The Scapegoat Experience: Abuse, Healing, and Hope w/ Rebecca Mandeville

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Scapegoat Experience: Abuse, Healing, and Hope" with Rebecca Mandeville

Podcast Information:

• Title: Adult Child
• Host/Author: Andrea
• Episode: The Scapegoat Experience: Abuse, Healing, and Hope
• Guest: Rebecca Mandeville
• Release Date: February 19, 2025
• Description: A deep dive into the impact of growing up in a dysfunctional family and how to heal the unresolved pain of the past. Topics include codependency, complex trauma (CPTSD), alcoholism/addiction, generational trauma, and toxic shame.

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Introduction to Scapegoat Abuse

The episode kicks off with Andrea setting the stage for a profound discussion on scapegoat abuse within dysfunctional families. She describes hyper-responsibility and over-functioning as often overlooked forms of functional freeze, highlighting how individuals may appear to be thriving externally while internally feeling exhausted and disconnected.

Andrea [00:00]: "Hyper responsibility, that constant over functioning that is one of the most overlooked forms of functional freeze."

Introducing Rebecca Mandeville

Rebecca Mandeville, renowned for coining the term “family scapegoat abuse,” joins the conversation. Tammy Sholenberger praises Rebecca as "the queen of the scapegoats," emphasizing her pivotal role in bringing this form of abuse to light.

Tammy Sholenberger [10:35]: "Rebecca Manville. She is a therapist, she's an author, and she is the woman who coined the term family scapegoat abuse."

Defining Scapegoat Abuse

Rebecca delves into the origins and definitions of scapegoat abuse. Drawing from her extensive research over nearly two decades, she explains how scapegoating operates within family systems, often as an unconscious mechanism to manage intergenerational trauma and unresolved familial issues.

Rebecca Mandeville [11:33]: "I coined the term family scapegoat abuse because naming it allows us to understand and start treating it effectively."

She differentiates scapegoat abuse from narcissistic abuse, clarifying that while they can overlap, scapegoating can occur in any dysfunctional family system, not exclusively those led by narcissistic individuals.

Rebecca’s Research and Contributions

Rebecca shares insights from her family systems research, particularly focusing on the family genogram—a tool used to trace emotional and behavioral patterns across generations. Her findings highlight patterns of addiction, suicide, and unresolved trauma that perpetuate scapegoating roles within families.

Rebecca Mandeville [13:33]: "When you lay it out, I saw generations of trauma, traumatic events. I couldn't imagine one family could have so many horrible things happen to them generation after generation."

Rebecca emphasizes the need for recognizing scapegoat abuse as a distinct form of psycho-emotional abuse, advocating for its inclusion in diagnostic manuals like the DSM.

Rebecca Mandeville [17:17]: "Scapegoating is recognized as its own form of abuse that can be related to a part of but at times is completely separate from narcissistic abuse."

Impact on Adult Lives

The discussion shifts to how scapegoat abuse affects individuals into adulthood. Rebecca outlines common symptoms experienced by adult scapegoats, including toxic shame, imposter syndrome, codependency, and difficulties in setting boundaries. She describes scapegoats as often feeling inherently flawed and struggling with self-worth.

Rebecca Mandeville [40:18]: "There's a pervasive sense of something's wrong with me. There's a pervasive sense of shame, which is toxic shame. Actually, they're not even fully aware. It's like embedded in your bones kind of shame."

Healing and Recovery

Rebecca advocates for a healing process that begins with disidentifying from the negative narratives imposed by the family system. She stresses the importance of recognizing that these narratives are not reflective of one's true self. Through her therapeutic approach, Rebecca helps clients realize, "I am not that which my family says I am."

Rebecca Mandeville [46:12]: "When we can slice through that Gordian knot with the sword of truth and go, I am not that which my family says I am."

She shares that clients often experience significant improvement within six months by separating their identity from the scapegoat narrative, although deeper work on complex trauma and toxic shame continues.

Family Dynamics and Therapy

The conversation explores the complexities of family therapy for scapegoats. Rebecca warns that without proper preparation and individual therapy for the scapegoat, family therapy can retraumatize the identified patient.

Rebecca Mandeville [34:50]: "I innocently go off to family therapy... and they walk in and they're slaughtered... the whole group system comes down on them as the problem."

She recommends that family members acknowledge and commit to not placing the scapegoat in that role before engaging in family therapy, ensuring a safer therapeutic environment.

Romantic Relationships and Work Life

Rebecca discusses how scapegoat abuse influences adult romantic relationships and workplace dynamics. Scapegoats may attract partners with similar issues or exhibit self-sabotaging behaviors due to deep-seated toxic shame.

Rebecca Mandeville [71:48]: "You have a pervasive sense that there's something wrong with me. I’m deeply flawed. You tend to find partners that you think won't leave you."

In professional settings, scapegoats often find themselves in roles that mimic family dynamics, perpetuating the cycle of abuse and dysfunction.

Rebecca Mandeville [74:05]: "We've all had jobs where we end up in our family of origin roles... It's almost like a universe trick."

Managing Family Backlash During Healing

Setting boundaries, including periods of no contact, is crucial for healing. Rebecca advises that when attempting to heal, individuals may face backlash from family members who are unprepared or unwilling to accept the changes.

Rebecca Mandeville [65:42]: "If you're having a lot of family contact that's making you feel like crap, I have to say to that person, I can't help you right now."

She emphasizes writing personal, compassionate letters to family members when implementing no-contact rules, ensuring the focus remains on the individual's healing.

Rebecca Mandeville [69:16]: "Write the letter that serves you at the highest level. You are the one in recovery... it's about your peace, healing, freedom."

Listener Insights and Personal Reflections

The episode concludes with listener contributions, where individuals share their experiences as scapegoat children navigating adulthood. These narratives echo the core themes of toxic shame, self-identity struggles, and the ongoing journey towards self-compassion and healing.

Listener [75:47]: "Understanding where that self comes from has allowed me to have compassion for myself and forgive myself for those behaviors."

Conclusion and Hope for Recovery

Rebecca offers a hopeful outlook, assuring listeners that healing is possible through understanding and separating oneself from the harmful narratives of the past. She encourages continuous self-awareness and compassion as vital components of the healing journey.

Rebecca Mandeville [55:03]: "We can recover... Free ourselves from that narrative and heal the trauma."

The episode underscores the importance of recognizing scapegoat abuse, seeking appropriate therapeutic support, and fostering self-compassion to overcome the lingering effects of dysfunctional family dynamics.

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Notable Quotes:

• Rebecca Mandeville [11:33]: "Scapegoating is a form of psycho-emotional abuse... when you name something, we can start to have a prognosis, we can start to treat it."

• Rebecca Mandeville [40:18]: "You are walking shame on two legs wanting imposter syndrome."

• Rebecca Mandeville [46:12]: "I am not that which my family says I am. I am beautifully sensitive."

• Rebecca Mandeville [71:48]: "You tend to find partners that you think won't leave you... You can be very vulnerable to someone who flatters you."

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Key Takeaways:

1. Scapegoat Abuse Defined: A distinct form of psycho-emotional abuse within dysfunctional families where one member is systematically blamed and discredited.

2. Impact on Adults: Scapegoat children often struggle with toxic shame, imposter syndrome, and difficulties in personal and professional relationships.

3. Healing Process: Recovery involves disidentifying from the abusive narratives, setting healthy boundaries, and fostering self-compassion.

4. Family Dynamics: Effective family therapy requires individual acknowledgment and commitment to change, which is often challenging in toxic systems.

