: that you felt challenged to find that real empathy for
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: this little waif in a way. And, you know, there's
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: a way that she, what she did may have been,
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: I'm making this up, right? Because I don't know this
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: person at all. But what happened there was she didn't
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: take care of herself.
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: That is correct. Correct.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: And then she wanted to make you responsible for her.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: And she did. You gave her a cape. So that's
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: the enactment is I'm not going to take care of myself.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: And then I'm going to make you feel really, really bad.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: And you'll take care of me. And she's really suffering.
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: And I just want to change the language a bit
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: that she's not really doing anything that the unconscious is
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: doing it. She's really not aware. And I know we're
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: so frustrated sometimes. We're like, oh, God, he or she
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: is going to teach me quantum physics again. And, of course,
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: they are taking that action. Yes. Like another hour, of course.
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: But really. But the unconscious is driving them and affecting us.
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, we're all just sitting on this hot plate
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: and we're all dancing around trying to keep our feet
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: from getting burned.
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: But, see, the solution is for me, hopefully, not to
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: be reacting of like, oh, God, you know, I either
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: have to kind of comply and accommodate and care and
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: give her the cape or, hey, she's an adult and
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: she didn't check the weather before she left this morning.
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: The solution was my awareness of, that when I provided
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: the cape, I wasn't coming from either of those polarities.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it might have been an opportunity to just say
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: to her, you know, I wonder if this is emblematic
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: of ways in which it is difficult for you to
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: care for yourself. And by the way, I have a cape.
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And that was something we could talk about the
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: following week. But That's what I'm trying to point to
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: is what is so hard is how to step out
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: of that paradigm of how do I react to this
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: versus where am I in this? I've stepped out. Here's
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: a problem that needs to be solved. And it's just
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: a cape. I'm no longer in the enactment.
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: You're choosing choicefully and consciously.
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And I'm not part of that emotional field anymore.
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: It's just, and then next time, let's talk about what
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: just happened.
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: I think one of the distinctions there, Deb, is when
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: we're questioning whether something is induced in us, one of
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: the criteria is, is this odd? Or is this a
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: familiar thing? For instance, Deb, I know you to be
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: very caring and very generous. It's not unusual for you
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: to have that impulse towards any number of people. So
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: maybe there was a bid for something there. But I
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: don't know that I would call it projective identification because
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: it didn't seem disconnected from who you are. I think
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: with projective identification, if we have a sense of ourselves,
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: that it seems weird. That we're feeling that way at
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: that moment. It's like, I was not feeling sleepy a
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: second ago. As a matter of fact, I've had a
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: pot of coffee and yet this person is speaking and
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: I feel like I am biting the cheeks inside my
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: mouth to stay alert in the room. So I think
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: something is being induced in me. How interesting.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah. But, you know, in that interaction, I had to
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: reach for that kind of neutral ability to provide the
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: cape that was right in the closet. So the first
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: thing that got induced in me was an urge to
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: be withholding.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: So that's interesting because this is another element of projective identification, right?
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: So here's what I make up is that When she
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: had a need as a child, what happened was her
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: parents were annoyed at her, maybe. And what she did
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: was she recreated that situation where she had a need
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: and you were like, you know, annoyed or irritated or
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: you just were like, yeah, you know, go figure it out,
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: you know. And so that's what got induced was an irritation.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: An irritation at her neediness. Yes.
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: And that was the work I had to do because
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: when people project things into us, there is some work
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: that we have to do. I'm like, what's going on
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: in me? Why am I feeling this way? What do
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: I want to do about it? Versus that little scenario
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: of Alice and Bob where it's just where both people
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: start firing at will.
