Intrapsychic outcome in projective identification

Four possible outcomes of projective identification (Klein, 1946) are identified. First is a parallel sending, receiving, and giving back between both parties. Second, there is an inability to access the receiver, leading to annihilation anxieties. Third is an experience of the receiver not being able to process the message, leading to the sender's fantasy of hurting or destroying the object. Finally, there is the experience of the object becoming outraged at being asked to receive a message and subsequently attacking the sender. These are all fantasy states that come about in the context of the most basic of human communications, the process of projective identification. Projective identification is a fantasy-dominated experience and a dialectical process within both interpersonal and intrapsychic forums. These four potential states are separated for theoretical purposes but are always cross-influencing and creating each other in the unconscious. The situations described between mother and infant are paralleled in the analytic situation, the difference being the chronological and developmental passage of time and the evolution of the original fantasy material.