Wilfred Bion - Influence of Projective Identification in Group Analysis

"In group treatment many interpretations, and amongst them the most important, have to be made on the strength of the analyst's own emotional reactions… these reactions are dependent on the fact that the analyst in the group is at the receiving end of what Melanie Klein has called projective identification . . .The analyst feels he is being manipulated so as to be playing a part, no matter how difficult to recognize, in somebody else's phantasy… the experience consists of two closely related phases: in the first there is a feeling that whatever else one has done, one has certainly not given a correct interpretation; in the second phase there is a sense of being a particular kind of person in a particular emotional situation. I believe ability to shake oneself out of the numbing feeling of reality that is a concomitant of this state is the prime requisite of the analyst in the group." (p. 149)

Wilfred Bion (1961). Experiences in Groups. London, Tavistock