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: So I want to make sure that we shift this
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: into Jungian frame for just a minute. I mean, I
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: think all of the stuff that we're talking about feels
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: very kind of copacetic to a Jungian, but these are
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: not strictly Jungian ideas. As we said, this originated with
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: Melanie Klein. But I think if you presented this to Jung,
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: he would say, well, yes, of course. And he would
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: call it He would call it participation mystique because, you know,
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: you've got to have a foreign word for it, you know,
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: in Jungian. It's got to be Greek or Latin or.
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: French or something. That's very elegant.
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: That's very fancy.
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: Or French.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: But participation mystique is this, that word that comes from
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: the field of anthropology. And it means this kind of
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: mysterious realm of where we're in a kind of unconscious
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: identification with the other person. So right at the top
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: of this episode, Deb, you were talking about how this
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: is unconscious communication, which is something Jung was very familiar
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: with and spoke quite a bit about. And so here
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: we are, this is how it happens. So you're projecting
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: something into me, I'm receiving it and I'm reacting like
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: you reacting with irritation to this poor little waif without
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: a coat. in a way that's not characteristic, that comes
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: from her, you know, it's like from her history, you know,
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: that she's, maybe she's annoyed with herself too, you know,
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: and it's a recreation of a childhood dynamic that maybe
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: her caregivers were sometimes annoyed at her when she was needy.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: And you start acting it out and all of that
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: is unconscious. It's all, your reaction is unconscious. I mean,
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: it wasn't in this case because you did your work,
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: But her doing it to you is unconscious. Your reaction
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: is unconscious. And that's why after one of these kind
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: of a projective identification argument, you might go, what was that?
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: Like, what were we even fighting about?
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: Like, what just happened? Because it's just very, it seems
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: totally bizarre. So, but it does say, I mean, I
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: will say one thing, Joseph, you had this great point
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: about projective identification can only happen Well, I would also
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: say that there's a certain amount of intimacy that's required
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: for this to work, because we have to feel a
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: sort of sympathetic unconscious to unconsciousness. to connection to someone
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: in order to be seduced in this way. So in
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: some sense, it is a testament to a connection when
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: this happens, whether it happens in the consulting room or
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: with a family member or a friend.
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: So how about one more script?
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: We'll go to scenario number five.
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: Lisa, why don't you play Ivy?
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: You think my work is a joke, don't you? That's
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: why you never comment on it.
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's a joke. I just didn't know
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: what you were saying.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: Because you think it's pathetic. You can't even hide your disdain.
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: Now that you mention it, your attitude makes it pretty
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: hard to appreciate what you do.
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: Ha ha ha. So when we're engaged in this, Joseph,
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: I think you said at one point, it is like
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: slipping someone a script. Here's what I want you to say. Unconsciously,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: here's what I want you to say.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: And Cal Shudmick uses that wonderful metaphor. Not only is
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: the script, the script comes under the table from left
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: hand to left hand. You know, so like the unconscious
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: is like, yeah, that sounds like fun.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: We're off to the races.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: So unconsciously, Often one of the ways that we can
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: also sense that somebody is trying to do projective identification
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: is to lead with an accusation. Because accusations are so intense.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: It immediately calls up our urge to defend and to deny.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: And then the resistance to the accusation is used as proof.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: In fact, well, you must have fill in the blank,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: been texting your ex-girlfriend or absconding with the funds or
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: whatever it is. And it makes us feel just nutty
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: after a while, particularly because the other person is so
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: convinced it's true. That's the thing is the person who's
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: doing the projective identification doesn't think of themselves as being manipulative.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: They think of themselves as telling the truth. And so
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: there's such a conviction behind the inappropriate accusation that it's
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: rattling and it's even a little scary to have somebody
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: level that stuff with such a surety. So inadequacy is
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: a very common thing that gets pushed into other people.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, really, really common. So people feel that you're
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: at work and your boss you know, is feeling inadequate
