Projective identification is a term used widely by analytic clinicians, yet relatively few can define the term and fewer still can trace its origin and evolution. Complicating things further is the fact that there are multiple definitions currently in use. There is also much controversy about the purpose of projective identification and how clinicians should respond to it constructively. In this book, Jill Savege Scharff has done an exemplary job of reviewing the literature on projective and introjective identification, discussing these concepts, integrating them, and, finally, summarizing them so that any clinician may pick up this book and obtain a good working knowledge of the concepts and their clinical significance.

Scharff's discussion includes a delineation of projective identification as an intrapsychic (one-person) versus interpersonal (two-person) phenomenon; a history of the term, beginning with its inception by Melanie Klein; the distinctions made between projection