5. Hope and Recovery: Despite the deep-seated effects of scapegoat abuse, healing and leading a fulfilling life are attainable through awareness and therapeutic intervention.

For those who haven’t listened to the episode, this summary encapsulates the profound discussions on scapegoat abuse, its lasting impact, and the pathways to healing shared by Rebecca Mandeville. The episode serves as a valuable resource for anyone navigating similar struggles within their family dynamics.

Transcript

[Andrea]

So tell me if this sounds like you. You're the one holding it all together. You're the reliable one, the helper, the fixer. You're getting it done at work in your relationships, for your family. But inside you're exhausted. Rest feels impossible or even guilt inducing. Asking for help feels unsafe, maybe even a little shameful. Your body is always clenched. You're running on empty, but you can't stop. So here's what no one tells you. That hyper responsibility, that constant over functioning that is one of the most overlooked forms of functional freeze.

[Rebecca Manville]

We're.

[Andrea]

We tend to think freeze looks like shutdown, like doing nothing. But sometimes freeze looks like doing everything. Fixing, helping, performing. All while disconnecting from yourself underneath it all. And here's the thing. You can't think your way out of this mindset. Hacks won't melt this freeze because it's not about mindset. It's your nervous system stuck in survival mode. It's about your body believing it's only safe if you keep doing. And I know plenty of you right now are hardcore relating to everything that I'm saying. Which is why I'm so excited about Breathe to Heal. A six week somatic breath work core course designed exactly for this. Led by Teresa, a certified somatic breathwork practitioner and a fellow member of our show community, this course will help you reconnect with your body, regulate your nervous system and begin to feel safe enough to rest, slow down and just be. And y'all. This is a steal compared to most somatic healing programs out there. We start on Wednesday, May 14th at 8:30pm Eastern. It's all online. It's live on Zoom, so get your damn [e-mail] breathe to heal. That's Breathe, Breathe with an E at the end or you can see the link in the show notes. Your nervous system has been waiting for this, so please don't leave it hanging.

[Terry]

A scapegoat remains effective as long as.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

We believe in its guilt. My name is Andrea and this is Adult Child.

[Teresa]

Welcome back to Adult Child where we take a deep dive into the impact of growing up in a dysfunctional family. Ahoy my dear Shit shows. For any new listeners, my name is Andrea. I am a total and complete shit show. And you guys, this is actually me. This is not the preset recording that you've heard for the past month. Not like that is not me, but you know what I mean. You know what I mean. Folks, I am checking in to let you know that I will be checking in next week as well as giving y'all a new episode. Now, this is not my relaunch, however. I recorded an episode back in December with Tammy Sholenberger. She is the host of the podcast the One Inside, which is a a wonderful IFS podcast. And I didn't want to keep holding this episode from y'all. So I will be sharing that with you guys next week as well as I want to give you guys an update on me since we last spoke in the beginning of January and just let you know about my healing, my progress. There's definitely been some significant progress, growth insights. So I will be sharing all of that with y'all next week. You actually are going to get some some new content in today's episode partially.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

So today you're going to get to.

[Teresa]

Hear one of my my favorite interviews ever. Rebecca Manville. She is the queen of the scapegoats. She is the woman responsible for coining the term family scapegoat abuse. I came across her work when I was just starting off my my healing journey and man, this woman is she's a powerhouse. So you're going to get to hear that interview, which is from, I think it's like been like two and a half years now. But after you get to hear that interview, you are going to get to hear from one of our fellow Shit show members, Terry. So he has been diving deep in his own scapegoat healing journey and went on a bit of a powerful monologue at the end of our group from this past Sunday about everything that he's been learning about what it means to be a scapegoat. Scapegoat abuse, the ways in which he's realizing that it has impacted his life. And so I have included that gem for you at the tail end of this interview with Rebecca. So this is a goody, y'all. So let's just get the damn show on the road. But first let's talk about why you yes, you need to damn the join Shit show, my online support community where I host four weekly Zoom support groups. The support community in your back pocket at your fingertips, available to you 247 through our app where you could connect with other fellow recovering shit shows who are doing the damn work to heal. This community is vulnerability on steroids. This community is acceptance and compassion on steroids. We laugh, we have fun. We have a ton of different individual sub communities that are related to particular struggles or particular interests. This is relational trauma. We heal relational trauma in safe relationships. And this is a place where you can do so for less than a damn dollar a day. So how about you just give it a try, folks? See the link in the show notes to join, Just do it already. Next, please give me a follow on Insta on TikTok, adult child pod. And last but not least, whatever you.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Do, please, please, please, please, please, please.

[Teresa]

Give me a damn five star rating on app on Spotify. This helps me to reach more suffering adult children, more shit shows that want to become recovering shit shows.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Thank you.

[Teresa]

Love you all.

[Terry]

So today we are diving deep into scapegoat abuse. Yes, scapegoating is a form of abuse. And we are talking to. I am talking to not we, but me, Rebecca Manville. So she is a therapist, she's an author, and she is the woman who deemed the.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

The term.

[Terry]

Who coined the term scapegoat abuse, family scapegoat abuse. I have deemed her the queen of the scapegoats. This is a really, really damn good conversation. Even if you weren't the scapegoat of your family, you're still going to get a lot out of this. We talk about other things too. Complex, ptsd, narcissistic abuse, cutting going, no contact with family. All the things. So I've shared my scapegoat origin story on the podcast before, but in case you haven't heard that, here's the Cliff Notes version. So at 9, I started to develop separation anxiety with my mom. It started with being not being able to spend good sleepovers. I was always that girl who got sick right before it was time to go to bed. I know that a lot of y'all can relate to that. And then it escalated to me sleeping in my mom's bed every night while my dad slept in mine. One night, I woke up in the middle of the night, absolutely terrified, feeling like I was going to die if I didn't sleep in my mom's bed. And that resulted in me sleeping in my mom's bed every night and my dad sleeping in my bed. So then, after a few months of this, at the recommendation of my pediatrician, my parents sentenced me to see a child psychologist. And so that was the moment that I became the scapegoat, that I became the identified patient in the family. And no, not because my parents sought help. Clearly, I needed help. But the crime was what they failed to disclose to the therapist. So I remember as a teenager, asking my mom, did you tell that therapist that you were an alcoholic and that you and dad fought all the time? And she said, no, it didn't seem relevant. And I I truly believe that that was her truth. At that point in time, I don't think my parents were sitting around conspiring. How can we put all of this on Andrea so that we don't have to look at her? Like, I don't think that was what was going on. And so that's one thing that Rebecca really stresses about how this is not typically this intentional act to harm us, but it is subconscious. Now, with that being said, though, that doesn't mean that the impact isn't detrimental as fuck. And a lot of people don't realize that. A lot of people can't see how much being deemed a scapegoat as a kid has impacted their life as an adult. I always knew that I was the scapegoat. I was not oblivious to the fact that I was the scapegoat or the identified patient in the family. What I did not know, though, was the messages internalized as a result of that experience. So by the time I got to middle school, I was sleeping in my own bed again. I could go to a sleepover. But I did start to act in ways that were aligned with this scapegoat role, this identified patient role that was placed upon me by my parents and this belief that I was inherently flawed, that was ingrained in me and took me as its hostage for years and years and years. So I no longer participate in this. I no longer play this scapegoat role. However, there are times where my family will try to make it seem like I'm still playing this role. This is a really common experience when we seek recovery. And I think that that can even happen with people who didn't play the scapegoat role as a kid, but as adults, if they are the only one that's seeking recovery, it's common to then be placed into that scapegoat role. So let's get the damn show on the road.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

All right, guys, while you're in for a treat, we have the queen of the scapegoats. I'm the queen of the shit show. And you have now been anointed queen of the scapegoats. Rebecca Manville. Hi.

