On Projection in Therapy

My understanding is that this often-confused process involves the outward projection of feelings coming up in me (but which I deny myself the experience of) onto another person. I might be denying myself the experience of these feelings perhaps because I learned that to experience them was intolerable (I never learned to self-soothe and thus regulate these feelings), or that to experience them was unacceptable (a caregiver perhaps never learned to self soothe or regulate themselves in response to me having these feelings when I was a child) – and so now, when this intolerable or unacceptable feeling comes up in me, it causes unconscious anxiety, leading me to the unconscious defensive manoeuvre of projection; instead of feeling my feeling, I believe the person in front of me is feeling it, not me - I "project" it onto them, I believe they are the ones feeling it, and then I behave accordingly in response to my belief about what the other person is feeling. The point here is that I am not interacting with reality, but instead with my belief about reality, and that this whole unconscious manoeuvre is occurring to enable me to not have to feel my own feeling – a feeling experience has taught me to deny myself.