Class #3 - Projection, The Magic Mirror - by B Kane, MD

This is the hardest class to teach. It the deepest didactic we do in what is otherwise a course that tries to counterbalance the extreme intellecutalizing that the rest of the med school curriculum requires. But if I had understood projection when I was a med student, and especially as an intern and resident, I would have been spared a lot of grief and self-loathing. All that pimping of me on rounds, all those times either feeling myself or feeling someone else was being stupid, or careless, or incompetent! All projections.

Projection is when we put our 'stuff' on other people. This comes out both as irrational hatred and as irrational adoration. The strong, destructive emotions are the key to the projection. Other people mirror our good and bad qualities and we go ballistic. (Introjection is when we internalize other people's projections of us. We get into self-loathing or self-aggrandization. The latter, believe it or not, is harder to live with. That's why Britney Spears went a bit nutso and cut off all her hair. Celebrities have a hard time living up to--introjecting--other people's adulation of them.) Introjection is also when you allow yourself to feel stupid when you get pimped on rounds and you don't know the answer.

We also project onto the horses--"That horse doesn't like me." "That horse is dominant." "That horse is sad (or bored, or old, or...)" I always ask, "What behavior of the horse makes you say that?" Like yesterday, Class #3, Mocha walked forward a few steps. M. interpreted that action as a sign that Mocha didn't like her. M. was projecting onto Mocha feelings of dislike. I projected that Mocha was not moving away from M. but moving into the circle, as I've seen horses do in these workshops. They seem to be attracted to the energy of the herd. The fact was that K., unseen by M. or me, had held her hand out to Mocha and Mocha was merely walking toward K.'s hand to see if there was a treat! So many projections, so little time.

Now the big question is, should I try to teach projection at the University of OKlahoma on Saturday? Or will that seem too Californiated to them?