DEC/JAN 2002
Thoughts
in the Presence of Fear
Wendell Berry
The
Prospect of Peace
Daisaku Ikeda
Reducing
Dependence On Oil Will Ensure America's National Security
US
Civil Rights in Serious Jeopardy
Michael Ratner
Engineering
Consent on the Domestic Front
Danny Schecter
The
Emperor is Naked
Don Kyhote
Green
View of Fundamentalism vs. Modernism
Kelpie Wilson
The
One Eternal Truth
John Darling
World
Trade Organization Continues to Fail
Danila Oder
McKenzie
River Gathering: Funding Change for 25 Years
Richard Seidman
Dreams
and Visions: The Fountain of Wisdom
Royal D. Alsup, Ph.D.
From
Survival to Serenity
Ianna Bredal, MBA
Environmental
Film Festival Coming to Ashland
Barry Snitkin
Herbal
Help for Winter Weather
Chanchal Cabrera, MNIMH, AHG
How
to Make the Most Out of Your Therapy
Julie Weber, MSW
Taking
Aim at Blame
Peter Moore, MFCC, CGP
Understanding
Problem Behaviors of Animals
Jocelyn Y. Whidden
The
Christmas Presence
Peter Melton
Cosmic
Calendar
Salina Rain
Taking Aim at Blame
By Peter Moore, MFCC, CGP
Blame is one of those things which in some circles has become a no-no. If you blame someone, they say, then you’re not taking responsibility, you’re a victim. And that’s bad.
Usually it’s not phrased quite that way, but perhaps you’ve noticed that, implicit in quite a few philosophies of life, there are often certain attitudes which are portrayed as negative, to be avoided. As I mentioned in a previous column, such approaches have an inherent difficulty: inasmuch as they espouse a course of action which is to be avoided, it is inescapable that we put energy into that which is to be avoided. For example, “don’t think about the color red.” Inevitably, to not think about that color, we first have to envision it, and then negate it. If our goal is actually to reach green, then we need more help than to be encouraged to think not-red.
I know this may sound semantic, but I have seen many people turn their lives around by committing directly toward their goals, especially if they keep recommitting to them whenever they notice that what they’re doing might not, in their assessment, be moving them toward their goals. Although this concept is simple, the “just say no” approach crops up in many areas. A well-known school program to help kids “stay off drugs” (there it is again!), called DARE (drug abuse resistance education), has been shown to have zero impact on its purported aims. Another example was Bush Jr.’s statement in the presidential debates to the effect that we must fight wars in order to end them.
So I am asking your awareness as you embrace any philosophy which puts forward certain goals, and then keeps talking about what to steer clear of. In particular, some spiritual practices don’t like anger, others take umbrage with fear, and yet others are attached to unattachment. Today I want to focus on blame.
What I have to say will be particularly relevant to those of us who have developed a survival self which aims to please. What I mean by “survival self” is that part of us (a set of beliefs, feelings, and behaviors) which came along when we were very young, when we were faced with a terrible dilemma: to go on being oneself at the cost of a loss of love from the primary caretakers, or to put that on one side and create a false self which would win approval. Notice I didn’t say “win love,” because being loved or liked isn’t something we can win, let alone control in anyway. But, faced with this dilemma, and, at the time, being dependent on those adults, we opted for the survival self, and accepted the counterfeit coin of approval, pretending to ourselves and others that it was the genuine article, that we were loved for who we were. And that’s why it seems our survival is at stake, because this situation arises when something in who we are, not in what we do, produces a harshness or coldness in our caretakers. Very often this would be our natural expression of feelings, say anger or fear, and for whatever reason our caretakers cannot support us in these feelings, or actively discourage them.
Now, if I move into this area too fast during a course of therapy, what do you think will happen? Resistance, of course. The survival self’s perfectly legitimate concerns for survival (that’s a bottom line kind of thing) will resist any attempt to point out the shortcomings of the caretakers, unless the client is such a “good” client that they “quickly” get it—although that is pretty easy to spot. One way to check out a teacher or a therapist is to be as difficult as possible and see how they handle it. For you to grow, you’re going to have to reach that point anyway, where you’ve gone beyond your ego or survival self’s quest for approval.
The preservation of the original parents as “good” in the child’s mind is part of this. It is extraordinarily difficult to be dependent on someone we see as bad. This preser-vation results in the appropriate blame of the parents for their faults and limitations falling back into the child, so to speak, which results in depression or feelings of low self-worth or a diminished zest for life. These kinds of issues in the population I am considering (appropriate, “good” people) unfortunately can take many years to surface, because these people can be productive, efficient, and eminently employable.
Less obvious is how this can be generalized. Even in cases where there is clear child abuse, and the child at the time was aware of this as being abusive, or later on became clear about this, there is still some fundamental level at which the correct extent of the caretaker’s abuse or shortcomings has not been sorted out and the correct assignment of blame and appreciation of the child’s victimhood has not been arrived at. This I believe to be true even in the most egregious cases of a youth, teenager, or adult engaging in criminal acts, seemingly blaming everyone else for their problems, and never taking responsibility. Here, once they have brought their behavior under control, and taken responsibility for their actions, there is a level of healing which needs to occur, where they recognize their own wounds and honestly feel the effect which some of their early losses of love have had on them.
The purpose, of course, is not about staying a victim. That is being stuck, and I know that’s how some people use blame. But what if a therapist or healer interprets some complaint you have, for example about a significant other, as a mirror for you? In other words, it’s something in you which isn’t right, which the universe is showing you by way of the other person. This can be a fruitful line of inquiry, but if your tendency anyway is to take on others’ issues or feelings, and to put yourself last, then such a course would only make you better adapted in your survival self.
Besides, I have a suspicion that those who advocate such an approach, or one which says it’s your karma that you are in this predicament (you chose your parents to get these life lessons), may have a hard time with a more equalitarian, less hierarchical approach to life. After all, if blame is out, what sort of a leg do you have to stand on in order to confront your teacher? A wise parent accepts the blame of her child when the child feels hurt by the parent. That way the parent restores the faith of the child, that his or her feelings and needs are taken seriously. The parent has taken the time to understand the child, and uses the feelings which the child’s blame brings up in the parent as a path toward that understanding. Coincidentally, the parent grows, too, in self-understanding.
Just so, there is a similar fiduciary bond between a life teacher and student, or therapist and patient. If the teacher takes a students’ criticism to heart, all are helped: the student’s feelings impact the teacher, deepening his understanding and serving to keep the teacher on her path; and the student is empowered through such keen attention and having his deeper needs understood. Blame is the student’s attempt to get back to love and the right guru-disciple relationship. In fact, whenever we blame someone, we are indirectly making that person our teacher. If we then risk feeling our feelings of being hurt and being victimized—instead of avoiding these feelings by acting in revenge—if we risk feeling our vulnerability, we have a chance to grow and prosper. By learning to blame appropriately, we let ourselves off the hook of omnipotence and invincibility, and begin to embrace our humanity.
As we learn to embrace our own humanity, it becomes easier to embrace the humanity of others, of all races and religions—and beyond that to all of life and creation. May we all keep learning and living and growing.
Peter Moore graduated from Oxford University, and, since 1980, has pursued his interest in healing. Included with his study of a variety of modalities is certification and postgraduate training with Siegmar Gerken Ph.D., and John Pierrakos M.D., the founder of Core Energetics, an approach which attempts to unify the personality on the levels of body, feelings, mind, will, and spirit. Peter is a licensed marriage and family therapist with a practice in Eureka, CA, and can be reached at (707) 442-7228.
