Introjection

1. Etymology

Introjection names a process of assimilation of object to subject, the opposite of projection. Related: empathy; libido investment; passive vs active.

2. Plain summary

Sharp treats introjection as a process of extraversion in a specific sense: assimilating to the object requires empathy and investing the object with libido. Passive introjection includes transference phenomena and cases where the object compels the subject; active introjection includes empathy as adaptation.

Samuels: opposite of projection; attempt to internalize experience; Jung wrote of it far less than projection (typological note: as introvert he more often projected to meet the outer world). Empathy, for Jung, more explicitly uses introjection—taking the other’s personality or situation inside—rather than projecting ego into another’s psyche.

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common introjection motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
object → subject assimilation; opposite of projection; empathy + libido investment; passive (transference / compelling object); active (empathy as adaptation); internalize experience; less frequent in Jung than projection; kinship with assimilation / identification.

3. Academic elucidation

In analytical psychology introjection is object-to-subject assimilation—Definitions ¶768. Descent Press keeps Sharp and Samuels in §4. Prefer CW 6 ¶768.

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Introjection. A process of assimilation of object to subject, the opposite of projection. … A passive and an active introjection may be distinguished: transference phenomena… belong to the former category… while empathy as a process of adaptation belongs to the latter category.

(Sharp, 1991) — cites CW 6 ¶768 in Sharp’s lemma.

Samuels, Shorter & Plaut (1986) — introjection p. 85 (house vessel neighborhood.

introjection The opposite of PROJECTION; an attempt to internalise experience. … Jung’s approach to empathy makes explicit use of introjection rather more than of projection…

(Samuels, Shorter, & Plaut, 1986, p. 85)

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

See also: projection; empathy; assimilation; transference; identification; libido; extraversion.

References

Samuels, A., Shorter, B., & Plaut, F. (1986). A critical dictionary of Jungian analysis. Routledge.

Sharp, D. (1991). Jung lexicon: A primer of terms & concepts. Inner City Books.