Just wha the doctor order, I came across an interesting site and thought some people here might find this forum useful. It's called the Scapegoat Society, and just as this forum deals with voiclessness, their site deals exclusively with scapegoating and the effects thereof.
Here is the description of scapegoating as per the site:
"OUTLINE OF SCAPEGOATING PSYCHO-DYNAMICS
In scapegoating, feelings of guilt, aggression, blame and suffering are transferred away from a person or group so as to fulfill an unconscious drive to resolve or avoid such bad feelings. This is done by the displacement of responsibility and blame to another who serves as a target for blame both for the scapegoater and his supporters. The scapegoating process can be understood as an example of the Drama Triangle concept [Karpman, 1968].
The perpetrator's drive to displace and transfer responsibility away from himself may not be experienced with full consciousness - self-deception is often a feature. The target's knowledge that he is being scapegoated builds slowly and follows events. The scapegoater's target experiences exclusion, ostracism or even expulsion.
In so far as the process is unconscious it is more likely to be denied by the perpetrator. In such cases, any bad feelings - such as the perpetrator's own shame and guilt - are also likely to be denied. Scapegoating frees the perpetrator from some self-dissatisfaction and provides some narcissistic gratification to him. It enables the self-righteous discharge of aggression. Scapegoaters tend to have extra-punitive characteristics [Kraupl-Taylor, 1953].
Scapegoating also can be seen as the perpetrator's defense mechanism against unacceptable emotions such as hostility and guilt. In Kleinian terms, scapegoating is an example of projective identification, with the primitive intent of splitting: separating the good from the bad [Scheidlinger, 1982]. On another view, scapegoaters are insecure people driven to raise their own status by lowering the status of their target [Carter, 1996]."And here are some of the effects, as per the site:
"Perpetrator: guilt, hostility.
Target: isolation, entrapment, anxiety, anger, depression.
Audience: sadness, embarrassment, bewilderment, weariness."I'm sure lots of people here can relate. Narcissists (abusers) are master scapegoaters. Here is the link:
http://www.scapegoat.demon.co.uk/index.htm
