Dysfunctional Family Dynamics: Blaming the Scapegoat
This article explores how dysfunctional families attribute their personal problems to a scapegoat.
In dysfunctional families, the self-esteem of each member is intricately linked to the overall reputation of the family. How outsiders perceive the family greatly influences the self-esteem of its members. When the family appears successful, functional, and well-regarded by others, the members feel proud and superior. This is why they invest significant effort in maintaining this facade at any cost, refusing to acknowledge their own flaws and shortcomings.
In such families, the primary concern of the members is to preserve a distorted reality that supports their self-image as a harmonious, functional, and morally superior unit. They achieve this by denying their own faults, deficiencies, and inappropriate behaviors. This defensive denial helps them maintain the illusion of perfection and righteousness.
To protect their image, the family engages in projection. They project their own negative traits, behaviors, and flaws onto the scapegoat. For example, if a family member has anger issues, instead of addressing this problem collectively, they attribute it to the scapegoat. This scapegoating serves as a convenient way to externalize and repudiate their own imperfections. By projecting their problems onto the scapegoat, the family creates an illusion of moral superiority and flawlessness. They can convince themselves and others that they are blameless and that the scapegoat is the source of all problems. This reinforces their collective self-image as virtuous and faultless.
Unfortunately, projection within the family allows them to avoid self-reflection and accountability. They do not face their own problems or engage in introspection, as they believe the source of all issues lies outside themselves. This avoidance of self-examination helps them maintain their image, but it perpetuates the dysfunctional dynamics within the family. The scapegoat becomes the emotional and psychological receptacle for the family’s problems. Their well-being, self-esteem, and mental health are sacrificed to maintain the family’s facade.
Analysis of the Dynamics of Blaming Personal Problems on the Scapegoat
1. Personal Problem:
A family member realizes they have a problem, such as not controlling their temper, an addiction, anxiety, or guilt over neglecting a relative. It could be any problem or character flaw that the member finds unacceptable, prompting them to project it outward.
2. Defensive Denial:
Instead of accepting what they find unacceptable and recognizing their problem, the family member resorts to defensive denial. Rather than taking responsibility, they seek ways to externalize it by attributing it to the scapegoat.
3. Selection of the Scapegoat:
The family leader selects the scapegoat based on who disobeys them the most. Since the leader often engages in immoral behavior, the scapegoat is inevitably the one with stronger ethical principles, making them less willing to accept the leader’s immoral orders and the unethical family dynamics. Other family members find it convenient to blame the scapegoat for everything that goes wrong. The blame dynamic snowballs and becomes a natural, convenient way to avoid guilt and punishment.
4. Projection:
Family members project their problems onto the scapegoat. Projection is a psychological defense mechanism through which one transfers their feelings, thoughts, or behaviors to another person. For instance, they might say the scapegoat has anger issues, an addiction, or failed to care properly for a relative.
5. Rationalization:
To maintain their projection, family members rationalize why the scapegoat has the problems, citing specific incidents or interactions as evidence, even if these incidents are irrelevant, invented, distorted, or unrelated to the scapegoat’s behavior.
6. Confirmation Bias:
Once committed to the projection, family members interpret the scapegoat’s actions and behaviors through a biased lens. They selectively notice and remember cases that support their narrative while ignoring anything that contradicts it, reinforcing their belief in the scapegoat’s supposed problems.
7. Gossip and Discussion:
Family members gossip about the scapegoat’s alleged problems with other relatives, friends, or confidants. These conversations spread and reinforce the projection, often under the guise of genuine concern for the family’s well-being.
8. Collective Agreement:
In dysfunctional families, other members may easily accept the projection, especially if it aligns with established family dynamics. They may recall past incidents where they believe the scapegoat showed such problems, even if these cases were exaggerated, taken out of context, or never happened.
9. Reinforcement:
The collective agreement further reinforces the belief that the scapegoat has the problems attributed to them. This reinforcement often creates a collective illusion where the entire family accepts this narrative as an unquestionable reality or supreme truth.
10. Behavioral Changes:
As a result of the projection and collective agreement, family members treat the scapegoat as if they genuinely have the attributed problems. In a healthy family, this would involve supporting and helping the scapegoat to overcome their supposed issues. However, a dysfunctional family reacts oppositely, isolating and excluding the scapegoat, avoiding inviting them to family gatherings, and marginalizing them, further reinforcing the role attributed to them in the family dynamic.
11. Avoidance of Self-Reflection:
Blaming the personal problem on the scapegoat allows other family members to avoid self-reflection and addressing their issues. They do not have to face their problems or take responsibility for their behavior.
This process involves a combination of psychological defense mechanisms, confirmation bias, and social dynamics within the dysfunctional family. Over time, blaming personal problems on the scapegoat perpetuates both the scapegoating itself and the family’s distorted view of reality. Breaking this cycle typically requires therapy or intervention, both individually and collectively, to address the root causes and change these harmful dynamics.
Analysis of the Dynamics of Projection in Dysfunctional Families
Projection is a defense mechanism in which an individual attributes their own feelings, thoughts, or behaviors to another person. This phenomenon can manifest both individually and within the dynamics of a dysfunctional family.
1. Unacknowledged Feelings or Thoughts:
The process begins when a person experiences feelings, thoughts, or impulses that are uncomfortable, distressing, or unacceptable. These could be negative emotions, desires, or thoughts.
2. Dissonance and Denial:
When faced with these internal experiences, the person may experience cognitive dissonance — a psychological discomfort arising from having highly contradictory or unacceptable beliefs or attitudes. To reduce this dissonance, they may deny or repress their feelings or thoughts in favor of a fantasy.
3. Externalization:
To relieve themselves of these uncomfortable emotions, the person externalizes them. Instead of acknowledging that these feelings or thoughts are their own, they attribute them to another person. This externalization is where projection begins.
4. Target Identification:
The person selects a target onto which they can project these feelings or thoughts. The choice of target may be influenced by existing family dynamics, personal prejudices, or situations. In a dysfunctional family, the scapegoat is often a common projection target.
5. Attribution of Feelings or Thoughts:
The person begins to attribute specific emotions, desires, or thoughts to the chosen target. For example, if they feel angry, they might insist that the scapegoat is the one who is always angry.
6. Belief in the Projection:
Over time, as projection continues, the person genuinely comes to believe that the target possesses the projected feelings or thoughts. They may no longer consciously recognize that these emotions or thoughts were originally their own.
Initially, the person projecting experiences relief by transferring the burden of their distressing feelings onto someone else. This can reduce their immediate discomfort, as projection helps them maintain a positive self-image by dissociating from unwanted aspects of themselves.
Unfortunately, this also diminishes their sense of responsibility for addressing their emotions or thoughts, as they have attributed them to someone else. This avoidance of responsibility acts as a way to protect their ego and self-image.
As projection continues, the person may selectively focus on or interpret the target’s actions and behaviors as evidence supporting the projection. This confirmation bias reinforces their belief in the projection. Over time, the person may become so entrenched in the projection that they genuinely deny or repress awareness that they were the source of the projected feelings or thoughts, turning it into a deeply ingrained defense mechanism. This can lead to interpersonal conflicts and distorted perceptions, especially within a dysfunctional family.
Breaking free from this pattern often requires the scapegoat to seek support, set boundaries, and distance themselves from the toxic family environment.
