Only humans can be inhuman

A dark-haired, bright-eyed 12-year-old girl wrote secretly at her desk while her teacher drew a map on the blackboard. She composed two notes. One she slipped to Jennifer, the other to Edward. "Eddie told me he likes you," Jennifer's note said. The other note claimed, "Jenny told me she likes you." Although Edward and Jennifer had not previously thought of one another romantically, a mutual infatuation soon blossomed, much to the delight of their friend who had passed them notes.

A professor at a prominent university envied the success of a male colleague and a female colleague and decided to bring about their downfall. She confided first to one and then to the other that each of them was spreading malicious gossip about the other's sexual propensities. She planted the seeds of suspicion, which started a mutually destructive projective identification. Their negative thoughts of one another were projected onto one another, and elicited the expected hostility.

"Self and Others: object relations theory in practice", by N. Gregory Hamilton, M.D.