Mental image

A mental image, in the context of the Psyche, is the internal, psychic representation we form of another person. It is the “story” or belief-structure we create about someone, composed of our own emotions, judgments, past experiences, and projections.

This mental image is a psychic apparition. Just as the Identity is an illusory “I” or “me” to represent one’s own host body, it is also an illusory “them” to represent another.

The Image vs. The Person

It is crucial to distinguish this mental image from the actual, flesh & blood human being it supposedly represents. The mental image is not the person; it is a construct within our own psyche.

We do not see people as they are. We see the mental images we have created of them. These images are built from:

  • Projections: We attribute our own unconscious feelings, beliefs, or motives to the other person.

  • Transference: We redirect feelings and attitudes from past relationships (like parents) onto the person in our present.

  • Past Experiences: We filter their current actions through the lens of our past encounters.

  • Social Identity: We perceive them through the lens of group affiliations (our “group” vs. their “group”).

A Source of Conflict

This is one fundamental reason for human conflict (malice). We almost never interact directly with the other person. We interact with our mental image of them.

When we feel anger, attachment, or resentment towards someone, we are, in reality, experiencing an affective reaction to our own psychic apparition of that person. The subsequent conflict is not between two flesh & blood humans, but between two illusory identities—our “I” fighting the “you” we have created.

We are, in effect, only ever interacting with modified parts of ourselves.

Related concepts

  • Stereotyping: This is a form of this process, but at a group level. You interact with your mental image of “a [group member]” instead of the specific individual in front of you.
  • Preconception/Assumption: These words describe the content of the mental image (the idea you formed) before interacting.
Links to this page
  • Romantic identity
    Projection: It prevents an actual meeting with the other person. Instead, the partner becomes “a projected imaginary figure on my own screen of emotions” , an image that “had nothing to do with the actual person or situation”.