[Rebecca Manville]

Hi.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

This has been long in the meeting. Long in the making.

[Terry]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Manville]

Months and months. We've been trying.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Yes, But I feel like you've been part of my journey. Well, first, let me just say. So you guys go check out her new YouTube channel. It's called Beyond Family Scapegoating Abuse. Was there another part to that? Did I miss a part?

[Rebecca Manville]

I think you got it. All.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Okay. And then her book, which I read all the time in reference. I was just looking back through all my highlights. It is called Rejected, Shamed and Blamed, Help and hope for adults in the family scapegoat role she has. You guys just check out the show notes. You'll see all of her stuff in there. You coined the term family scapegoat abuse. How the hell did you come up with that term?

[Rebecca Manville]

Well, I had been researching on scapegoating for almost 20 years, going back to when I was core faculty at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology graduate program. People who want to be licensed marriage family therapists. And then pause.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

What, what, what would make you want to study that? Maybe a little personal experience.

[Rebecca Manville]

Well, I was in the family systems program and I noticed some fascinating things when I had my students do their family genogram. And the family genogram is when you go back several generations, just like with genealogy only, you're looking for patterns, emotional and behavioral patterns, and certain types of events with family members. And when I first did it in the graduate program, because I went to school there before I started teaching, it was shocking. I got a lot of data from my mother I hadn't known. And when you lay it out, I saw generations of trauma, traumatic events. I couldn't imagine one family could have so many horrible things happen to them generation after generation after generation. And then you start to see patterns with addiction, suicide, you know, disappearing relatives. They're there one day, they're gone the next. No one knows where they went. It was overwhelming for me when I did that. And it was also life changing. I decided in that moment, I'm. I'm going to be an mft and I am going to be teaching, studying, talking about, researching, anything to do with family systems.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Was this Richard, what's his name? Richard Schwartz. Is that his name? Oh, internal family systems.

[Rebecca Manville]

No, that's. That came later. This was the original family systems theorists back in the 60s and 70s. Most of them were social workers. And the greats would be today, we would consider Virginia Satir, Salvador Mnuchin, and Marie Bowen, who I mentioned in my book, who studied, talked often about the family projection process that ties into scapegoating. And I was fortunate to be trained by the chair of my program. She interned for all three of these when she.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Oh, wow.

[Rebecca Manville]

So I got it almost, you know, one removed from the master's mouse. And I just developed a natural passion for family systems. So when I was teaching it and I had my students doing their genograms, you know, I was starting to get a lot more data and I started to see patterns even amongst my students. And I went, wait, wait a minute, there's something going on here with people who feel scapegoated in their families and how that affects them through the course of their life. So fast forward now to just a few years ago when I was working on my book to get my research. Not the results, I'm still crunching numbers, but the general overview of my research and what I discovered. And I saw that there was a lot going on on social media, Twitter, with narcissistic abuse. And I started to read people talking about, and I don't mean this critically, but I often saw scapegoating is narcissistic abuse. And I said to myself, wait a minute, scapegoating? We know from 50 years of family systems research scapegoating can happen in any dysfunctional family system in particular, where there is intergenerational or what Murray Bowen called multi generational trauma. And I wasn't finding anyone saying that it can happen in families that aren't narcissistic. And then me personally, I was like, wait a minute, this, this is a form of psycho emotional abuse. When you go scapegoating, going down the continuum when it gets to a certain point and certain extremities of behavior toward that child or adult child, we're talking about invisible abuse or psycho emotional abuse. Why am I not seeing this? So I decided, well, I've been researching on this almost 20 years. I'm giving it a name and damn the torpedoes, because when we name something, we can to have a sense of what we're dealing with and we can start to have a prognosis, we can start to treat it. Now, I have to stress this is not a DSM condition. This is not in our diagnostic manual. Complex trauma, still not, you know, it is over in the uk. The VA here acknowledges complex trauma. And the reason I bring that up is what I found is many people who have suffered from family scapegoating abuse also have complex trauma symptoms.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Yeah, I would say probably all of them.

[Rebecca Manville]

Most of them, yeah.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

People got so fixated on like narcissism and narcissistic abuse, like, so. And the other thing I think too is with Borderline, I get so many messages on social media basically saying whenever I make a video about complex ptsd, they're like, no, you're wrong. You know, this is border. Like, I don't know what it is. It's almost like people think that it's like sexy to have a borderline diagno. I don't know what it is, but people are very fixated on it. And I think that we can get so fixated on having a diagnosis for something. When does it really, really matter that much? You know, like, I think it's a. It's a continuum, right? It's a spectrum.

[Rebecca Manville]

It's a continuum. And frankly, you're really on the right track because my research also showed that many people diagnosed with a various types of personality disorders, including borderline, were actually suffering from complex trauma. And all the most renowned people in the complex trauma field will tell you the same thing. Mm. We misdiagnosing, which is why it's so critical we get complex trauma into the dsm. I mean, I hope I see that in my lifetime. It needs to happen.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

I was clueless. I had no idea that what I was experiencing was trauma. And what a relief that was because I just thought I was crazy.

[Rebecca Manville]

And for anyone listening to this, we know that childhood trauma can. That results in complex trauma can be from repeated chronic stressors in the child's environment from which there is no escape. And for most children, there's no escape. We might, you know, like I did. I was 2 years old and hopped on my little tricycle and ended up at the school around the corner. You know, it was my great escape, but, you know, lasted for two hours till my sister found me. But most children aren't going to make a permanent escape from their childhood home. So that's something really important for people to hear. Repeated chronic stressors in the environment from which there is no escape and most children can't escape it. So that's enough to have complex trauma. Not everyone will, because every child's different with how they're wired. But that's enough. People are looking for a big event. I didn't have some big traumatic event. I say that in my book, with my case study study on Lilly. It doesn't have to be a big traumatic event. It can just be these chronic repeated stressors which any dysfunctional family has. And some dysfamilies are more dysfunctional than others. And some will have addiction going on. Also. Some might have a malignant narcissist at the helm or a narcissist, and that. And that can have sociopathic features with malignant narcissism. So the child's going to be going through all kinds of unpleasant stressors in that type of situation.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

One thing that I was talking about my. With my therapist recently is when it comes to more subtle forms of Abuse or neglect. So for me, for example, you know, I was never told that I was like a piece of shit. I was never like really verbally abused. I was always told that they love me. I was never told, like, you're ugly, you know, you're not smart, any of those things. And so it makes the, the internalization of those messages, though, it makes it so hard for me to like identify them because conscious. I think that if it's more blatant, I think that those messages are more conscious for somebody. Whereas in my case, it's like the outward messages were not that. However, there were all these internalized messages. But it was so hard for me to identify that because consciously I didn't feel that way or I didn't think.

[Teresa]

That way, you know.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

And so I think that that's, it's, I think it's what you talk about when you talk about how most people don't even know that they suffered any abuse at all when it comes to scapegoating. But I guess what I want to ask you there is like, are most people that you are working with or that you're getting the research from, is this like subtle forms of scapegoating? Because I think that some, some forms of scapegoating can be rather blatant and rather like obvious and rather horrible. And other times it can be more subtle. So what are you typically seeing through your research?

