Locate the projection on von Franz's five stages

Use von Franz's account of how a projection comes apart to see where you are with one specific person.

Warum es wirkt

As summarized in a 1981 review of her book, von Franz describes five stages through which a projection is dissolved. First it is simply experienced as fact. Then the experience is differentiated, so that the image starts to separate from the person or thing carrying it. Then comes a moral judgment of that image as good or bad. Then the whole experience is declared an illusion. Finally there is a recognition of the power of the psyche that produced it, with a sobering sense of how open we are to such illusions. Knowing the sequence helps you see that a projection is not dissolved in one insight but in steps.

So gehst du vor

1. Choose one person you currently react to strongly, and write what they are like in a few blunt sentences.
2. Ask: is this simply how they are, as far as I can tell? If yes, you are at the first stage; the work is only to notice that.
3. Ask: can I separate the picture I have of them from the person in front of me, for instance by listing what they actually did versus what I am sure they are? If the two start to come apart, you are at the second stage.
4. Notice whether you have moved to judging the picture, to dismissing the whole thing as "just my projection", or to a sober sense of how strongly your own mind shaped what you saw. Write which one fits today.

Evidenz

The five stages are von Franz's, from Projection and Re-collection in Jungian Psychology, as summarized in Jack Nidever's review in The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal, which cites page 9 of the book. They describe a clinical and historical sequence, not a tested exercise; using them as a self-check is an application of her account. (anecdotal)

The stage names here paraphrase a review of the book, not the book itself. von Franz did not present the stages as a worksheet, and no study has tested them.

Quellen

• von Franz, M.-L. (1980). Projection and Re-collection in Jungian Psychology: Reflections of the Soul. Open Court.
• Nidever, J. (1981). Review of Marie-Louise von Franz, Projection and Re-Collection in Jungian Psychology (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court Publishers, 1980). The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal, 2(4), 34-39.

Häufiger Fehler

Treating the stages as a ladder to climb in one sitting. A projection can sit at the first stage for years, and pushing to the end before the image has really separated from the person usually produces the fourth stage, a quick dismissal, rather than real change.