Alternative hypotheses

Compare mechanisms

Compare function, sequence, patient language, and treatment leverage. The aim is not to choose a label—it is to identify which hypothesis best explains this person’s pattern.

Ask this

Does the conflict centre on what the other person supposedly feels or intends, or on a rapid shift into a wholly good or bad view?

Most useful distinction

Projection locates an unwanted feeling in another person; splitting organises self or others into all-good or all-bad positions.

Common confusion

Both can produce sudden certainty, blame, and relational escalation.

Treatment difference

Projection needs gentle curiosity about disowned affect; splitting needs support for holding mixed representations during rupture.

Projection

Projection can protect against shame or conflict but may create suspicion, blame, and interpersonal escalation.

DefenceInterpersonalAffect+1

Splitting

Splitting can simplify unbearable ambivalence but may destabilise relationships, teams, and self-experience.

DefenceInterpersonalAffect+1

Definition

AA defence in which unacceptable feelings, impulses, or self-states are attributed to another person.

BAn all-or-none way of organising self, others, or situations into wholly good or wholly bad categories when mixed representations feel intolerable.

Core process

AAn unwanted internal state is experienced as located in the other, reducing self-conflict but distorting interpersonal appraisal.

BConflicting positive and negative representations are not integrated, so affective state strongly shapes the current view.

Look for

AHigh certainty about others motives · Accusations matching disowned affect

BSudden idealisation or devaluation · Team splitting

Patient language

A“They hate me”

B“They are the only one who understands me”

Maintaining cycle

ADisowned affect -> attribution to other -> defensive interaction -> apparent confirmation

BAttachment threat -> intense affect -> polarised appraisal -> rupture -> threat increases

Treatment leverage

ABuild capacity to notice disowned feeling states without shame escalation.

BHelp the patient tolerate mixed representations without escalating shame or abandonment fear.

Check before using

AThere is strong evidence that the other person is acting in the described way.

BThe person can hold mixed views but is making a stable, evidence-based judgement.

Formulation language

Projection may protect against owning painful feelings, but it can make relationships feel more hostile and confirming.

Open full guide

Formulation language

Under attachment threat, splitting may make it hard to hold mixed feelings about self and others, intensifying rupture and repair cycles.

Open full guide

Browse the map Use both hypotheses

Alternative hypotheses

Compare mechanisms

Compare function, sequence, patient language, and treatment leverage. The aim is not to choose a label—it is to identify which hypothesis best explains this person’s pattern.

Ask this

Does the conflict centre on what the other person supposedly feels or intends, or on a rapid shift into a wholly good or bad view?

Most useful distinction

Projection locates an unwanted feeling in another person; splitting organises self or others into all-good or all-bad positions.

Common confusion

Both can produce sudden certainty, blame, and relational escalation.

Treatment difference

Projection needs gentle curiosity about disowned affect; splitting needs support for holding mixed representations during rupture.

Projection

Projection can protect against shame or conflict but may create suspicion, blame, and interpersonal escalation.

DefenceInterpersonalAffect+1

Splitting

Splitting can simplify unbearable ambivalence but may destabilise relationships, teams, and self-experience.

DefenceInterpersonalAffect+1

Definition

AA defence in which unacceptable feelings, impulses, or self-states are attributed to another person.

BAn all-or-none way of organising self, others, or situations into wholly good or wholly bad categories when mixed representations feel intolerable.

Core process

AAn unwanted internal state is experienced as located in the other, reducing self-conflict but distorting interpersonal appraisal.

BConflicting positive and negative representations are not integrated, so affective state strongly shapes the current view.

Look for

AHigh certainty about others motives · Accusations matching disowned affect

BSudden idealisation or devaluation · Team splitting

Patient language

A“They hate me”

B“They are the only one who understands me”

Maintaining cycle

ADisowned affect -> attribution to other -> defensive interaction -> apparent confirmation

BAttachment threat -> intense affect -> polarised appraisal -> rupture -> threat increases

Treatment leverage

ABuild capacity to notice disowned feeling states without shame escalation.

BHelp the patient tolerate mixed representations without escalating shame or abandonment fear.

Check before using

AThere is strong evidence that the other person is acting in the described way.

BThe person can hold mixed views but is making a stable, evidence-based judgement.

Formulation language

Projection may protect against owning painful feelings, but it can make relationships feel more hostile and confirming.

Open full guide

Formulation language

Under attachment threat, splitting may make it hard to hold mixed feelings about self and others, intensifying rupture and repair cycles.

Open full guide

Browse the map Use both hypotheses