[Rebecca Manville]

Both, it can be very, very blatant where a child can be labeled difficult from a very early age. I've had more than one case of a child being blamed, an adult child being blamed for bad relationship with a parent because, quote, unquote, you rejected my breast milk. Now imagine that the baby rejected the breast milk on purpose to give mom a problem. But this, of course, duh, this is not unusual. Other blatant examples would be, and I have an article about this, we call it the narcissistic martyr parent ploy. A child being called a liar or a drug addict or a thief. And the child's like a straight A student. The parents, it's almost like a form of Munchausen by proxy. All this attention because they have this horrid child and the child's actually a straight A student. This has happened to some of my clients. A three year old, the father puts the three year old in a car with a can of Coca Cola and. And it goes over a bump and it spills. The child ruined the new carpet in the new car on purpose to antagonize the father. These are real stories. So that would be blatant forms. But scapegoating can be far more insidious and subtle, especially when we get into talking about a highly sensitive child, what Alice Miller called in the drama the gifted child. The gifted child or the empath, the family empath because, and I'm transpersonally focused. So I believe there's energetic realities we're dealing with here, as did Marie Bowen when he talked about the multi generational family transmission, transmitting trauma through the generations. This empath child may have little projection feathers cast their way. And I say it's like we're tarred and feathered. It's like you're covered with the sticky stuff because you're the family empath. And that scapegoating energy, all the unconscious anxiety of the family system, all of the unrecognized trauma, all of the anxieties, problems that haven't been dealt with, floats onto this empath, truth teller, sensitive child, and it sticks on them like feathers. So this child's going through life tarred and feathered and has no idea what's happening to them. But they're actually a victim of the family projective identification process, which is an unconscious process that's been studied in family systems for decades. And everyone needs to know about this, that can result in scapegoating of a child. It's a little different than when a narcissist parent scapegoats child. This is more subtle, it's unconscious. The family's not aware they're doing it. But that child will be seen as different. They'll be otherized and they'll be seen as problematic, as too sensitive. Their truth will often be denied because they are seeing the truth. So that's very threatening. And I've had a client, for example, you know, casually share, honestly, Mommy drinks all day and sleeps on the couch and doesn't get up till 5. You know, well, Mommy's not happy when that story gets out. And that child may be punished and shamed and they were just telling the truth. So that empath child, in my research, a high percentage of people who identify as being scapegoated at the level I talk about, family scapegoating, abuse, also identified as being highly sensitive or empathic. And I'd love to see a PhD student pick that up and run with it in a dissertation.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

I'm surprised it hasn't.

[Rebecca Manville]

I've had people contact me, so I'm working on that. And I'm working on getting some of my research into a peer reviewed stage because it's right now, qualitative, experiential, people's lived experience. But it hasn't gone through the peer review process, which I always like to stress. It's built on good qualitative sound methodology. But this is not peer reviewed research. Be that as it may, people have found it very helpful that I gave it a name and that I am sharing my research findings on this.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

What was the term that you just said? It wasn't the family projection process. It was. What was it? Family what? Identification.

[Rebecca Manville]

A family projective identification process.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Okay, can you explain that?

[Rebecca Manville]

That is in families often that are highly traumatized family systems, generations of unaddressed trauma, unaddressed anxiety. Or it could just be that particular generation of family. There's trauma, anxiety, addiction, alcoholism, and a lack of psychological awareness. Unconsciously as a system, as a group system. And this happens with other groups, by the way, not just families. There's an imperative within a dysfunctional system to create a scapegoat, to carry the shadow or the problem to be the problem for the group. If anyone's read the Lord of the Flies piggy, that poor little boy piggy that came to an unhappy end at the end of the book, he was made to carry the dark shadow of the boy tribe on that island. Well, we know groups do that in general. This is how we otherize people. Racism, for example. Well, guess what? Dysfunctional families do it too. And with dysfunctional families, we call it the family projective identification process. Where unconsciously that families putting the burden of all of that unaddressed angst, anxiety, intergenerational trauma on unconsciously, it's put onto that child. And my research suggests it will be put onto the empath child, the child most likely to go into psychology or be interested in psychology. The child who's very perceptive, who's sensitive. And their truth telling can be a big threat to that kind of family system. Even, even their eyes, how they're looking at a parent can be a threat because they're seeing.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

What would be examples of truth telling other than like saying to somebody outside the family what's going on in the family? I guess it would be even just saying it within the family.

[Rebecca Manville]

Within the family of empaths also are often justice seekers. They may come to the aid of a sibling, they may go to protect that sibling, they may say, dad, you can't do that, or dad, you know you're drinking, or dad, you're mean. You know, that truth will just come out of their mouth until perhaps they learn it's too dangerous and and they may take on then the trauma response of fawning or submitting just to get by in that family and survive. And they will no longer. They've learned not to say the truth out loud. Some children will keep saying it. They have more of the trauma responsive fight. And actually, I rather see that as a therapist, the fight response, because they're gonna hold on to their sense of identity and their truth and their sense of self more than a fauna submitter, where they have to shove everything down and repress it and kind of forget the truth so they don't get into hot water with their family.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

I feel like the way that my truth telling came out was that I developed this separation anxiety. I view that as me sounding the alarm bells in a sense that, like, something's not right here.

[Rebecca Manville]

We hear often about the trauma responses. Fight, flight, freeze, fun. But there's a fifth that a lot of people aren't aware of. Janina Fisher talks about it in her book that I love Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma. I use that workbook with my clients. And that fifth response is called Cry for Help. And often that child will have a lot of anxiety, may even be acting out, may get into drugs or alcohol. And it's actually a cry for help trauma response. And the other thing to know about scapegoating is the scapegoat is the one ejected from the family, so to speak, ejected from the tribe, like the goat cast out, you know, by Aaron in the Bible to take on the sins of the tribe. But at the same time, the scapegoat unconsciously is being sent out by the family to get help. Unconsciously, the family knows they need help. The scapegoat is sent out into the wilderness, but they're also sent out to bring help back to the family, but the family doesn't know it. And often the scapegoat will go into the healing arts and be helpful to others. Help others. I say in my book, I propose we're not carrying the sins of the tribe as scapegoats. I propose we're carrying the unaddressed, unacknowledged, intergenerational trauma. And the family needs help and doesn't know it. And we're trying to get them that help. Maybe you are in a way through your podcast, maybe I am in a way through my book. But often they can't hear the message and they can't accept the help because they pathologize the scapegoat. They're seen as crazy, a liar, a fake, a fraud, a Phony this or that. Everything that you read in my book, you name it.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

I think that this is a common experience. But do you often see where. So the, the scapegoat label is placed upon a child and then they act accordingly?

[Rebecca Manville]

Well, they can, they can live the story that's been attached to them, and I think that that can happen. When I worked in the addiction treatment clinics, I got enough history to see that that child was probably the identified patient and over time became what the parents said they were.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

You see a difference between the two, like scapegoating and identified patient? Would you say that there's a difference?

[Rebecca Manville]

They're closely related? I think in the classic family system sense, if you were going to go to the literature and to the research they're going to. That term identified patient has a certain mean and was researched on in a certain way. So I wouldn't attach my version of scapegoating to it, but I would say scapegoating is an aspect of the identified patient. But I would be careful to separate what I'm researching on with what the family system series researched on all those decades ago when they talked about the identified patient. I wouldn't use them interchangeably, but they're closely related and could be interchangeable depending on each person's circumstance.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

What about. So I feel, and it's interesting that you just said that we're being sent out to get help to bring it back to the family. So me acting in my scapegoat role actually provided value to the rest of the system.

[Rebecca Manville]

Value they may not recognize, but value that may be visible?

