It Takes Two to Tangle; Relationship and Projections
By William L. Smith Ph. D.
Relationships are often much more complex than we think they are or wish them to be. Relationships, especially intimate relations, bring out our unmet needs, anxieties, and unresolved conflicts with individuals from our past; parents, caretakers, friends, and former relationships.
The relationship with our partners are influenced by our own personal histories. In which case, we sometime we react with our partners as if they were someone else, ant too often this causes conflict in the relationship. In highly-charged relationships we expect love, nurturance, and validation for being who we are. A primary relationship, we usually assume, should provide a safe environment in which we are cherish by our partners for expressing our own unique qualities. Why is this simple expectation so difficult to achieve?
The reason may be that how we perceive our partners are colored how we learned to interact with other people in the past. This learning process often begin in early childhood, as early as infancy. In fact, our earliest attachment to a caretaker, a mother, a father, or another adult can influence how we deal with other people for our entire lifetime.
If our earliest experiences, for example, taught us to have a healthy trust the world we are more likely to take a trusting attitude toward other people throughout our lives. On the other hand, however, if a child was never shown love and trust during early stages of life, it would be a challenge as an adult to learn how to experience love; this may include loving ones self.
Traveling the path of individual development we are exposed to both good and bad experiences, love and trust feels comfortable to us and produce a positive self-image...and a positive way of defining ourselves as we grow into adulthood. The bad experiences cause feelings of conflicts and frustrations. These negative experiences become an element of self-definition that the individual is developing. However, these negative feelings are incompatible with the more positive feelings. Therefore, according to psycho-dynamic theory, the individual projects these negative feelings into someone else. For example, accuse your partner of being controlling when in fact you are the one who have the need to feel in control.
Projections
According to psychoanalysis, projection is the unconscious mechanism where one's own faults are seen in other persons' rather than in one's own personality. In other systems of psychology, projection is the act of objectifying what is actually a subjective or internal experience. What is important to keep in mind is that we project our own negative feelings into another person. This is especially true in intimate relationship. If, for instance, one partner have an issue with jealousy that individual will project the feelings of jealousy into the other partner. In other words, if we feel unable to correct the problem in ourselves, so we focus on the problem in the other person. The solution to this is to become aware of the process of projection and understand how it affects you personally.
Often couples experiencing conflict in their relationship, projections could be the root-cause of the problem. For example, if we are living with our own conflicts and are unable to make any advance in understanding them, we may be psychologically-motivated to look for the problem in the other person. In fact, on an unconscious level, we may actually seek out partners who have the qualities that we find problematic within ourselves. If we are unable or unwilling to assert ourselves we will get angry and frustrated with other people for taking advantage of us...yet, we may select partners who do just that, people who dominate and abuse us. However, our partners may not see themselves as domineering nor abusive, but because we need to work out our own problems with these issues, we will search for these qualities in the other person.
In other words, psychologically, the partners are bound to each other by a mutural agreement, a largely unconscious acceptance of each other. Sharing the same images and unconscious fantasies creates as much an emotional basis for mutual attraction and passionate attachment as it does for conflict within the couple. Therefore, the mutual unconscious agreement lying at the core of the couple's relationship may become an infrastructure for mutual resistance. These common unconscious biases are easily discernible through all quarrels and arguments. The latent conjunction or agreement between partners often becomes obvious only after a long therapeutic process.
In the absence of therapeutic interventions, the healthier option is when projections are causing relationship conflicts is to increase your awareness of your own internal conflicts and how you project these conflicts into your partner. When we have awareness of the problem we can understand the many ways it influences our behavior, awareness give us some control over the problem. As a result, we can than try out new ways to deal with people.
Finally, it is important to understand that projections are not at the root of every problem that couples experience. In the real world, sometimes the other person does indeed have a real problem that can lead to an abusive situation. In such case, it is not advisable to try to understand it as a projection, but to see it for what it truly is and to take appropriate actions to change the situation.
Dr. Smith is a psychologist/consultant with many years experience working with individuals and couples on issues of conflicts in marriage and relationship.
Dr. Smith will give a free initial assessment on any problem that you wish to examine. Just visit my website, http://www.insightconsultant.com and give a complete description of your concerns.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=WilliamL.SmithPh.D.
http://EzineArticles.com/?It-Takes-Two-to-Tangle;-Relationship-and-Projections&id=407288
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น