What has David Beckham got to teach all of us?
No, it’s not about footballing prowess or how to look chic in a sarong….
No, having just finished the Beckham documentary, it struck me that his story contains lessons for all of us.
It’s about projection.
What on earth am I on about? I’m talking about how, in life, when we meet/see someone, we don’t just see the reality of them. We see a mixture of who they are plus an overlay of our own stuff (or our own ‘psychological material’ if you want to be fancy). We see our own emotions and feelings projected on to them.
This often takes the form of those feelings we struggle to recognise in ourselves. In short – the bad stuff!
It’s often apparent in how we view famous people like Beckham. Initially, he was built up to become a demi-God – ‘Golden Balls’ – with all of our positive feelings projected onto him.
And then came the infamous match against Argentina in 1998 when he was sent off, spectacularly falling from grace.
Suddenly, all our negative feelings and all the bad traits that in fact we all share (such as a desire for retaliation when someone wrongs us) were projected on to him with full force. Conveniently ignoring that actually there were other reasons why we lost that match…
Projection isn’t just about famous people.
I talk about it a lot with lawyers in therapy. Because it goes on all the time, particularly in contentious areas.
Take my old practice area of family law. Projection is rife. It’s particularly strong in situations where there used to be strong positive feelings (as with Beckham). So, once happy couples turn against each other on separation. And often it’s exactly those traits that drew you to someone in the first place that you then start to resent when the relationship breaks down.
But it’s not just the clients!
We lawyers project too. We all like to have something/someone to hate. Something to fight against. It can be motivating for us.
Many of us have called other lawyers ‘aggressive’ for example. Without recognising how we may come across in our letters and our dealings with others.
And we can all be rubbish at seeing that, when someone else behaves in a way we deem aggressive, often they believe they’re acting in defence. Against something they think we’ve done/said.
Even if what we’re saying seems fine, we also need to bear in mind the energy we giving off. And to realise that, when we’re stressed, we can come across in a way that we don’t intend to.
So, given we’re professionals that pride ourselves on dealing with facts and reality, it’s important that we take a look regularly at our own projections (for example in therapy/reflective practice) and try to steer away from seeing life in such black and white terms.
Because no one is as good or as bad as they seem.
What do you think? Where do you think projection comes into your work? Let me know!