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: about something and then steps out and starts doing a
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: harsh review of your work and pointing out all the
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: ways in which you're not doing exactly to the letter,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: but just supposed to be done. So you get to
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: blush and feel really scared about, you know, being scrutinized
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: like that. And the boss gets to march back over
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: into the office and feel like, well, they've done their job,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: you know, so. inadequacy then gets pushed. I think that's
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: so common.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: I really like what you said about how oftentimes this
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: dance starts with an accusation. That feels really helpful to me.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: And that one of the purposes of projective identification in
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: the example that you just gave, Joseph, is that it's
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: a use of power. You know, that the boss has
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: hierarchical uh, supremacy and authority. And he can go over
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: to his supervisee, project his own feelings of inadequacy or
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: stress or tension into that employee. And, uh, he has
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: the power to do that. Uh, and he will leave
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: feeling perhaps let's imagine, you know, justified and that he
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: did a good job. And he, he called that person
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: out on, uh, failure to execute well enough. You know,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: it has, projective identification has uses for, it's a demand
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: for empathy, it's a defense, you know, we get accused
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: and we say, no, I didn't. It's also a power
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: dynamic of I don't feel okay, and therefore, if I
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 4: can make somebody else feel bad, I'll feel better.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: So it gets slipped over there. Sometimes, yes, it does
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: have to do with power, although often it doesn't. I think, again,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: this reproduction of early childhood dynamics is sewn into the
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: foundation of the nervous system. Just those first few months
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: of life, and now that we know a little bit
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: about neuroplasticity and neurobiology, those early experiences are so profound
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: in terms of the brain itself. So it also makes
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: sense that we would expect those early dynamics to echo
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: out because we've kind of been configured by the early experiences. Now,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: that's not to say it can't change, but it takes
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: quite a bit of determination and a bit of suffering.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: And the suffering is knowing who we are. If it
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: was easy for us to be in full knowledge of
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: who we are. It would all just be a delight
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: and we all would have gotten it handled by the
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: time we were 18. There is something intrinsically challenging and
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: somewhat painful about knowing who we are on increasingly deep levels.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: And this goes to Jung's idea of conscious suffering, to
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: suffer ourselves. instead of making other people suffer ourselves, inflicting
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: the suffering of ourselves on other people.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: And it goes to shadow work.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: This is my shadow, rather than I'm going to push
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: it into you, whoever that you might be. How do
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: I claim my own neediness? or a sense of inferiority,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: or a hundred other things.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: And so we might say something like when we're engaging
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: in projective identification, there's probably some way in which we're
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: not taking responsibility for ourselves.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: And we're asking someone else to do it for us. Hello, listeners.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: I want to take just one minute to remind you
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: about my upcoming podcast, Women's Fairy Tale and Yoga Retreat.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: We have just a few tickets left. It is April
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: 25th through April 28th in central Pennsylvania. It's a beautiful
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: time of year to be there. It's a great group
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: of women. We have a ton of fun. We hang out.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: We do yoga. We talk about fairy tales. We eat
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: good food. We tell stories and share poems around the campfire.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: We do some dream incubation. It's a really great time.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: So if you're interested, pop on over to my website, lisamarchiano.com,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: where you can read more about Women's Wellspring Retreat. Thanks.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: Today's dreamer is a 44-year-old male who works as a
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: translator and as a poet. And he offers this title
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: to his dream, Velvet Darkness and the Big Dog. I
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: can already tell he's a poet and a writer. It's
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: a great title. I'm walking in the streets of a
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: small town I grew up near. It is a completely
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: dark and moonless night. There are no streetlights and no
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: lights in the windows of the house. It is also
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: very quiet. I can't hear any human life at all.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: I feel like something terrible may happen. I feel myself
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: near the evangelical church my family attended when I was
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: a child. I try to enter the side door which
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: leads to the church basement. It's locked, and I can't
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: get in. While fiddling with the handle, I begin to
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: hear the panting and clicking toenails of a very large
