It’s Not Me, It’s You |
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Projection can look like paranoia.
Both paranoia and projection can be a way of protecting yourself.
Empathy is a kind of projection.
With time and kindness, projection can turn into something positive.
Roberta* came to therapy for help with her relationships. Although she was good at making initial connections, she could not keep a friend or a romantic relationship going for very long. And her work relationships were inevitably difficult, despite the fact that she was a hard worker and a loyal employee.
She had also been in therapy many times, but every therapist inevitably said something that made her angry, and she terminated the work.
Her one long-term friend, Mary, who somehow managed not to get caught up in the difficulties that troubled her with most other people, told her that she was paranoid. Although hurt by the label, Roberta told me that she suspected that Mary might be right.
“I feel like people are always trying to show me that I’m wrong. I have to prove that I’m right and they’re wrong about whatever they are saying about me.”
This apparent paranoia got her in trouble when a supervisor brought her attention to even small mistakes in her work, and it interfered with her ability to resolve conflicts with colleagues, friends, and romantic interests.
Paranoia or Projection?
As I listened to Roberta, I began to have a sense that this paranoia was actually something else, something that looked like paranoia, but was in reality a way that Roberta had of protecting herself from her own difficult feelings.
It seemed to me that rather than recognizing what she was feeling, Roberta was processing........