A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Stigmatisation

It is likely that people behave more or less along the line of what is projected onto them which, when introjected, spoils their identity. There is no systematic work on stigmatisation in psychoanalytic theory and those who occasionally consider stigmatisation along psychoanalytic lines would propose the defence mechanism o f projection as its tool. Here one could attempt to apply the psychoanalytic theory and, as an example, Kleinian theory in order to better understand stigmatisation. According to Kleinian theory, in projective identification, the person splits part o f his self (and an associated impulse) in his psychic space, disowns it, and then identifies it with someone’s else’s character. The process is unconscious though ‘identification’ refers to the

conscious process o f ‘recognising’ some trait (indeed one’s own) in someone else.

Kleinians emphasise the psychic reality in the mind o f the projector and do not busy themselves with finding out whether the projectee actually possesses the trait or not or otherwise deserves the projection or not. GofiBnan’s theory does not pay attention to stigmatisers’ active choice o f people to project stereotypic images onto them. Indeed, the projector usually chooses those who are ‘justifiable recipients’ or suitable targets for the projection but indeed the objective presence of an objectionable trait in others would not exclude its presence in the stigmatiser. This means that the stigmatiser can objectively recognise a certain trait in the stigmatised while himself possessing that trait. Someone who says that Hitler was cruel is probably consensuaUy right but can be cruel himself and uses the cruelty o f Hitler as a means o f forgetting his own cruelty. On the other hand, the stigmatised might not have the claimed objectionable attribute either because the stigmatiser’s mind works at a level which is ‘psychotic’ and projects chaotically at anyone close at hand, or that the stigmatiser uses gossip or misinformed assertion to discredit the person he stigmatises for reasons such as rivalry (for affection, respect or resources).

Projective identification is a bilateral process. Not only does the stigmatiser identify a trait in others (that the stigmatiser himself may possess) but the stigmatised too feel some attribution thrown onto him. He has too choices: either to go along with it and behave as if he were the person who had the stigma projected, or to resist the stigmatisation by rejecting the projection saying or acting in a way as to declare “No. 1 am not that.” According to the Kleinian theory, people tend to behave in conformity with the image projected onto them.

Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968; Synder et al, 1977). For example if men speaking on the phone to woman they do not know are told that the women are attractive, they are likely to project the schema o f attractiveness on the women, speaking to them in a friendlier and warmer way, and as a result, elicit more humorous and warmer (i.e, socially attractive) responses from them, irrespective o f the actual attractiveness o f the women. The contrary would be the case if the men are told the women concerned are unattractive (Synder et al, 1977). This suggests that people tend to show behaviours compatible with the image we project onto them. A teacher’s projection o f a trait on a student would actually influence the behaviour o f the student. So that if a teacher communicates in such a way that implies the projection o f the idea that a certain student is dull, the latter tends to do worse at school and vice versa (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). It is likely that when one attributes madness to others, they start behaving more like a ‘mad’ person especially as this would at least confers them the ‘advantages’ o f being ‘mad’, now that all the associated disadvantages have already been forced onto them.

Another reason why the stigmatised may yield to the idea projected is likely to be the fact that he may already be replete with self-doubt that he resisted until now. If he does not actually have the attribute projected the possibility o f him yielding to the idea is likely to depend on the social pressure and factors such as the power o f the gossip made as a result o f defamation or misrepresentation o f his character. Even when there is no collective pressure on him, he might always suppose that there may be traits within him he is unaware o f or wonders whether he acts in a way that makes a wrong impression on others. He senses his reflected self-concept and realizes that there is a concrete image o f him in the mind o f the other as ‘a third person’ or for that matter, ‘non-person’ he has to ‘kill’ in order to prove his innocence, authenticity and real identity. Thus there is work waiting for him to do. He has to make efforts, devise ways o f approaching,

behaving or communicating which might persuade, if possible at all, the stigmatiser that he, the stigmatised, is not who the stigmatiser believes him to be. Depending on the degree o f projection and motivation for stigmatisation this can be an onerous task. He has then to fight and needs to choose whether he is prepared to pay the cost or alternatively relinquish the effort. His work is going to be more difficult as his efforts to clear the wrong impression might be seen as him denying the ‘stigma’ or wanting to appear to be what he is not. The responses and reactions o f others make his life more ‘determined’ along the fines chosen by others, imposing an identity on him that he has not chosen and restrict him in what they suppose or ‘know’ him to be. In these circumstances, he is likely to relinquish any effort, yield to the proffered identity and behave in conformity with it. Alternatively he may chose to resist the projection and, to do so, he is likely to need a great deal o f inner strength in order to stand up and say “No, I am not that,” imposing on others his own version o f his identity — what he believes he is.

Here, one should emphasise that though the use o f projective identification as a tool to comprehend stigmatisation is useful, at least in certain cases, the stigmatiser may choose to attribute some objectionable character to the person stigmatised, not from one o f his own characters but fi’om an inventory o f attributes objectionable to society and not always for getting rid o f one o f his own unwanted characters but for downgrading a rival in the context o f an economic competition.

A second psychoanalytic interpretation o f stigmatisation, along Lacanian fine o f thought, will be given in the chapter on language, discourse and stigmatisation.

CHAPTER II

A UNITARY THEORY OF STIGMATISATION: THE