Projection

1. Etymology

Projection comes from Latin prōicere—to throw forward or cast out (prō- forth + iacere to throw). In ordinary English it can mean a plan thrown ahead in time, or an image cast onto a screen. Jung keeps the sense of an unconscious content thrown outward onto people, things, and situations.

Related forms: project; projected image / imago; withdrawing projections; German Projektion. Related but distinct: participation mystique, identification.

2. Plain summary

Projection is what happens when something inside you shows up as if it belonged to someone else. You feel sure the other person is angry, perfect, dangerous, or magical—and later you notice that feeling was partly your own unowned material.

It is not always a mistake in everyday life; some projection oils relationships. Too much of it empties you out and fills the world with ghosts of your own psyche. Meeting shadow, anima, or animus almost always involves catching projections and taking them back.

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common projection-related figures and motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
perceiving one’s unconscious contents in others; assuming people are as one imagines them; personal quarrels as projection theater; opponent carrying unavowed mistakes; positive projection (idealization / protected “good” parts); negative projection (disowned shadow traits); projection onto persons, groups, institutions; impoverishment of personality beyond an optimum; infantile normal vs adult pathological levels; temporary relief / defense against anxiety; later realization “that was me”; analyst noticing sooner than the subject; withdrawing / dissolving projections; relation to persona (mask vs blamed other); relation to complex constellation; imagos cast onto carriers; participation mystique / archaic identity (adjacent); screen and mirror metaphors in ordinary language.

3. Academic elucidation

4. Lexicon

Projection. An automatic process whereby contents of one’s own unconscious are perceived to be in others. … Just as we tend to assume that the world is as we see it, we naïvely suppose that people are as we imagine them to be. … Cum grano salis, we always see our own unavowed mistakes in our opponent.

(Sharp, 1991, p. [provisional — unverified])

Jung’s approach to projection builds upon a psychoanalytic base. Projection may be seen as normal or pathological and as a defence against anxiety. Difficult emotions and unacceptable parts of the personality may be located in a person or object external to the subject. … The general result of projection beyond an optimum level is an impoverishment of personality.

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

PROJECTION means the expulsion of a subjective content into an object; it is the opposite of introjection. … The subject gets rid of painful, incompatible contents by projecting them, as also of positive values which, for one reason or another—self-depreciation, for instance—are inaccessible to him.

We may distinguish passive and active projection. The passive form is the customary form of all pathological and many normal projections; they are not intentional and are purely automatic occurrences. The active form is an essential component of the act of empathy.
(Jung, 1921/1971, CW 6, p. 633, ¶784)

All primitive magic and religion are based on these magical attachments, which simply consist in the projection of unconscious contents into the object.
(Jung, 1916/1969, CW 8, pp. 350–351, ¶516)

Experience shows that projection is never conscious: projections are always there first and are recognized afterwards.
(Jung, 1936/1968, CW 9i, pp. 60–61, ¶122)

See also: shadow; persona; anima; animus; complex; archetype; active imagination. participation mystique. (Queued — not yet linked: psychoid, ego.)

References

Jung, C. G. (1968). Concerning the archetypes, with special reference to the anima concept. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 9, Pt. 1, pp. 60–61, ¶122). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1936; German revised 1954 note-only)

Jung, C. G. (1969). General aspects of dream psychology. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 8, pp. 350–351, ¶516). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1916; German revised collection 1948 note-only)

Jung, C. G. (1971). Psychological types. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (Vol. 6, pp. 632–633, ¶¶783–784). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1921)

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.