Tag: Family Breakdown; Scapegoating

Childhood emotional neglect and scapegoating – part 3

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What is scapegoating?

A scapegoat from a therapy viewpoint is the person in a system who gets blamed for things whether they are the cause or not of the issue. I am usually working with a family system but the system can also be for example a work environment, a social group or a team. Other peoples perception of the scapegoat are re-enforced time and again by other members of the system and their voice isn’t heard.

What does that look like for the scapegoat?

The scapegoat may learn that the other people in the system will not support them. Even if they know that the thing they are being blamed for is untrue or being distorted. Therefore they expect very little from the system and often eventually cut themselves off from it as they cannot tolerate the expectations placed on them to take on the guilt.

However, sadly the scapegoat may not learn this lesson, instead they learn to believe what is said about them. These messages become internalised and can take a lifetime to even begin to question.

Alternatively the scapegoat can try and hold both things as true, “I must be the problem because everyone says it, but I also don’t understand what they say I did wrong.” Completely confusing to live this way and may lead to a lot of arguments and disagreements.

How does that relate to attachment styles?

In my experience, there does seem to be some pattern emerging.

For avoidant attachment children, they are more likely to expect less from the system and cut themselves off sooner. Going no contact reduces the stress of trying to defend against the scapegoating behaviour. Where these children have had to develop a lot of self sufficiency it is somewhat easier to do this.

For anxious attachment children, the need to people please and accept the judgments and blaming continues and leads into internalising and believing the scapegoating narrative. Breaking the pattern may not happen until those who are re-enforcing it are no longer in their lives as the need to please is so profound. Any concept of challenging the scapegoating has long been suppressed to try and make life easier.

For disorganised attachment children, the need to have that connection whilst also distrusting it means that the scapegoating may be challenged leading to lots of conflict in the system. In time this may lead to estrangement but there may be lots of repair attempts when the need to be part of the system takes priority. This then can be weaponised and used as examples of why the scapegoating is “correct”. “You always come back as you need us”.

Next time I’ll explore emotional abuse and emotional neglect.

For part 1 and part 2 click links

Childhood emotional neglect and scapegoating – part 1

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On family estrangements

I know over the last week there’s been a lot of speculation and commentary over one particular celebrity family breakdown but as someone who has worked in this field for many years I wanted to give my perspective in general on what these are about. I won’t comment on the celebrities themselves.

  • Never assume it’s easy for anyone being impacted.
  • Never assume you know what someone’s reality has been like from watching it from outside the core family. 
  • Never assume people haven’t tried to fix things before they make a break. 
  • Never assume that people living in the same house have the same experience of people.

The reality is we don’t live other peoples lives and it’s incredibly difficult to fully understand what people are going through because we bring our own prejudice, biases, innocence and naivety into our perspectives.

Sometimes abusive behaviour is overt. I mean that the abuser knows they are being abusive and there is an element where they want to hurt someone in what they do. These people are usually very skilful at hiding that behaviour from everyone else because they have developed a very good mask to show to other people.

The person that they abuse is often disbelieved if they tell their version of event because of the way a skilful abuser has created and crafted a story. This can often include setting up the abused family member as a scapegoat. 

  • They are the problem.
  • They are the one who makes it difficult. 
  • They are the one who we try to help and doesn’t appreciate things, et cetera. 
  • They are ungrateful.
  • They don’t understand I did what I did for their own good.
  • They are the one who then isn’t believed when they try to speak out if they ever do speak out. 

Part of that abuse can be that they actually end up believing the story that’s been crafted about them and it can take a lifetime to realise that it was false. 

In other instances the abuser is not aware that their behaviour is abusive. That their behaviour is causing harm to another person.

This can be for many reasons but often it’s a lack of emotional maturity, the ability to emotionally regulate and maybe they have been raised themselves in a emotionally abusive household so they do not understand what is appropriate.

I think back to the tales of stage mothers as shown in films from the 1930’s, 40’s and 50s. These are mothers usually raised in poverty who want more for their children and push them to work from a really young age and dedicate everything to making their child stars and make money but at what cost?

There’s a lot of films and literature about that system in Hollywood and now it’s acknowledged how abusive it was and how harmful. Those mothers I think in many ways were motivated by their own trauma. They wanted more for their children and then through them more for themselves.

Parents who overshare with their children from a young age and treat them as a confidant can also cause a lot of harm. There children become the support system for the parent and their own needs and support gets neglected.

Absent parents through economic poverty and necessity can also leave a legacy of harm to children. Parents who are never there for their child because they’re working all the time to provide some stability think they’re doing the right thing. However we do know that children need connection with their primary carers to feel emotionally safe and secure and to learn from them. 

They learn how to regulate emotions, learn trust, confidence and to know they are loved. When work takes so much time and energy, even when it’s coming from trying to provide for them, that child may feel unloved, unsafe, unconnected, and ultimately that can also become a form of emotional neglect.

Emotional neglect is one of the most unseen forms of child abuse. Its legacy can be lifelong and hidden, even in the one who experienced it. It can shape and influence all their life choices.

Sadly, if they ever do come to understand what was happening and work on healing themselves it also often gets dismissed and even mocked by those who they share their story with later in life. 

These types of examples can lead to different insecure attachment styles which are covered in part 2.