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Well, in the sense that like they had to focus their attention on me because I was creating so much trouble. My mom stopped drinking as much and my parents stopped fighting.

[Rebecca Manville]

That's exactly part of the identified patient role. That's exactly how unconsciously the IP is helping the family. But the identified patients paying a big price and carrying burdens that ideally they never should have had to carry.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Yeah, it's kind of like a double edged sword because in a way I think that them making me the identified patient actually allowed for my, my addiction and alcoholism to like, progress rather quickly. And I also feel like because there were so many consequences.

[Teresa]

It just helped.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Me to get sober quicker in a way, in a sense. So it's like I'm grateful for it in that sense that they sent me to so many rehabs and boarding schools because I do feel like that allowed me to finally hit bottom at such a young age. But the problem is it's like it's always a balloon, right? My therapist talks about like, you know, you're pushing on one end. And so here I am bulged out. Okay, well then I get sober. Well, it's going to bulge out elsewhere.

[Rebecca Manville]

Or your therapist is correct, until the root cause in the family system is addressed. And sadly that's very hard to do, especially in this day and age where families aren't often going into a room. And then it needs to be understood how the family will focus on the identified patient in the therapy room. And the ways you get around that is that family identified patient really needs to be there with their own dedicated therapist who's coordinating treatment with the family systems therapist. Otherwise, and I've seen this happen with my clients before they found me, they innocently go off to family therapy. The therapist has the whole backstory from the group, the parents, the rest of the family, and they walk in and they're slaughtered, so to speak. The whole group system comes down on them as the problem. Some therapists unfortunately can fall into that trap and the clients re traumatized, the family scapegoat, or the IP is re traumatized from that session. So it's iatrogenic, it was supposed to help and it caused harm. Family therapy has to be handled very specifically, specific, with specific guidelines in order.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

For it to be effective.

[Rebecca Manville]

She's not going to get re traumatized. I've seen terrible trauma come out of that where they've walked in even with their own therapist. The therapist has been traumatized from what happened in the room with a parent, for example, just brutally going after, oh, they're faking it. Oh, the tears are fake. Oh, they've got you convinced that we're the problem. You don't know the half of it. And the clients, you know, my clients having to hear all this again before they found me, where I would have advised against it. There should be a several month preparation process with all the therapists involved and a, and a emotionally safe environment for that work to happen. And now we have internal family systems which can be very individual. But you don't hear a lot about family therapy anymore.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

And yeah, this would actually be something interesting to dive into some because just to kind of get your feedback more opinion on that. So for me, for example, I mean, my therapist wouldn't, even if I wanted to have a session with my parents, she wouldn't. There's no value to it. When would it be valuable? Before we go into family therapy? Should every person already be in individual therapy? Like how would you?

[Rebecca Manville]

Well, I would recommend that and I'd recommend one more thing. And actually, I learned this from one of my clients who's a psychotherapist, and it's something she did that I now use. She wrote every family member and said, this family is invested in having me be the identified patient, the scapegoat, the carrier of the family problems. And before I will go to. Because they wanted her to go into family therapy, she said, before I will go into family therapy with any of you, I need each of you to be in touch with me and acknowledge what's happened to me and that you're committed to not putting me in that role anymore and that you will work with your own individual therapist to make sure I'm not put in that role anymore. And then, and only then, will I participate in family therapy.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Wow.

[Rebecca Manville]

And that's what I recommend now.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

And I'm.

[Teresa]

Well, I don't know.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

I'm sure. Is there some circumstances where that wouldn't. Obviously, if they can't even send that, or if it's advised that you don't even.

[Rebecca Manville]

Can't even send that, then you're walking into a potentially re. Traumatizing situation. And sadly, it's rare that that's going to happen because of people's lack of ego strength. They don't have the ego strength to look at where they may have harmed their own family member, much less apologize for it. And what you'll hear, what you'll hear instead, which I've actually heard myself. Sorry. I'll never say I'm sorry.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Sorry. I'll never say I'm sorry.

[Rebecca Manville]

Not a lot of discussion after that, is there? You know, why go into family therapy with someone who's going to say that to you?

[Tammy Sholenberger]

What about for somebody who's listening who, you know, has recently realized that they're an adult child and perhaps has realized that they have placed one of their kids in a scapegoat role.

[Rebecca Manville]

That is an excellent question. And I'm not trying to pump my book, but it'd be great if they read my book, including so that they can understand how that happened, because they've no doubt might feel some shame, even appropriate shame, so to speak, that they put their child in that position. They may be realizing it happened to them and they're just repeating what was done to them and so that they can have compassion for themselves, first and foremost, forgive themselves if they feel they need to have that sort of forgiveness process with themselves first. And then they can, depending on the age of the child, address it. If the child's very, very young. It wouldn't be age appropriate, but the behaviors could change. I've had many people write me and say, oh, my God, I'm doing this to my child. If the child's older, they can talk about it in an age appropriate way. This is something we've done in our family. This is how certain children in our family have been treated. And this happened to me or this happened to so and so or Uncle Bob, you know, I'm so sorry. I'm afraid I may have been doing this to you. And mommy's gonna do everything not to do it. And if you feel that ouchy feeling I said something that hurt you, please tell. Please tell mommy and daddy right away. You know, there's age appropriate ways to talk about it, but often we do do it to our children. It's. It's a pattern, and we repeat the patterns until we get the awareness. Awareness is the first step. Get the awareness and then you have choices. You can make different choices and do it different in the future. So awareness is always the first step. And it can be a painful awareness to realize, oh, my God, I just, I'm doing this to my child.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Absolutely, absolutely. So what about. Let's talk about some subtle signs that someone may experience who experienced scapegoating abuse as a kid, but don't realize it, but now are suffering from the aftermath. I mean, I think it's very similar to the, the symptoms of being an adult child. Right. I mean, it's like a lot of.

[Rebecca Manville]

The laundry list traits, but with scapegoating in particular. Unless you were the fight type. Almost everyone that comes to me, no matter how successful I have some very successful in the world, out in the highly functioning clients, There's a pervasive sense of something's wrong with me. There's a pervasive sense of shame, which is toxic shame. Actually, they're not even fully aware. It's like embedded in your bones kind of shame. That's toxic shame. You are shame. It's not that you feel shame. You are walking shame on two legs wanting imposter syndrome. Always feeling people are gonna find out you're not what you're pretending to be. And as I said in one of my videos, it's no wonder that you feel that way because often your family is saying you're a fake and a phony, and you're not. You know, they know the real you. So that can go real deep. That sense of, oh, if people find out, they're gonna find out. And I have again, I have clients running. I have a client that's running a $3 billion company and she's just waiting for the receptionist to find out she's a big fake. I mean, she's worried about what everyone thinks about her and that that's a sign. Fawning, submitting, codependency, people pleasing, wanting to just get by, go along to get along. All of that can be associated with coping mechanisms and survival behaviors in childhood, from being scapegoated when it comes.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

I, I struggle and have been very mindful of the imposter syndrome stuff as it comes to doing this podcast. You know, just like that fear that I'll just wake up the next day and everybody's going to realize that actually they don't like me anymore, that actually I am crazy. Or also just the, the deep fear of that I am just gonna self sabotage, right? Because especially as a teenager, being very capable, being really smart, being really gifted athletically, but just like choosing drugs and alcohol, just having that potential but never living up to it. And just the fear that like, you know, that's what I'm gonna do, like I'm just gonna this all up. And so it's just been, I've been trying to be very mindful of that and just see what still needs to be to be healed there. But like, especially as a teenager, it's like it, it didn't take long for people to realize they didn't like me, you know, like one or two times. And so it's like I'll have to catch myself because it's like all of a sudden I think I'm gonna wake up. All of my podcast listeners are actually going to realize that I'm crazy and they want nothing to do with me.

