抄録
Projective identification is a primary and original defensive mechanism of borderline personality disorder (BPD), which has not been properly understood by clinicians. To explain projective identification in an easy-to-understand manner, I use Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological “body theory” to consider the structure of this pheno- menon. Projective identification is a phenomenon in which the patient/infant’s emotion is experienced not by the subject him/herself but by the psychoanalyst/mother, who is the recipient. This phenomenon is not only experienced by the recipient. The emotion experienced by the psychoanalyst/mother as a recipient strongly prompts them to act out. Through case studies of patients with BPD, I find BPD characteristics in the persistence and desperation that is displayed in their interpersonal relationships. Seen from Merleau- Ponty’s “body theory,” patients with BPD are unable to form others’ perspectives owing to their underdeveloped “bodily perspectives.” In other words, patients with BPD can be seen as people who cannot live in the body of the other. They frequently use projective identification in trying to compensate for this disability. It represents the immaturity as an organ of their intercorporeality at the pre-personal level. I believe that the compensa- tory behavior of a healthy organ for the immature organ at the level of intercorporeality is precisely what constitutes the structure of projective identification. I hope my discussion in this article will clarify projective identification from the perspective of “corporeality” if only a little and contribute to the understanding of this phenomenon.
