of the patient's self over time. Transactional analysis emphasizes the need for the therapist's "Adult" (an ego state directed towards an objective appraisal of reality) to remain uncontaminated if the experience of the client's projective identification is to be usefully understood. Wounded couple Relationship problems have been linked to the way there can be a division of emotional labour in a couple, by way of projective identification, with one partner carrying projected aspects of the other for them. Thus one partner may carry all the aggression or all the competence in the relationship, the other all the vulnerability. Jungians describe the resultant dynamics as characterising a so-called "wounded couple" – projective identification ensuring that each carries the most ideal or the most primitive parts of their counterpart. The two partners may initially have been singled out for that very readiness to carry parts of each other's self; but the projected inner conflicts/division then come to be replicated in the partnership itself. Responses Conscious resistance to such projective identification may produce on the one side guilt for refusing to enact the projection, on the other bitter rage at the thwarting of the projection. See also References Further reading R. D. Hinshelwood, A Dictionary of Kleinian Thought (London 1989) E. B. Spillius, Melanie Klein Today, 2 vols. (London 1988) Michael Rustin, The Good Society and the Inner World (1990) Nancy McWilliams, Psychoanalytic Diagnosis (New York 1994) External links Projective Identification. Changingminds.org. Young, R. M.: Benign and virulent projective identification. Schwartz, Wynn: Demystifying Projective Identification. Defence mechanisms Psychoanalytic terminology