[Rebecca Manville]

You're in good company. I went to see Salvador Minutia, one of the greats in family systems, and he was in his 80s then. And I'll never forget, he stood up there, looked at the thousands of people there to see him, and he said, you know, when I go to Italy, they love me so much. They, there's people who kiss my feet like I'm the Pope. And now you're all clapping for me here and all I'm thinking is, oh, I'm really fooling all of you. I am like such a fake. You have no idea. I'm not anything you think I am. And, but everyone could really relate with that. I think a lot of therapists end up being therapists because of all kinds of interesting things going on in their family. So everyone in the room, I think, could really relate to that. In your case, think of it as parts. If you talk about internal family systems, you have parts a part or parts or maybe teenage parts that are afraid the curtain's going to get pulled back like in wizard of Oz, and they'll see you're there just pulling levers. But that's just the part. And reminding yourself, I know that helps me. I have a part that feels that way, and working with that part and tending to that part and nurturing that part and helping that part catch up to the very competent, skilled, effective you that you are.

[Andrea]

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[Tammy Sholenberger]

So let's talk about healing. When somebody comes in, where do you start?

[Rebecca Manville]

I think, as with any good psychotherapy, we need to assess. But I'm. I'm one who assesses conversationally. You'll never find me people filling out a form.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Yeah, exactly.

[Rebecca Manville]

No, I'll be conversational in my assessing. But especially with scapegoating, I can tell probably within 15 minutes where someone is in either being aware of if they have been scapegoated. And you know what? Not everyone who comes to me for scapegoating has been scapegoated in the sense that I treat it.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Really.

[Rebecca Manville]

Yeah. They could actually have been a victim of narcissistic abuse more than the scapegoating. Now, the scapegoating may be part of it, but I'll say, you know, what we really need to treat you for is narcissistic abuse. Scapegoating is a piece of it. Then there's the classic, what I call fsa. And I can see if they're in the very early stages, have no awareness at all. That's when I'll hear that there's something wrong with me. For my whole family to treat me this way, there has to be something wrong with me. Might be a lot of tears, including my male clients. I mean, this is very, very, very, very painful thing to experience. And then there'll be people who, oh, I think this happened to me, but I know I don't have trauma. And I'll have a lot of my psychologists say this to me. And within a month, we're both laughing because remember last month when you I.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Said I didn't have any trauma.

[Rebecca Manville]

They're swimming in complex trauma symptoms. And then I have people who really. They're really close to what I call radical acceptance. And they just need my help getting over some humps, working through anger and grief. But they have a lot of. They've worked through a lot, but they're just not quite in that place of radical acceptance. And the truth is, I don't think anyone heals fully from family scapegoating. This is our family we're talking about. I believe there'll always be some pain attached there on how that's impacted our relationships either. We have to be careful, limit contact. Some people have to go, no contact. Some people are still stuffing their truth around their family and just feeling really icky afterwards. You know, everyone's on their own, part of their healing journey. And not everyone's ready to limit or end contact, even if they need to, for their own well being. But we basically, as psychotherapists, we're assessing and we can diagnose complex trauma even if it's not in the dsm. But we have to, as I said my book, be creative. How we're called coding it for insurance reasons. If someone's wanting insurance reimbursement and then we have our prognosis. And I can give everyone a good prognosis, surprisingly. And people can heal from this surprisingly fast when they realize this one important thing. And I say this lightly, but it's serious, it's not personal. It's the family projective identification process. That scapegoat narrative has nothing to do with you and your true self. And when we can slice through that Gordian knot with the sword of truth and go, I am not that which my family says I am. I am not crazy. I'm not mentally ill. I'm not difficult. I don't feel too much. You know, I'm beautifully sensitive. I don't fake my illnesses. You know, I'm not a phony. When we can start to really disidentify from what we are not and never were and who we actually are, this is who I really am. And realize that was a narrative that got attached to us and through no fault of our own, we might have been the empath in the families. Often how it happens once we disidentify from that scapegoat narrative and realize we were victimized by a systemic unconscious process. Unless it was a malignant narcissist situation. I do like to make that clear. We can quickly heal. I know if a malignant narcissist was responsible for the scapegoating, you're going to have other kinds of abuse and injuries that have to be tended to along with the scapegoat narrative, which would be.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Can you talk about that? Some.

[Rebecca Manville]

Well, narcissistic abuse, as anyone who understands it, especially a malignant narcissist parent. Malignant narcissists can have sociopathic traits, so that child may have been. This could happen with scapegoating abuse too. But you could have strong features of structural dissociation. Meaning you may feel like you have many split parts and you're many different people. You may numb, you may check out, you may. I have an article on structural dissociation. And you're going to need a therapist who understands how to work.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

I'm not. I don't think I've ever heard that term it's not.

[Rebecca Manville]

And it's not dissociative identity disorder. It's not like you're becoming different people. But we all have many parts.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

I mean I've never heard structure. I mean I know what dissociation is, I've just never heard structure.

[Rebecca Manville]

It's associated with complex trauma. I have an article on it on my blog, remind me and I can email that to you. And that structural dissociation has many symptoms attached to it, but you can feel like you're a lot of different people. You may dissociate where you feel checked out, checked out of your body. Scapegoating abuse can also be very severe. But if you grew up with a narcissist parent, malignant narcissist parent who also scapegoated you, you've got a double dose, kind of like dual diagnosis with addiction. You got a double dose of abuse that you going to need a really good professional to help you with when.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

You say that once we can disidentify with that the identifies the scapegoat narrative, I mean, is it really that simple though? Because it's like we're dealing with toxic shame, right? And so it's like that is so deep within our core that it's hard to break through that. I feel like it does take a lot of time to, you know, to rewire this.

[Rebecca Manville]

Identifying is the first cognitive step. That front part of our brain, you know, where cognitive behavioral therapy addresses, you know, just like the slogans in a 12 step program, these, you know, we need to keep reminding ourselves we are not that, but we have neural pathways that may have been wired around the scapegoating or the narcissistic abuse. Our brains may have developed around abusive behaviors. 80% of the brains develop by the time we're six years old. That toxic shame, as you say, is deep, it's embedded, it's unconscious. That does take a lot of time to heal from. But I will say because I've worked with so many people, by the six month mark, my clients are feeling remarkably better, far better than I would have expected from that disidentification from the narrative. And then we have to start that deeper work on the complex trauma and the toxic shame. But that's a good point you're making. I didn't mean to imply it's a.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Quick, that you're good, you're fixed, you're good to go. But so then what, what is your process? And I'm sure it's individualized but for somebody who is, they can see that they are the scapegoat of the family, but they're really struggling to see that this isn't really who they are.

[Rebecca Manville]

Well, my book's really helpful. So again, if they can grab a copy, I try to keep it pretty cheap there in terms of what I charge because that will give the psychoeducation that's needed to understand what happened to them. And then I do talk about treatment modalities, resources and how to start recovering from this and. But I do like to stress you can recover. I've had people write me, I hear from people all over the world. I've had people write me in their 80s. And one, one woman said to me, I'll never forget. She said, thank you so much for your book. I never understood what had happened to me and my family, and they're gone now, but I have so much peace just from knowing what happened to me. We can't always fix it with our family, but if we understand what happened to us and then free ourselves from that narrative and heal the trauma, which takes time, we can go on to live healthy lives without this heavy burden of being the scapegoat. Even if the family's still smearing you.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Well, that's the next topic that I want to get into. So hold on, let me look at these questions to see what people. Yeah, so. So one lady, one person asked Amy. Hi, Amy, Dawn. So we already asked the part about the truth telling, but she said, do dysfunctional parents vilify them or make them the identified patient in order to continue denying the truth? I would think yes.

