ABSTRACT
The three phenomena that are relevant to our understanding of personal choices are known as the "primitive mechanisms"–splitting, projection, and introjection. Melanie Klein employed the concept of splitting initially to account for patients in whom there appeared to be something missing in the way they related to other people. She noted a blankness of affect. For instance, a patient told her of a sense of anxiety that was afflicting him and talked of people more successful than he was himself, towards whom he experienced feelings of frustration, grievance, and envy. Projection is not just the perception of another person as a projection of an expected figure, but instead it can be, literally, the projection of parts of the mind of one subject into the mind of another person. The reality of the other person is seriously distorted by a tenacious and untested belief.
