What is introjection?
Among psychoanalysts and Gestalt therapists, this phenomenon is called introjection. This is an unconscious psychological process that is characterized by a person’s inclusion in his inner world of views, motives, positions and attitudes (the so-called introjects) received from other people. Very often these are “undigested” rules from childhood. Our parents often told us: “A good girl should...” or “A good boy should...” And then - a list of requirements and expectations placed on us. For example, wear skirts, have a short haircut, be able to cook well, study at school, play the piano, get married and have children, become a doctor, etc. What if it doesn't suit us? Without analyzing or thinking about it (due to age, of course), we accepted these views on faith and brought them into our lives under the guise of our own positions. And now these stereotypes limit us and prevent us from living.
Very often, sectarians, activists of political parties and movements, fans, members of any communities who take the words of their leaders as the ultimate truth are subject to the process of indiscriminate absorption of information. Someone significant said this, therefore it must be so. And who needs it is unclear. Thus, personal desires and needs are replaced by the desires and needs of another person, formulated in the form of an immutable rule. Introjects are also called stereotypes of thinking, that is, literally “thinking from a carbon copy”, without thinking and analysis. These judgments do not have internal roots in a person and are imposed by someone from the outside.
I don't know what I want from life. How to understand yourself
Most often, such people are very pleasant, flexible, efficient, and comfortable. They are attentive to the opinions and desires of others, they have a good sense of boundaries and rules.
They adapt or accept the proposed solution, often confused and very unsure of themselves.
The answers to most of our questions lie in childhood.
At each stage of formation, the child gradually explores the world, learns to track and feel what he wants and what he does not.
At the earliest stage, the child gradually separates psychologically from the mother and strives to do everything himself, the child has a lot of desires and if he is allowed to do this, then he enters the next stage as decisive.
At the next stage, the child strives even more to explore the world, much more widely than before, and if his parents allow him to do this, then he gains the right to initiative and satisfaction of his desires, but if this was not the case and the child was severely limited or punished for excessive curiosity, he learns to feel guilt, which further inhibits the understanding of one’s desires.
Having grown older, in adolescence, the child, wanting to join any social group, wanting to be accepted and feel safe, finally abandons his desires in favor of others, so as not to experience negative experiences and to be accepted.
Let me give you an example: a girl grows up in an intelligent, exemplary family. The girl is loved very much, she is raised by the whole family, where for the grandmothers the most important thing is obedience and discipline, and for the parents the right, beautiful picture. As a result, the child learned from childhood that you need to behave in such a way that everyone thinks well of you. To do this, you need to be able to guess the desires of others and put your own aside for later.
Another common example of formation can be the beloved and widespread educational phrases “behave well, otherwise people will think badly”, “look how Petya behaves well, not like you”, “if you behave badly, we’ll give it to the old lady”, “ good children don’t cry, don’t beg, etc.”
Do you remember the first romantic notes that were secretly passed on in schools, which teachers discovered and read to the whole class, ridiculing the author?
All this well illustrates the formation of self-doubt and dependence on other people’s opinions and the abandonment of one’s own, the abandonment of one’s desires and feelings.
Bottom line - I don’t know who I am and I don’t understand what I want from life.
This condition can persist throughout life, but over time, tension grows and becomes increasingly difficult to contain; general dissatisfaction with life, uncertainty, failure, meaninglessness, and psychosomatic illnesses appear. Most often, this question arises most clearly during a midlife crisis; it is at this moment that a person most clearly realizes that half of his life has been lived “in vain.”
This causes a lot of different feelings and reactions. The most disastrous outcome could be an escape into another reality - drugs, alcohol, etc...Another, positive solution could be to start working on this, on your own or with a psychologist.
5 steps you can try to do yourself:
- Start with the simplest and at the same time the most difficult - start tracking and becoming aware of your feelings every day. It is important to listen and not suppress negative emotions, listen to them and you will be able to understand what exactly does not suit you in life. Maybe it’s your job, your lifestyle, your social circle... Most likely you know this yourself, but you don’t want to admit it to yourself and voice it. Recognizing the problem is already the beginning of the journey.
- The second step might be to analyze your existing options – what can you change and what are your limitations? And even if the first answer is that nothing can be changed, try to look at your life from the outside. What advice would you give yourself? What would you say to your friend if he came and described such a situation? This view will help you look at your situation more rationally and perhaps suggest solutions.
- Try to remember your hobbies, favorite activities, analyze your strengths and weaknesses. There is a simple and effective formula for this – I WANT/CAN/NEED.
- I want - these are your desires; what you love to do, what drives, stimulates, relaxes, gives pleasure, your buzz. If you don’t get answers right away, remember your childhood – you can definitely find your “wants” there.
- I can - skills; what you can do, what you can learn, what you do well.
- Must - must, life principles, what is expected of you, required, for which they are approved and praised.
Write these three lists and look for something common in them: the intersection area is the right direction of movement.
