https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection Psychological projection is a defense mechanism in which the ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves by attributing them to others.[1] For example, a bully may project their own feelings of vulnerability onto the target, or a person who is confused will project their own feelings of confusion and inadequacy on other people. Projection incorporates blame shifting and can manifest as shame dumping.[2] Projection has been described as an early phase of introjection.[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection#Clinical_approaches Clinical approaches Drawing on Gordon Allport's idea of the expression of self onto activities and objects, projective techniques have been devised to aid personality assessment, including the Rorschach ink-blots and the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT).[32] Projection may help a fragile ego **reduce anxiety, but at the cost of a certain dissociation, as in dissociative identity disorder.** [33] In extreme cases, an individual's personality may end up becoming critically depleted.[34] In such cases, therapy may be required which would include the slow rebuilding of the personality through the "taking back" of such projections.[35] The method of managed projection is a type of projective technique. The basic principle of the method is that a subject is presented with his own verbal portrait named by the name of another person, as well as with a portrait of his fictional opposition (V. V. Stolin, 1981). The technique is suitable for application in psychological counseling and might provide valuable information about the form and nature of his or her self-esteem Bodalev, A (2000). "General psychodiagnostics". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection#Criticism Criticism Some studies were critical of Freud's theory. Research on social projection supports the existence of a false-consensus effect whereby humans have a broad tendency to believe that others are similar to themselves, and thus "project" their personal traits onto others.[36] This applies to good traits as well as bad traits and is not a defense mechanism for denying the existence of the trait within the self.[37] Instead, Newman, Duff, and Baumeister (1997) proposed a new model of defensive projection. In this view, repressors try to suppress thoughts of their undesirable traits, and ***these efforts make those trait categories highly accessible—so that they are then used all the more often when forming impressions of others. The projection is then only a by-product of the real defensive mechanism.[38]***