General presentation
At the beginning, the expression « projective methods » was used by L. K. Frank in 1939 refers to three psychological tests: the Jung word association test, the Rorschach and the Murray TAT (Anzieu & Chabert, 1961). These techniques allow to have a global vision of the psychic functioning of a subject (Chabert, 2018). They all have in common that they offer the subject an ambiguous material that will allow him to associate freely. The exploration and interpretation that the subject achieves from these own associations allows the psychologist to have access to the internal representations of the individual (Chabert, 2018). The idea is that the patient will associate according to his history and his unconscious conflicts.
Link with analytical projection
Even if today projective methods can be used by therapists coming from different clinical approaches, they have above all been developed by psychoanalysts who were inspired by the projective situation in analytical treatment (Chabert, 2018). Projection originally identifies a psychic action “which consists in expelling reprehensible feelings from consciousness in order to attribute them to others” (Anzieu & Chabert, 1961, p.16), this definition will subsequently extend to “simple unawareness and no longer expulsion by the subject of emotion and desires that he does not accept as his own, of which he is partially unconscious and whose existence he attributes to external realities” (Freud, 1901, quoted by Anzieu & Chabert, 1961, p.20). Thus, projective tests allow impulse discharge through ambiguous material.
Moreover, projective tests will allow an interpretation of perceptions according to the essential concerns of the subject, the modes of arrangement of his relations with himself and with his internal and external objects, the representations and the affects which translate them: a whole field open to its associations by the induction of projection made possible thanks to the vagueness of the material. (Chabert, 2018, p.36).
Another meaning of the word “projection” can help explain the choice of this term for these methods: the projective test will allow the internal image of the subject’s personality to be captured in order to bring it to light, the latent is revealed to become manifest (Anzieu & Chabert, 1961).
Link with analytical treatment
In the treatment, the patient is invited to speak freely, without a topic, without any instruction and will be able to share whatever comes to his mind in the here and now. In the projective test the situation is analogous: the subject is completely free, there is no right or wrong answer (Anzieu & Chabert, 1961). “The first idea that comes to mind is the right one. What matters is what spontaneously presents itself to consciousness” (Anzieu & Chabert, 1961, p.22). The two principles common to projective tests and analytical treatment are freedom of time and freedom of expression. “He [the subject] is doomed to be free, that is, to reveal himself to himself. What does it mean to be free if not to be outwardly free to achieve one’s desires?” (Anzieu & Chabert, 1961, p.23). In both types of situation (analytical treatment and projective situation), we find the same two fundamental rules: the rule of non-omission and the rule of abstinence (Chabert, 2018). The first refers to the fact that the subject must say whatever comes to mind without trying to make them concrete in reality. “The tester is frustrating: he forces the subject to reveal his desire but he refuses to take it into account” (Anzieu & Chabert, 1961, p.24). The projective material is then part of the processes as a mediation between the psychoanalyst and the patient which will allow the latter to indirectly express his desire to the therapist.
Effects of the projective test situation
There is no time limit for taking a projective test. Informal or ambiguous material presented to the subject will serve as a trigger for free associations. It will send him back to his own desire. The discussion that will follow the test will enable the clinician to identify the psychological dynamic that runs through the subject at the time of the test (Anzieu & Chabert, 1961).
Ambiguous material, open instructions, freedom of answers and of time create a situation of “blank” that the subject must fill. This awakens psychological conflicts in the individual: anxiety and regression. The anxiety will manifest through the content of the responses, while the defense mechanisms used to ward off the anxiety will appear in the style of the responses (Anzieu & Chabert, 1961). Thus, there are two main categories of tests responses:
- Integrated responses: predominance of form, the Ego controls sensations, affections and mood
- Disintegrated responses: liberation of emotion, impulsion, fantasy representation
In general, the projective situation causes the regression of secondary processes towards primary processes (pleasure principle). Three distinct aspects in psychic regression (Anzieu & Chabert, 1961):
- Formal aspect: regression of rational and conceptual thought to thought by images (figurative representation)
- Chronological aspect: regression from adulthood to infancy or to earlier stages of impulse development
- Topical aspect: regression from the Ego to the Id, the impulse will be discharged either at the motor level or at the perceptual level (hallucinatory: hallucination, dream, reverie, fantasies).
In projective tests the regression is so deep that it brings the subject back to the differentiation of inside and outside, of mother and child and object and subject. They refer to the bodily dimension, to the archaic image that the individual constructs for his own body (Anzieu & Chabert 1961).
Projection means return to the exterior of the repressed. Psychological conflict is at the service of the pleasure principle, reality divests itself from consciousness and invests the unconscious. The projection would illustrate a primitive function of the psychic apparatus and would allow the conflict between the Id and reality to be resolved by the production of an identity of perception. In the Rorschach test we can identify two variables: the penetration and the barrier (surface capacity of the body as the subject feels it to retain what it contains inside and to resist intrusions from the outside); the more the material is structured in concrete reality, the more it is projective, the more it is vague the more it appeals to the imaginary. There are two types of projective tests (Anzieu & Chabert, 1961):
- Thematic tests: they consist in creating a story, a game from figurative elements. They give us information about the personality of the individual.
- Structural tests: the subject will put words to ambiguous material, this will inform us on how to understand the subject’s own world.
Therapeutic indications
In clinical practice, projective tests are often associated with tests assessing the cognitive and intellectual functions of the individual (Boekholt, 2006). Their indications are multiple, “the use of projective tests offers a precious recourse whenever the clinic is unclear or when the question of a differential diagnosis arises” (Chabert, 2018, p.40). In any case and regardless of the clinical situation, the experimentation of a projective test offers to the subject a place to express and be heard, which may possibly relieve some of the suffering already (Chabert, 2018).
Words I have learned
- To expel: expulser, renvoyer, exclure
- The impulse discharge: la décharge pulsionnelle
- The vagueness: l’imprécision, l’ambiguité, le flou
- To be doomed to: être voué.e/condamné.e à
- Outwardly: extérieurement
- The latter: ce dernier, cette dernière
- To enable: autoriser, favoriser, rendre possible
- A void: le vide, le néant
- To awaken: éveiller/réveiller/susciter quelque chose
- To ward off: contrer, éviter, prévenir, éloigner
- Deep: profonde
- Bodily dimension: dimension corporelle
- The repressed: le refoulé
- To divest: désinvestir
- To arise: survenir, se produire, surgir
- Noteworthy: notable, remarquable
References
Anzieu, D. & Chabert, C. (1961). Le concept de projection en psychologie. Dans Les méthodes projectives (p. 13‑37). PUF.
Boekholt, M. (2006). Utilisation des épreuves thématiques chez l’enfant. Dans Epreuves thématiques en clinique infantile – Approche psychanalytique (p. 11‑30). DUNOD.
Chabert, C. (2018). La situation projective. Dans Psychanalyse et méthodes projectives (p. 37‑56). DUNOD.