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: dog walking in the street close by. I can't see
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: it because of the darkness. and I sense the dog
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: getting closer to me. It starts to growl deeply. I'm
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: very frightened, and I wake up. And he writes about
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: the dream. I had this dream after having become interested
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: in dreams again, mostly because of listening to your podcast.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: I kept a dream journal for many years, but had
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: fallen out of the habit in the past five years
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: or so. I've also begun devoting more time to my
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: spiritual life, which I neglected for many years, and perhaps
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: even rejected because of the negative associations of my childhood.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: The main feelings in the dream, he writes, early on
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: in the dream, curiosity in the soft darkness. Later on,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: frustration at the locked door, and then fear of the
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: big dog. And then he offers a few personal associations.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: The darkness I associate with a velvety mystery, not frightening,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: almost comforting. Regarding the dog, I am really more of
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: a cat person, and I can be skittish around big dogs,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: though I usually have a good rapport with them once
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: we warm up to each other. As for the church,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: it's complicated. My associations with the church of my childhood
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: are very negative— fear, humiliation, and coercion. My childhood experiences caused
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: me to reject religion quite violently as a teenager. However,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: throughout my adult life, I've been interested in and dabbling
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: in a wide range of spiritual ideas and practices— though
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: they have all been very far from evangelical Christianity, at
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: least ostensibly.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: So this is one of those dreams where I had
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: a sort of download about what I thought it might
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: be about. So the big dog is a powerful archetypal symbol.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: And a lot of times on the podcast, we talk about, oh, animals,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: instinctual energy, you know, man's best friend, this kind of thing.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: We talked about dogs quite a bit in dreams. We
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: could do a whole episode on dogs and dreams, by
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: the way. But this is a big dog that comes
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: in the night. And one of the other things that's
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: true about dogs is they guard the realm between the
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: living and the dead. So in Greek mythology, there's the dog,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: the three-headed dog Cerberus, who guards the borderline, the border
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: between this world and the next. And in Egyptian mythology,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: there's the dog-headed god Anubis, who also oversees part of
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: the transition from life to death. There's a sense that
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: it carries this kind of archetypal charge of mortality, I
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: want to say. And there's a sense of kind of
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: being hunted by something. There's that wonderful poem, is it
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: called The Hound of God? I'll have to look for it,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: but you look like you might know what I'm talking about.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: But it's a sense of, well, I do want to
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: find that poem, actually, because here's what I suspect is
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: the man is trying to get into the church. He says, oh,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: the velvety darkness is comforting, it's beautiful and everything, but
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: he also says he has a feeling that something terrible
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: may have happened. So that feeling of dread was missing
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: from his report on feelings, but it was certainly in
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: the dream text. And he goes to the church to
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: see if he can find some comfort or solace there.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: You know, I mean, it's sort of like, why are
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: you trying to get into the church basement? That would
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: be an interesting question to ask him if he were here.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: But not knowing that, I assume, you know, kind of
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: looking for safety, the church of his childhood does not
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: offer that. He is being confronted with the archetypal reality
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: of mortality. I think he's being confronted with an invitation
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: to engage in spirituality, knowing that he cannot revert to
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: the religion of his childhood. So I'm going to go
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: off and find, I think it's called The Hound of Hell,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: and I want to hear what you guys have to say.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: I don't really have a positive spin on things. So,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: I tend to want to think of the growling dog
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: as something that's helpful. And having been a dog owner
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: on and off through most of my life, dogs growl
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: for many different reasons. For all we know, the dog
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: is actually at his side growling at something that is
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: on the other side of the door in the evangelical church.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 3: But the dog is an ally. But he can't in
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: the moment perceive that because he doesn't generally think of
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: that being an ally. But when I was walking my dogs,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: they would stop in their tracks and if there was
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: something they were smelling or seeing that they thought was
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: a threat to me, they were down and ready to protect.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: So we could say, well, maybe the dog was growling