- Face your worries and fears face to face. Answer yourself: Who forbids you to live as you want? In whose voice does the inner critic speak and limit you? Whose life are you living? And at what point did it start, everything went wrong? Not the most pleasant questions, but they can push you to understand the reasons and provide answers to many questions.
- Think positively! Life is constant change, a crisis can be a new stage, a new awareness and a transition to a new level. Parting is not only a loss, but also a new meeting. Often the impossible becomes possible if you look at it from a different perspective.
You can do all these steps on your own, but if something doesn’t work out, a psychologist can go through this path with you, easier and more efficiently. It will help you understand your feelings, your desires, your limitations and your fears, it will highlight new paths, new sides and solutions, you have them all, but in a routine, under the weight of problems and tasks, being a hostage of your own habits, it becomes difficult to notice them.
Author: Irina Kavunova
. Psychodynamic business and team coach, organizational clinical business consultant, co-founder of Psy.one, master's student at the Higher School of Economics
Why do we need this?
Introjection is one of the psychological defense mechanisms. In childhood, it allows the child to feel his omnipotence by “assigning” to himself the qualities of adults who are significant to him (“I do this because my parents do this”). In adulthood, this “protects” from loss of self-esteem in a situation of dependence on other people (“my views have supporters, so I am not defenseless or helpless”).
Another “advantage” of this behavior is that there is no need to take responsibility for what a person believes. You can always refer to other people (“he says so”, “the boss does the same”, “I was raised this way”) and shift the “blame” to external sources, referring to norms, traditions, cultural standards, universal values and characteristics of upbringing. As a result, a person is freed from the obligation to make his own decisions and take life into his own hands.
What is the danger?
Trying to subordinate our lives to the rules that we have adopted from others on faith, without thinking about how relevant they are for us, we do not live our own lives and turn into something like zombies. As a result, we are faced with the fact that at some point the imposed views do not help, but rather destroy our lives. “If we swallow something without chewing it, accept it without discrimination, it becomes a foreign body, a parasite that has nested within us,” says Frederick Perls, an outstanding psychotherapist and founder of Gestalt therapy. “Although it may appear to be part of us, it is not; it remains part of the environment.”
Like any defense mechanism, introjection distorts the perception of reality and makes something external feel like something internal. This means that in the event of the disappearance of this external person, a person may perceive it as the loss of a part of himself. His self seemed to shrink, and the feeling of emptiness became unbearable. This can lead to depression. In an attempt to maintain internal integrity, a person may indulge in an unconscious fantasy that it is he who is to blame for the loss and that he can somehow make amends.
In addition, someone who lives “as a carbon copy” misses the opportunity to develop his own personality, because he is busy retaining foreign elements in his value system.
Ksenia, stayed in journalism, but became interested in programming
Throughout 11th grade, I was sure that journalism was what I needed, and if doubts arose, I drove them out of my head. Despite the fact that I was one of the best in my physics and mathematics class, hated literature and was not interested in culture, for some reason it seemed to me that I should become a journalist. And so I come out of the last entrance test at a university with a budget place in my pocket, call my mother and say that I don’t want to study to be a journalist. Mom is in shock, I am in tears: silent scene.
Questions during pre-tests on the subject of the specialty and the preparation for admission itself unsettled me and made it clear that there was no place for me in journalism.
Unfortunately, I realized too late that I have a purely technical mindset and my hands grow from the right place. After a year of thinking and trying, I settled on the fact that I really like programming, video shooting and editing. Now I’m learning three programming languages in courses, and I’ve been filming and editing for a year and a half.
I just recently did the math and realized that it would be much more profitable for me to drop out of university now, get a job, rent a room and slowly move towards programming - but I decided not to do this. A vibrant student life, friends and acquaintances, participation in various kinds of projects is not a waste of time, but something that I will remember with a smile in my old age. It’s not difficult for me to study, they also provide me with a hostel - some advantages.
In addition, I believe that even if I do not intend to work in my specialty, my education is not useless. Firstly, communication skills have never interfered with anyone in this life. You can’t help but learn this from HSE journalism: when you have to find an astronaut for an interview in three days, any shame and fear disappears. Secondly, HSE provides a lot of opportunities to develop other soft skills (and, by the way, not only soft ones) in extracurricular projects. I know for sure that I will not die of hunger, because in the student organization I learned how to shoot and edit videos quite well.
But there are also disadvantages: many items will never be useful to me in my life, but I have to spend time on them.
By the end of university, I will definitely have a job in programming, if I don’t give up on it, of course. Perhaps I will be indirectly connected with the world of media (it is, after all, a lot of fun), but only indirectly.
I believe that higher education is necessary, but not in the context in which it is usually presented. At a university, a student learns to work, be responsible for his actions, and set priorities. All my friends who immediately went to work after school swim madly, because at school they help students and pull them up in every possible way. In life this is not the case at all.
