clair082

Earlier it had been an internal self-reproach, now it was an imputation coming from the outside.  The judgment about her had been transposed outward:  people were saying what otherwise she would have said to herself.  Something was gained by this.  She would have had to accept the judgment pronounced from inside; she could reject the one arriving from outside.  In that way the judgment, the reproach, was kept away from her ego. The purpose of paranoia is thus to ward off an idea that is incompatible with the ego, by projecting its substance into the external world. (Freud, letter to Wilhelm Fliess on January 24, 1895, on Paranoia) What is Psychological Projection? Psychological projection, also known as blame shifting, is a theory in psychology in which humans defend themselves against unpleasant impulses by denying their existence in themselves, while attributing them to others. Projection may also happen to obliterate attributes of other people with which we a...

When you first met, you thought the two of you had been touched by the same star. Then something happened. Love began to crumble. You made excuses. There was tension when you were together. But you reasoned that it was still better than being lonely, because fear of the monster called “Alone” too often leads people to stay in relationships long after a connection has ended, emotionally and physically. The United States Census Bureau reported in 2011 that its latest data (compiled in 2009) indicated that 83 percent of all currently married couples had made it to their fifth anniversary, and about 55 percent had stayed married at least 15 years. However, if you look closely at the data, a large share of the couples had in fact are separated, though not divorced—but these did not figure into the overall statistics. And there was no tally of the "un-divorced"—those no longer wishing to stay married but who, for various (often financial) reasons remain legally together. Well, ther...