Victim playing
Victim playing (also known as playing the victim or self-victimization) is the fabrication of victimhood for a variety of reasons such as to justify abuse of others, to manipulate others, a coping strategy or attention seeking.
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[edit] By abusers
Victim playing by abusers is either:
- diverting attention away from acts of abuse by claiming that the abuse was justified based on another person's bad behavior (typically the victim)
- soliciting sympathy from others in order to gain their assistance in supporting or enabling the abuse of a victim (known as proxy abuse).
It is common for abusers to engage in victim playing. This serves two purposes:
- justification to themselves – as a way of dealing with the cognitive dissonance that results from inconsistencies between the way they treat others and what they believe about themselves.
- justification to others – as a way of escaping harsh judgment or condemnation they may fear from others.
[edit] By manipulators
Manipulators often play the victim role ("poor me") by portraying themselves as victims of circumstances or someone else's behavior in order to gain pity or sympathy or to evoke compassion and thereby get something from another. Caring and conscientious people cannot stand to see anyone suffering, and the manipulator often finds it easy and rewarding to play on sympathy to get cooperation.[1]
[edit] Other types
Victim playing is also:
- an attention seeking technique (see for example Münchausen syndrome, Münchausen syndrome by proxy and Münchausen by Internet).
- a strategy used by alcoholics to elicit constructive criticism, rescue, or enabling behavior from others[2]
[edit] In corporate life
The language of "victim playing" has entered modern corporate life, with pundits expressing 'frustration around highly competent professionals who constantly played the victim in virtually every aspect of their careers...always someone else's fault'.[3] Taking the position that 'when someone plays the victim, they act as if they are powerless and not responsible for their actions...irresponsible and dishonest',[4] may be empowering; as may be the knowledge that 'individuals with boundary issues will play the victim, expect you to act in certain unstated ways based on how a parent or sibling treated them'.[5]
The danger is perhaps that, in the hustle of office politics, the term may be abused to penalize or victimize those to whom it is applied, on the principle of 'Dostoyevsky's famous "knife that cuts both ways"': as Freud long since warned regarding the politicization of therapeutic language, 'the use of analysis as a weapon of controversy can clearly lead to no decision'.[6]
[edit] Transactional analysis
Transactional analysis has devoted much attention to the idea of adopting the role of "Victim", as 'distinguished from the real victim. The Victim is someone who inauthentically behaves as if they are being victimised in situations where they actually have reasonable opportunities to alter the situation'.[7] Eric Berne had early explored the game of "Look How Hard I've Tried" - 'played from either of two positions: "I am helpless" or "I am blameless"' - as well as that of "Wooden Leg", characterised by 'such pleas as: what do you expect of a man who (a) comes from a broken home; (b) is neurotic; (c) is in analysis or (d) is suffering from a disease called alcoholism?'[8]
Subsequently TA developed the idea of the Karpman drama triangle, with role switches between Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer. 'Judith (speaking as the victim of emotional troubles): Rescue me. Dr Q (speaking as a rescuer): I'll rescue you. Judith (switching into the role of a persecutor): Wise guy!'[9]
R. D. Laing considered that 'it will be difficult in practice to determine whether or to what extent a relationship is collusive' - when 'the one person is predominantly the passive "victim"',[10] and when they are merely playing the victim. The problem is intensified once a pattern of victimization has been internalised - for example, 'when the victim has learnt to perceive his universe in double bind terms'.[11]
[edit] Object relations
Object relations theory has explored the impact of the false self on neurotic personalities, in terms of 'the effects of the discordant source. The processes of their mind are always being interfered with and being cut off from the source of action, and so they are always victim'.[12] Such theorists emphasise that 'if one is preoocupied...[with] the false self, the sense is less of living one's life than of being at the mercy of fate'.[13] In addition, 'when the personality is victim to the discordant source, the subject feels victim to outside pressures...It is a false perception of my inner relation to the other object. I have no responder within'.[14]
To break out of 'the spell cast by the negative complex', and to escape the passivity of victimhood, requires you to 'develop a great deal of patience and tolerance in order to take responsibility for your desire and not blame another for failing you before you have fully tried'.[15]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Simon, George K (1996). In Sheep's Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People. ISBN 978-0-9651696-0-8.
- ^ Evans, Katie & Sullivan, J. Michael Dual Diagnosis: Counseling the Mentally Ill Substance Abuser (1990)
- ^ Susan A. DePhillips, Corporate Confidential (2005) p. 65
- ^ Anthony C. Mersino, Emotional Literacy for Project Managers (2007) p. 60 and p. 43
- ^ Mersino, p. 104
- ^ Sigmund Freud, On Sexuality (PFL 7) p. 377
- ^ Petruska Clarkson, Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy (London 1997) p. 217
- ^ Eric Berne, Games People Play (Penguin 1964) p. 92 and p. 141-2
- ^ Eric Berne, Sex in Human Loving (Penguin 1970) p. 165
- ^ R. D. Laing, Self and Others (Penguin 1969) p. 108
- ^ Laing, p. 145
- ^ Neville Symington, Narcissism: A New Theory (London 1993) p. 116
- ^ Michael Parsons, The Dove that Returns, the Dove that Vanishes (London 2000) p. 34
- ^ Symington, p. 116 and p. 120
- ^ Pauline Young-Eisendrath, Women and Desire (London 2000) p. 201 and p. 30
[edit] External links
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