Projection and Introjection in Relationships: How Partners Shape the Way We See Ourselves

Projection is one of those psychological terms almost everyone knows. And, to be fair, we usually get it about half right: putting—or projecting—our own stuff onto someone else.

The problem is that projection is really only half the concept. Traditionally, it was understood alongside another process that gets far less attention: introjection—taking in, or internalizing, something that comes from someone else.

Metaphorically speaking, if projection is the hammer, introjection is the nail. One person puts something out; another person takes something in. And if the projection doesn’t go in easily, sometimes the response is to keep pounding.

We do it with good things, too. If we admire someone, we may internalize some of the qualities we see in them, becoming a little more like that person or carrying an internal sense of them with us.

And in close relationships, this back-and-forth can become particularly powerful, because the people closest to us don’t merely observe us. How they see us can influence how we see ourselves.

Imagine that one partner repeatedly treats the other with suspicion. Initially, the person being mistrusted may simply feel misunderstood or unfairly accused. But when that message is repeated often enough—I don’t trust you; you’re hiding something; you’re dishonest—something more complicated can happen.

They may begin questioning themselves.

Over time, they may even begin behaving in ways that fit the role assigned to them: If my honesty is never recognized anyway, why bother?

This doesn’t mean one partner can simply project a personality into another. People retain agency, and plenty of us respond to being inaccurately characterized by rejecting the characterization altogether. But intimate relationships create powerful feedback loops. What one person expects can influence how they behave toward the other; that behavior affects the other’s response; and the response can then appear to confirm the original expectation.

Projection and introjection can also help create intimacy.

He projects this, she projects that, and each internalizes some of what the other recognizes or esteems in them. He sees her goodness; she sees his. Both feel they are in good company.

There is something lovely about that.

It can also become a problem when the person we’ve fallen in love with begins departing from the person we’ve imagined.

Sooner or later, someone breaks character with the projection. A misunderstanding occurs. An expectation proves unrealistic. A quality we thought belonged to the other person turns out to have belonged partly to our idea of them.

The mutually perfect bubble gets punctured.

At that point, partners can find themselves metaphorically in something like a lucid dream: aware that the dream is changing but reluctant to wake from it. What they experienced felt real because much of it was real. The difficulty is distinguishing the person who is actually there from the hopes, fears, expectations, and meanings we’ve added to them.

This is where self-deception can enter relationships.

If I need you to be a certain kind of person in order for the relationship to make sense, I have some incentive not to notice evidence that you aren’t. Conversely, if past experience has taught me that people can’t be trusted, I may become unusually attentive to anything that confirms my suspicion.

Projection can therefore work in either direction. We can idealize someone by seeing qualities we desperately want them to possess, or mistrust someone by attributing fears and motives that belong partly to us.

Introjection can do something similar from the other side. We can internalize another person’s confidence in us, affection, criticism, suspicion, expectations, or fears.

None of this means relationships are elaborate psychological hallucinations.

Human beings are also remarkably good at noticing discrepancies. We compare words with actions. We notice patterns. We infer what other people may be thinking or feeling. We reconsider our first impressions. We ask other people what they see. And, ideally, we talk to our partners.

The useful question isn’t therefore, Am I projecting?

Of course you are, at least sometimes. So is your partner.