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Six categories of learning are distinguished, each with a particular mental state underlying them and with particular consequences for personality development.
Learning from experience, as described by Bion (Heinemann, 1965), involves participation in an emotional experience in such a way that a modification of the personality takes place. The person “becomes” something that he was not before, say a “walker” in the case of a small child, or a “doctor” in the case of an adult. Internal qualification of this sort may be contrasted with the varieties of external qualification bestowed by social structures.
In contrast, learning by projective identification involves an omnipotent phantasy of entry into, and taking over, the mental qualities and capabilities of another person. Because the conception of the other person is limited, and since the projection imbues him with qualities of the subject, the result is something of a caricature. Where the projective identification is with an internal object, qualities of omniscience and judgemental attitudes predominate.
On the other hand, in learning by adhesive identification, which involves a deeply unconscious phantasy of sticking on to the