ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a set of principles related to the technical aspects of handling projective identification in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. It discusses the therapeutic technique for the handling of projective identification. The chapter focuses on the psychological work involved in serving therapeutically as a recipient of the patient's projective identifications. Processing the projective identification without acting upon the engendered feelings is an essential aspect of the therapeutic process. The chapter presents a material that reflects a very common clinical situation in work with borderline and schizophrenic patients who are unable to make use of verbal interpretation because of their fear of being taken over by the therapist. The interaction characterizing the phase of therapy represented a playful enactment of the therapist's containment of irreconcilable elements of the patient that had been induced in the therapist as a part of a projective identification.
