RESPONSE

More About Projection: Before and Beyond

Marika Henriques

The `thought' which Jan McGregor Hepburn's interesting article Before and BeyondProjection? (British Journal of Psychotherapy, 9(1)), posed on problems surrounding theissue of `holding patients in mind', activated my own `thinking'. I began to speculateabout what the frustration might be, which when not tolerated might result, instead ofthinking, in the `bad object' and projective identification. I began to wonder about the ideawhich might lie behind the notion of being a 'bad therapist', were one to attend to patientsin the particular `holding in mind' described in the article, rather than maintaining a 'proper therapeutic attitude' which normally offers effective interpretation.

Besides Winnicott's ideas on 'primary maternal preoccupation', the concept whichhelped me most to clarify issues, was what in Jungian psychology is called 'participationmystique'. Jung borrowed the term from the anthropologist Levy-Bruhl and thendeveloped it further. He defined it (1921) as a 'particular kind of psychological connection... which consists in the fact that the subject cannot clearly distinguish himself from theobject, but is bound to it by direct relationship which amounts to partial identity'. Thissounds much like projection of the usual kind. But Marie-Louise von Franz (1959)pointed out that 'we can only speak of projection in the proper sense of the word ... whenthe feeling identity is disturbed'. Projection implies 'that the person is already to a certainextent out of the participation mystique, or archaic identity, until then there is noprojection'. This seems to indicate that participation exists prior to the dawn ofconsciousness, that it is a process 'before and beyond projection'. Indeed Jung talked ofparticipation also as a 'mutual unconsciousness'. He said that 'because the basic structureof the mind is the same in everybody, we cannot make distinctions when we experienceon that level. There we do not know if something has happened to you or to me. And ifwhat the patient projects into the analyst is identical with the analyst's own unconsciouscontent, then there is a dangerous process going on, where analyst and patient mutuallyproject into each other. Then they both fall into the same 'dark hole of unconsciousness'and get into the condition of participation. He wrote (1946): 'This situation is difficult anddistressing for both parties; often the doctor is in much the same position as the alchemistwho no longer knew whether he was melting the mysterious amalgam in the crucible orwhether he was the salamander glowing in the fire'.

This state then is subtly different from the more usual, known, thought of and writtenabout process, where it is only the patient who is unconscious and communicates to thetherapist by projection and projective identification various needs. One of which might bethat unconscious, dangerous and therefore of his

Marika Henriques is a psychotherapist. She is a Member of AHPP and Diploma Member of theInstitute of Counselling and Psychotherapy. Address for correspondence: 54 Campbell Court,Gloucester Road, London SW7 4PD.

British Journal of Psychotherapy, Vol 9(4), 1993© The author

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uncontainable contents be held by the therapist, and given back after being contained, ina more benign form. This situation is different also from what is termed `neuroticcounter-transference', which needs to be monitored and analysed in the therapist. Herethere is mutuality, participation in unconsciousness. This resembles an initial state, awhirling, primitive, primordial world of chaos, without any kind of differentiated form. Inalchemy, this would be the state of nigredo, or massa confusa, the starting point of thealchemical process. For a therapist to acknowledge such a state within her/himself isindeed uncomfortable. It runs contrary to his/her task and need to be the bridge betweenconscious and unconscious, to be the mediator of the `transcendent function' for thepatient.

But this fused state is a necessary beginning with some patients who - to turn now toWinnicott - have not reached `unit status', who for various reasons were not ablesufficiently to separate `me' from 'not-me'. With these patients at times the therapist has toendure being submerged in this disturbing state of boundaryless confusion, much as thenursing mother is, in her state of `primary maternal preoccupation', which Winnicott (1958) likened to madness. But a necessary madness, even an essential one to the nursingcouple in the early days of the baby's life. I believe that patients who have not experiencedthis kind of reverie sufficiently, or were deprived of it, need to get this lack attended tolater, in the life of the therapeutic dyad.

Rather then feeling that 'it somehow damages our professional and personal worth toadmit the patient in us' in this particular way, I see it as a necessary stage/state to be `grown out of' only when the patient/baby is ready for the next developmental stage. I amsaying that, though the therapist/mother is required to endure this disturbing state, it isalso his/her essential task to eventually move out from the `black hole' of unconsciousidentity. The therapist needs to initiate the process of separating out, making consciouswhat was unconscious, leading to the dissolution of the state of participation. I think thetherapist would be a `bad object' only if he/she persisted in remaining in this state or, as Ibelieve, if he/she would resist the immersion into it. In Bion's term, one would need toendure the frustration of being in an unconscious state of fusion, until one can move outof it through the process of differentiated thinking.

To help the patient eventually to dissolve the participation was considered by Jungthe `therapeutic task par excellence'. He said (1946) that throughout this disturbing anddifficult time it is the therapist's knowledge which `like a flickering lamp, is the one dimlight in the darkness'.

References

Jung, C.G. (1921) Definitions. In Psychological Types, Collected Works, 6. London: Routledge andKegan Paul, 1971.

Jung, C.G. (1946) The psychology of the transference. In The Practice of Psychotherapy, CollectedWorks, 16. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 2nd edition 1966.

Von Franz, M.L. (1959) Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology. Toronto:Inter City Books, 1980.

Winnicott, D.W. (1958) Primary maternal preoccupation. In Collected Papers. London: Tavistock.