[Rebecca Manville]

Yeah, but it's often unconscious on their part. It's not always deliberate. With a narcissist parent, it might be deliberate. The traumatized parent, it may just be the truth is too threatening to their psyche. They can't face it and sadly they will make the child the problem versus being having the strength to face the ego. Strength to face the truth.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Yeah, because it's just too hard.

[Rebecca Manville]

And it is like a sacrificing of the child. It's a sacrificing of the child's well being. And, and that's, that's part of the tragedy. Especially when the parent wakes up later and goes, oh my God, what have I done? And some do. Doesn't happen a lot, but some do.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Yeah. I think that the, when I reflect upon it for myself, I think the most tragic thing is just that that identity being placed on me, thus causing me to just behave in ways that just perpetuated even more shame, you know, like that's really just the heart, right?

[Rebecca Manville]

For help. It's like a thousand. It's like you were handed a. A big black thousand pound suitcase by your family system unconsciously. Here, you carry this for us. No child can carry that. So that is a cry for help when.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

So in John Bradshaw's book, when he talks about like shameful acting out and shameless acting in. Do. Do scapegoats ever take the shameless acting in route? Because for me, I obviously leaned into the shame and perpetuated even more of it. I would assume that genuinely that would be the case. But is it ever the opposite?

[Rebecca Manville]

Oh, it definitely can be the opposite. And again, I almost would prefer as a therapist when the child is able to act out, because I think there's less damage. I think there's many scapegoated children where it gets internalized and it's a quiet internal implosion. And often you will end up with depression, suicidal ideation, and even suicide.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

It's interesting that you say that, because I always felt like it would be. It's better when a person gets the shameless acting in.

[Rebecca Manville]

No, I mean, in a way you're acting out might have saved you from something worse like suicide or constant state of being in a living, constant suicidal ideation. No quality of life. The, the acting out in a way is, is almost an anger expression and it's a. I call it a righteous rage because some part, even if it's unconscious, knows what's happening is wrong. Because you're carrying this big suitcase for the whole family and it needs to be distributed equally. Everyone needs to be carrying some of it. And the ideal situation, I've had it happen. It's rare the family comes in and they work on intergenerational trauma, but it's often the identified patient that gets them into family therapy.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Really?

[Rebecca Manville]

Oh yeah.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

So have you worked with many families altogether?

[Rebecca Manville]

I have. Not many, because not many are able, capable or willing. But it's often at an addiction treatment center, for example, addicted suicidal client. And they'll end up eventually in my private practice doing family therapy. And I will always find always severe intergenerational trauma, genocide, war, European roots, where there's lost missing family members from genocide or holocaust, you know, so much trauma and the families never even talked about it or acknowledged it. And it's like that one child's carrying the grief and they're caring, they're bringing the family together. Through their constant suicide attempts, the whole family's rallied around that child that needs help or that adult child that needs help and it brings the family together, but that child's paying the price.

[Terry]

Yeah, I know.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

I can relate. Do you have you had many situations where you've had to say this is ineffective or one family member can't participate? You're probably so selective about who you would even.

[Rebecca Manville]

Begin with because you know what I like to really stress oftentimes even in these families that brutally scapegoat. And again, I'm not excusing, but when it's driven by intergenerational trauma and the family projective identification process, there's actually love in those families. And I've had families where frankly, especially when I was an intern, I was afraid to work with them because there was such an angry, narcissistic, seeming saved father, you know, that I was scared of, you know, and I'm saying to my supervisor, I can't work with this family. And she's saying, yes, you can, with my support. And that father, behind all that anger and rage and narcissistic traits, that father loved his children and his family and he participated wholeheartedly, grudgingly at first, but eventually wholeheartedly in the family therapy, you know, so that's. Love can transcend many things. And we don't want to assume there's not love in families that scapegoat. There is, there can be, with the exception of when you have a malignant narcissist, strong narcissist, and there's, there's no love going on there.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Have you noticed any difference between scapegoat abuse when alcohol or addiction is present versus other types of dysfunction?

[Rebecca Manville]

That's a really great question. I would say when they're, if we have a parent that's scapegoating, they're extra defended if there's drinking or drug use going on.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

What do you mean by that? Extra defended?

[Rebecca Manville]

Because often addiction is something they're hoping the children aren't noticing, hiding. And then if you have a truth telling child who's, who's putting out there, what's actually happening with that parent, they have an extra reason to pathologize the child and say the child's a liar or doesn't know what they're talking about or is crazy also a child that's being sexually abused in the family, Boy, a parent might have a real. Or sibling could have a real good reason to want to make that child out to be a liar because the truth very dangerous. Truth can be very dangerous in a dysfunctional family.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

So now I want to talk about when scapegoats try to heal and what the rest of the family does. What's like the worst story? What? You got to get some good stories of family backlash.

[Rebecca Manville]

Sure. The one star reviews on my book from family members.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

I'll have to read some of them.

[Rebecca Manville]

There's some doozies. And I'll say, did you happen to give your family member my book, thinking it would be helpful? Oh, yes, I did. Oh, okay. That explains that. I've had my phone light up and I can see from caller ID it's relatives, siblings, parents of my client, and they want to really give me the business. Oh, and let's not forget, I'm crazy. I'm a crazy therapist because I talk about these things that aren't valid in their opinions. Oh, you're seeing that crazy therapist who wrote that crazy book. So again, there's the invalidation of the professional. No matter their background, their license, they're considered a world expert, what have you. Therapist is crazy. The client's crazy.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

So I would imagine that occasionally it does get under your skin, because I thought that I would be like, occasionally when I get some reviews, I mean, or if I get messages. Generally speaking, I'm pretty thick skinned, but sometimes it does get me a little riled up. So be honest.

[Rebecca Manville]

In the beginning, I, it, it felt. I'll be honest with you, it felt. It felt traumatizing because you're putting your work out there, your truth out there, and, and then you're being slaughtered verbally. And I'm not going to pretend as a highly sensitive person who's putting my life's work out there, that it didn't hurt. So then I went through a period where I just didn't look at the reviews and had someone else I trust look at them to take any of the genuinely defamatory ones off, which I had some of those Amazon kindly took off for me. And now I will say it doesn't bother me too much because it's gonna. The truth is always gonna get a reaction of different kinds. So if someone's not ready for my message, it's okay. And if they need to lash out because of their own denial or anger, it's okay. It doesn't get to me anymore. Good. I hope that you find that.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Yeah, most of the time it doesn't. Occasionally it will. So the majority of the time, I'm assuming the family does not react well when the scapegoat starts to heal. Obviously, some people are willing to cut off contact. Other people are limited, like limiting contact. But generally speaking, when would you recommend that somebody needs to take a period of no contact. Do you have a line in the sand?

