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I do not find a center to the uses of projective identification (PI) in the USA. The concept is being used as though it fits into whatever happens to be one's established theory and mode of practice. Variations extend from Grotstein's close adherence to Klein, Bion, and Meltzer to informal or improvisational applications in specific clinical instances. Some are not clearly different from Freud's projection or from attribution, imitation, manipulation and persuasion.
I will organize this scattered material around a listing of what I consider the conceptual issues encountered or created by recent authors. Some of these issues are new versions of age-old epistemological controversies.
The clinical scene in the USA has featured the rising influence of such object relational thinkers as Klein, Winnicott, Bion, Fairbairn, Ferenczi and Loewald and such interpersonal-relational thinkers as Harry Stack Sullivan, Stephen Mitchell, and Jay Greenberg. This change has been evidenced by widespread attention to the inter-play of transference and countertransference. Sometimes, projective identification is implied rather than named in clinical interpretations and discussions.
In general, use of the idea tends to be stripped of its specifically Kleinian origin (the same may be said of those counterproductively overshadowed concepts introjective identification and introjection). My impression is that affiliation anxiety might be playing a
part in trendy and selective use of the terminology of projection. Nevertheless, a broad overview of clinical practice suggests that the awareness of projective identification has led to a gain in clinical effectiveness at the expense of conceptual rigor, technical consistency, and professional candor.
Judging by citations in texts and reference lists of recent years, Thomas Ogden seems to have been the most influential USA writer on projective identification, though Grotstein remains the most prolific in this regard. Kernberg has also made notable