Transference and projection are both mirrors for what are actually aspects in ourselves.
Transference is what happens when we harbor certain feelings toward one or both of our parents that we aren’t aware of. We then go about life directing these same unresolved, conflicted and often contradictory feelings toward other people. Our demand is that they fix their problems so we won’t have to feel this way.
What we don’t see is that “the problem”—regardless of what the other person is doing—is really our own. It originates inside us and others are just bringing it to the surface. When we don’t recognize that this is what’s going on, we’re stuck in transference.
This stirs up our original feelings toward our parents—perhaps that we’re not seen, heard, understood or appreciated.
We blame the one standing in front of us for creating these feelings. But if such feelings didn’t already exist in us, their faults—and since people are human, there are probably some actual faults going on—would be merely annoying or irritating.
Projection, on the other hand, is when we have certain traits in ourselves that we can’t quite accept. We shy away from looking at them. But when those same faults show up in someone else, look out. They annoy us beyond reason.
In other words, we project what we can’t accept in ourselves onto other people. Then we react toward them the way we inwardly react toward ourselves. We contort, hide and make excuses to not see the truth in ourselves.
Transference applies to how we react to a human relationship, and projection applies to how we react to a trait or quality we see in someone else. Both, however, are nothing but mirrors for what are actually aspects in ourselves.
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Adapted from Pathwork Q&A #121 on Transference on The Guide Speaks.
