Sure.

Let me iterate- these three mechanisms are extremely important for people with personality disorders or people who are in relationships with someone who has a personality disorder. And even if not, it's useful to know them. These play out on a regular basis in human interaction.

Projection is when an individual projects his or her own qualities, motivations, and intentions on another person. Often these qualities and motivations are negative. Actually a good example of projection happened to me last week. I phoned a liaison for my school's internship program and notified her that I found and interviewed at a place that I think would be really good as an internship. She went ballistic and yelled at me because I did this without her knowing. I tried verbal de-escalation and she just continued ranting, and in her rant she accused me of being aggressive with her on the phone. I had to breathe deeply, apologize for any misunderstanding, and state the fact that I did not yell at her or get aggressive. She projected her own feelings, actions, etc. onto me. Often projections serve as justifications. In that situation, she yelled at me, and justified it through projecting her own aggression onto me. It served as a justification for her continued yelling... all while I was just calmly trying to apologize and de-escalate things.

Displacement is when you dump how you feel on one person when it is meant for another. Usually the person it is meant for is unavailable or not present. Like, coming home at work from a rough day and treating your wife like ****. You really wish you can treat your colleague like that, but your wife is available. Or as is the case with many children who have been abused, they often end up torturing/abusing animals to unleash the hate they have for their abusers. I actually had a room mate in college who was an infamous Casanova. He was cheated on and dumped by his high-school sweetheart of several years, and he spent college bedding something like 50 women, telling them all this lovey-dovey romance novel **** and promising them the world, but dumping them like trash after they bought his BS. Displacement can occur at many levels. It's processing an emotion onto a substitute or effigy of the person that it was intended for.

Transference is when you unleash childhood emotions onto someone who you have some sort of relationship with. In therapy, often some clients will experience transference where they begin to feel and treat the therapist like a mother or father. If the person has issues with their parents, he often mirrors that in his relationship with the therapist. I knew a girl whose father abandoned her and she spent her whole life wrecking men emotionally, accusing them falsely, etc. just a bundle of drama. Essentially, you carry baggage and unresolved **** related to significant figures in your early childhood and you treat significant figures in your life right now based on that childhood baggage. What comes first, chicken or egg? Who knows. I think that in some cases an individual may gravitate toward people who share characteristics of their parents who they then re-enact childhood trauma and dynamics with. If the parents were abusive and or neglectful it can get really ugly.