Projection (also projective identification)
Projection, also called projective identification, involves the tendency to see your own unacceptable desires in other people. In other words, the desires are still there, but they're not your desires anymore. The objective is to make yourself feel superior.
Definitions in psychology: narcissism, splitting, paranoia etc.
…most people project to keep from feeling inferior, not that they are inferior, but they are made to feel inferior. Generally I think bad feelings are put into someone, then they have to project to discover what is really going on and generally I think most people withdraw their projections when they learn the roots of their inferior feelings whether it be from themselves or if someone made them feel this way and they forgot about it. One who is the object of a projection may react to this projection as if it were directed at them personally because they have low self esteem themselves or are simply unsure if the projection is true for them. A confident person can handle projections. One who has succumb to projections (projective identification and acting out) may, after learning they have been the victim of projections, react in a more sensitive manner than those who have stronger egos. Know thyself, very wise words.
Projection and projective identification are not the same and should not be construed to be the same, though they are related.
Hollywood is often the object of many projections, good and bad and many of them put themselves out there as objects because they are confident in who they are and can handle the projections, although most often there is no real physical putting in of anything. They are simply the objects to which the thoughts are directed. The same goes often for parents and their children. Personal relationships are more often the scene of projections.
Update 4: A good example of this would be if a parent were always telling a female child, you are just like your father. A developing or weak ego might take this in as a directive to become like the father. The brain, is going to go on a hunt and seek for patterns of behavior that evoke actions like those of the father. The feminine parts have been closeted, shut way and locked up and could eventually become lost to the female child. The female child then, might well become the father.
