Feelings on the Move · 1 of 5

Projection

Seeing your feeling on someone else

Meet the person

Sigmund Freud

1856–1939

A doctor in Vienna who did something odd for his time: he let patients talk, and he listened. He called it the “talking cure”. He noticed people often pin their own feelings onto others without knowing. In 1938, aged 82, he escaped the Nazis and came to London. His house in Hampstead is now the Freud Museum.

The idea

Think of a cinema projector. The film is inside the projector. The picture shows up on the screen. Projection is the same: the feeling is inside you, but you see it on someone else. The screen doesn't change. Only how you see it does.

Projection: “I’m not angry. YOU’RE angry.”

Has this ever happened to you?

Been sure someone was annoyed with you, then realised you were annoyed with them?Called someone lazy on a day you hadn’t done your own homework?Felt embarrassed and thought “everyone’s staring at me”?Blamed the controller, the ref or the ball when you lost?

Catch it: when you’re sure what someone else feels, ask yourself, “Is this my feeling?”

Spot it

Maya is jealous of her friend Sam’s new phone. She tells everyone, “Sam is so jealous of me.” What is Maya doing?

▸ For grown-ups: sources

[Ref: Freud S. (1895) Draft H: Paranoia. Standard Edition vol. 1. London: Hogarth Press]

[Ref: Freud S. (1911) Psycho-analytic notes on an autobiographical account of a case of paranoia (Schreber). Standard Edition vol. 12. London: Hogarth Press]

Written by Dr Saal Seneviratne, Consultant Psychiatrist at The Burlington Clinic, London · Last reviewed 21 October 2026 · About these pages