Reactive abuse is when someone who is a victim of abuse (family scapegoating abuse, in this case) reacts to the abuse in such a manner that if an outside person were to be a fly on the wall observing, it would make it look like they, and not the perpetrator, are the abuser.
A Warm Welcome to Our New Subscribers! I’ve posted a new video on 10 UNSPOKEN FAMILY RULES that support family scapegoating abuse (FSA) dynamics for you to check out when you have time – Chapters are included beneath the video link both here and on YouTube in the video description. When you click on a…
Andrea Ashley and I have been getting some terrific feedback on the podcast we did recently on her show, Adult Child Podcast. I know some of you have been waiting for it to be available on YouTube. Parts One and Two of the interview are now posted there, with closed captions and chapter segments to make searching through the content easier ( the chapters are available in each video’s description).
Healing from Family Scapegoating: Family scapegoating abuse (FSA) is a horrific form of ‘invisible’ (psycho-emotional) abuse fueled by an insidious family projective identification process. Unfortunately, even psychoanalytically-oriented therapists may not be familiar with the family projective identification process unless they have received in-depth training in Family Systems theory; hence, they will not be able to provide this critical piece of psycho-education to clients suffering from symptoms of FSA. In this article, I explain the family projective identification process, and why understanding this form of systemic projection can bring relief to the adult survivor of FSA.
A family that is dominated by a dysfunctional or narcissistic parent may result in its members living under a set of unspoken ‘rules’, rules which benefit the parent at the expense of their children’s well-being. The research I conducted on what I named family scapegoating abuse (FSA) suggests that dysfunctional families that scapegoat are also governed by a specific set of rules. This article reviews ten rules that I have identified as being evident in families that scapegoat one of their own.
For the child victim of family scapegoating abuse (FSA), the ‘scapegoat story’ created by one or both parents (which the entire family invariably adapts and accepts unquestioningly) can negatively impact their mental and emotional health. When a parent is a malignant narcissist, the abuse the child experiences can be extreme, resulting in complex trauma (C-PTSD) symptoms secondary to grave psycho-emotional distress.
In the narcissistic family system, the needs of the disordered parent take precedence over the needs of the dependent child, resulting in narcissistic abuse. Family members are not cherished individuals to be loved; they are instead ‘narcissistic supply’ whose only purpose is to serve the infantile, primitive psycho-emotional needs of the narcissistic parent.
One of the ways that a narcissistic parent marginalizes their child is to demean them and put them down – This is particularly the case with the ‘scapegoat child’. An example of such marginalization tactics is evident in what S.P. named the ‘Martyr Parent Ploy’, which we consider to be a form of covert narcissism.
