The Other Person as a Mirror

Everyone has had the experience: an unexplainable dislike toward someone we barely know. A subtle repulsion, a tension we cannot justify. Or, conversely, someone seems to bristle at our very presence, reacting with hostility we did not earn. Why? Carl Jung offered an unsettling explanation: other people serve as mirrors — and so do we. Each encounter with another human being is not just social, but symbolic. We don’t see the other person objectively; we see them through the lens of our own unconscious contents. What we reject in ourselves, we are quick to notice in others. What we secretly fear or envy, we may come to loathe.

This psychological mechanism is called projection — the tendency to externalize what we cannot or will not see within.

The more repressed the content, the more likely it is to be projected. A person who prides themselves on politeness may feel intense aversion to someone outspoken. Why? Because somewhere in their own shadow lies a silenced voice — and it stings to see it alive in someone else.

But the mirror does not only reflect darkness. Sometimes we are drawn to someone with awe, admiration, even infatuation. We feel they complete us, or awaken us. In such cases, we may be projecting the Anima or Animus — the unconscious image of the ideal inner feminine or masculine — onto the other.

We Are All Each Other’s Mirrors

To relate deeply is to reflect — and to allow ourselves to be reflected. When we recognize the other as a mirror, we don’t just understand them better. We begin to meet ourselves more honestly.

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
— Carl Gustav Jung