When Emotions Take Over: Understanding Extreme Projective Identification and Psychosis
Sometimes, our minds try to cope with overwhelming feelings in ways that feel out of control. Psychoanalysis calls one of these processes projective identification—when we “send out” parts of our feelings into someone else. In its extreme form, this can lead to a collapse of normal thinking, a state linked to psychosis.
1. Projective Identification: From Help to Harm
Normally, projective identification can be helpful. It allows us to offload feelings we can’t yet manage and later take them back in a safer way. Babies do this with caregivers: they project their overwhelming feelings onto their parents, who contain and process them, helping the child learn to think about emotions safely.
In extreme projective identification, this system fails. The mind no longer trusts that the other person can handle the feelings. Instead, it tries to control or invade the other completely, forcing them to carry unbearable emotions. The object—whether another person or the therapist—is no longer a safe container but a target of psychic attack.
2. When Thought Breaks Down
William Bion described how our minds need to process raw emotional experiences (“beta-elements”) into something thinkable (“alpha-elements”). When containment fails, these raw emotions flood the mind, making clear thought impossible. The inner world fragments, and the boundary between inside and outside blurs. Thoughts can feel like voices, and reality can feel invaded by inner chaos.
3. Psychosis as a Breakdown of Containment
In these extreme states, the mind becomes a battlefield. Rosenfeld noted that patients may feel omnipotent control over others one moment, and total panic the next. Symbolic thinking collapses: images, words, or ideas no longer stand for something—they become the thing itself. The world is experienced as concrete and threatening, instead of symbolic and manageable.
4. The Role of Envy
At the core of this breakdown is envy—a hatred of goodness or stability that the mind cannot bear. When the psyche cannot accept what it needs, it attacks the source of containment. In extreme projective identification, envy drives the destructive impulse, attempting to destroy the very thing that could help the mind survive.
5. The Analytic Task
In therapy, the analyst’s job is not to interpret too quickly, but to hold and contain what the patient cannot yet think about. By surviving the patient’s projections without becoming overwhelmed, the therapist provides a temporary safe container, allowing fragments to be slowly reintegrated and thought to develop.
6. Why This Matters
Extreme projective identification shows how fragile our internal mental space can be when emotions overwhelm our capacity to process them. It highlights the importance of containment, support, and careful processing in mental health. Psychosis, in this sense, is not just a “loss of reality” but a collapse of the mind’s ability to hold, think, and differentiate feelings safely.
References (for further reading):
Bion, W. R. (1962). Learning from Experience. London: Heinemann.
Bion, W. R. (1967). Second Thoughts. London: Heinemann.
Klein, M. (1946). Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 27, 99–110.
Klein, M. (1957). Envy and Gratitude. London: Tavistock.
Rosenfeld, H. (1971). A Clinical Approach to the Psycho-Analytic Theory of the Life and Death Instincts.International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 52, 169–178.
Segal, H. (1957). Notes on Symbol Formation. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 38, 391–397.