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: at him. Maybe it was growling to protect him. Maybe
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: it's also showing him that he needs to growl. He
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: needs to know something about how to growl, which if
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: it's an aggressive growl, that's a way of warning other
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: animals that I'm in business. So it's a way of posturing.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: It's often to avoid an altercation, but to display a
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: capacity for aggression if need be. So it may be
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: that as he is in the town in the velvety
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: darkness and meandering into the basement of the church, it
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: may be that the unconscious is saying, you can't walk
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: back into your church complex until you learn how to growl,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: until you learn how to hold your aggression and snarl
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: a little bit in case something tries to hurt you.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 4: I have a somewhat different but aligned take on this
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: dream So I think we're all looking at the same
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 4: thing from, you know, sort of different angles. Like if
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 4: we're all in a circle, I see from 2 o'clock
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 4: and you see from 10 o'clock and somebody else sees
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 4: it from 6 o'clock. I think this is a really
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 4: important dream.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do too.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 4: For this dreamer.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: I think so too.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 4: Very, very, very important. Especially because the dreamer says that
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 4: he's become interested in dreams again and has been devoting
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 4: more time to his spiritual life. And this is about
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 4: his relationship with the transpersonal.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: I agree.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 4: And there he is. There are no streetlights. It's all dark.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 4: He says in the dream, I feel like something terrible
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: may have happened. And our dream ego does the only
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 4: thing in the dream that he can think of to do,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 4: which is he's near the evangelical church. which was a
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 4: scary place for him. But it's the refuge he knows
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 4: because this dream takes place in his childhood complex, which
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 4: is the streets of the town near where he grew
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 4: up as a child. And then we have this clicking
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 4: toenails and big dog. Dogs traverse the realm between.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 4: The wildlife of the wolf from which they presumably evolved
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 4: or animals like that into the flip side of that,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: which is they became, quote, man's best friend, unquote. So
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 4: your point about the dog of we don't really know
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 4: what the dog's growl means is well taken. And your point, Lisa,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 4: about the dog as Cerberus, the three-headed dog that became
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 4: even more famous with the Harry Potter stories. What is
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 4: this thing? It has archetypal power. And he's caught in
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 4: a way between a rock and a hard place. He
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 4: can't take refuge in the old evangelical church. which seems
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: to the dream ego like a logical place to go.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 4: And he doesn't want to stand outside in the street
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 4: where this monstrous dog might be lurking. So we don't
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 4: have a conclusion yet here with this dream. Something big
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 4: is in process, I think, in this dreamer's psyche about
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 4: his relationship to the transpersonal And where are the positive, welcoming,
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 4: beneficent aspects of the transpersonal for him?
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's a real confrontation. And just building
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: out my original thesis, I guess, a little bit. The
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: name of that poem is The Hound of Heaven, not
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: The Hound of Hell. I don't know what I was thinking.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: It's by Francis Thompson. It's from 1859. And it's a
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: long poem. I'm not going to read anywhere near the
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: whole thing. Joseph Campbell uses this poem in Hero with
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: a Thousand Faces to talk about the refusal of the call.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: It's an explicitly religious poem, and it starts out, I
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: fled him down the nights and down the days. I
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: fled him down the arches of the years. I fled
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind and
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: in the midst of tears. I hid from him an
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: under running laughter, and on and on and on. And then,
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: you know, at the end, it's this dog that is
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: chasing him and chasing him and chasing him. And then
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: at the end, he lets himself be caught, in essence.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: And the dog is an image for the transpersonal, for God, actually.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: I think it's a Catholic poem. So I tried to
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: avoid my kind of date with the destiny of claiming
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: this religious life, but finally I couldn't resist it anymore.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: So I wonder this dream made me think of that poem.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to This Jungian Life. From our website, thisjungianlife.com,
• 1:19:01
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• 1:19:04
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• 1:19:08
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• 1:19:12
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• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: for today's show and hope you'll let us know what
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: topics you'd enjoy hearing more about. Until next time, keep
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: living this Jungian life.