[Rebecca Manville]

It's so coincidental because right before I had an interview before and right after that interview and before you, I just filmed a new video. And this is exactly what I'm talking about is the overview of the recovery process and when someone might have to limit contact as part of their recovery process. Well, we know when we treat trauma is you have to have an emotionally safe environment to recover in. If you're having a lot of family contact that's making you feel like crap for whatever reason and you're in tears every time you come to a session or what have you, I'm going to have to say to that person, I can't help you right now. Help you open up and be vulnerable the way you're going to need to be to do this kind of work. If you're going to your family getting slaughtered, I can't ethically do that. So we'll talk about how can you take a step back or limit contact. This can be really hard in minority families where it is very collective and you don't ever take space.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Manville]

So cultural, as one of my minority clients says, cutting off families, a white people thing. Rebecca, we could never get away with that in my. There's some truth to it actually. So I've got to. Look, I got to. You have to have cultural competence too, before you just willy nilly as a therapist say we got to cut your family off. You do have to create a safe space for healing. And, and the client's got to be honest with themselves whether they're going to be able to be willing to do that, create that container for healing. And it might last a long time, it might be a short time. They might find they do need to end contact if they're being abused. And it's not stopping. And unfortunately you're right, it can't actually get worse as you get healthier. Why? Because you're setting boundaries or you're saying, you know what, I'm going to need you to talk to me more respectfully or hey, that's not okay that you did that. That's not going to be okay for me. Or there needs to be a place for me to have my feelings in this family. Well, in a dysfunctional family, you being healthy could make them skate goat you even worse. And I have to prepare my clients for that.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

It's similar to like dating, I think I'm such a big proponent of if you have a broken picker you need to take a break and be single and work on your shit. And then you're going to be in a place where then you can kind of work it out in dating. And I think it's very similar with this family stuff, too. It's like we may need to take a break so that we can get whole. And then if we want to try to have a relationship with them, well, then we're going to be in a much more sturdy, solid place where we are going to be able to set.

[Rebecca Manville]

Boundaries and have more compassion for why they are the way they are and to give the family time to start doing new dance steps with you. And I always say some will accept your invitation to do the new healthier dance and some aren't. And they're going to be stepping on your feet all the time. And you'll have to decide, are you going to wear combat boots? Are you going to dance with them? Are you going to stay five feet away? But a dysfunctional family, many times the family members are not in any kind of recovery process therapy, and they're not going to know how to do the healthier dance with you. So then we have to decide how we're going to manage that.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

What about when setting a no contact rule with family? Do you have a script that you recommend that people use or how to explain it?

[Rebecca Manville]

I like to help my clients organically work their way into their own script. Yep. So it's. I think it's a big mistake if a therapist imposes that in any way on a client because it could really backfire if that client's not really ready to. So when they are ready to do it, and it's coming from a deep place of health and it's organic to them and in their bones, so to speak, that letter is going to come out and it's going to be different for everyone. I do always recommend they let me look at it first, just to take anything really loaded or unnecessary out. But I'll be honest, most of the time my clients just send it because they're so ready. And then they tell me afterward, oh, great, let's see what it says.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

I would think that less is more. Most likely less is more, I'm sure.

[Rebecca Manville]

Yeah. Because most times family's not going to understand it anyway. And so I always say, write the letter that serves you at the highest level. You, you. You are the one in recovery. You are the one trying to heal from this. What's going to serve you at the highest level, and put those words down and Usually by the time my clients are ready to do it, those, the ones who choose to, by the time they're ready, they have a lot of compassion for themselves, but they have a lot of compassion for the family too. So they're able to write a firm yet compassionate letter. Whether the family sees that it's compassionate, you can't control that. But I can tell when I read it there's a lot of compassion there. And love.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Yeah. I think the big thing is like being mindful, making sure that you're not writing anything in a way that you think is going to invoke change.

[Rebecca Manville]

Because it won't. It won't. You have to write for your own peace, healing, freedom, and not expect anything to change. If you think you're ending contact because they're going to come back and beg you to be in touch, it's going very unlikely to happen. They may, they might come back to shame you into being in touch, but not to joyously celebrate your recovery and be in touch.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Yeah. And I think when we over explain too, we're inviting that in.

[Rebecca Manville]

Right?

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Like we're. We're inviting it in for them to try to convince us otherwise. How do you see scapegoat abuse affecting romantic relationships later on in life?

[Rebecca Manville]

That fundamental sense sometimes held unconsciously that there's something wrong with me. I'm deeply flawed. You can tend then to find partners that you think won't leave you. So you can tend to find partners who are really deeply flawed. And you know, you have a real low bar, you know. Well, they don't hit me. You know, you find someone more troubled than you unconsciously because you're afraid you're going to be left because you're so. You're so flawed. And if you're filled with that toxic shame, then you can be very vulnerable to someone who flatters you. A narcissist type, predatory type, who makes you feel that you're wonderful. And that will usually change the minute you're committed. Literally that. The wedding night. I hear those stories a lot. Literally you're married to a different person. It's like that old bee move. Me, I married a monster.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

I just had somebody, one of my listeners, I just had her share that exact same story.

[Rebecca Manville]

Yeah. Literally can happen on the wedding night when it's a true narcissist you end up with. So that's why again, it's like you're tarred and feathered. You're walking around with all this tar on you and you're gonna attract a lot of Things are going to stick to you that you may not want. And that tar you can think of as the toxic shame that comes from family scapegoating abuse. So you're going to attract all kinds of things you might not want to attract.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Yeah, no kidding. One thing that I noticed for me was that I attracted people who. Who kept. Who kept me compartmentalized. So like I was like something to be ashamed or embarrassed about. They didn't want people to know that they were dating me.

[Rebecca Manville]

Did that mirror your family dynamics? Family? Oh yeah.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

In the sense that like I was the, you know, the identified patient and problem. Yeah. Well, and. And more so it mimicked what I experienced in school because in the seventh grade I became like the school and I became the girl that no one was allowed to be friends with. So more so that like I became the girl that it was a shameful thing to be friends with. With me.

[Rebecca Manville]

We go to what we know and often the scapegoating. I have a video on why do I get scapegoated Wherever I go? That's the title. And I talk about how we can end up in different group systems and find ourselves in the same role and our marriages and partnerships. School work. And I have work. Yeah, I have a whole video on that.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

I think work too in the sense that like. And I also think it's just because I didn't belong in those roles, but I would essentially just self sabotage. Right.

[Rebecca Manville]

I used to give conferences on how we somehow find ourselves working in our family of origin at work.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Oh yeah.

[Rebecca Manville]

We will somehow find our family of origin. It's almost like a universe trick. And even if we had no idea that the fan. The work environment was exactly like our family system, we find ourselves there and we end up in our family of origin role. Yep.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Absolutely.

[Rebecca Manville]

Every job I had. And there's no way I could have known this because I never met the CEO and every job I'd go into, there'd be an alcoholic, absent CEO and then there'd be a codependent caretaking female underling who was actually running everything for that alcoholic boss. Every job I went to, I didn't do that consciously, but that's where the universe led me.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

I know it's hard not to believe that there's a higher power when like that happens without fail. I know.

[Rebecca Manville]

Invited to see it and to heal it.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Yeah. It's a gift, right? It's a gift.

[Rebecca Manville]

It can be if we look at it that way.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

What do you. Through the research that you're doing, what is your do you have like a goal? Like what do you hope just to get a better understanding of things? Do you think that this can help with how we treat it?

[Rebecca Manville]

What my goal is that scapegoating is recognized as its own form of abuse that can be related to a part of but at times is completely separate from narcissistic abuse. I gave it a name. If someone else wants to name it something different and peer review research on it, I don't care. I'm not trademarking the name. I don't care who uses it. I already know though. This is again, I've hear from thousands of people thanking me for giving this a distinct name. I'd love to see peer reviewed research on this. I'm getting old. I don't think I'm going back to do that dissertation. I welcome any graduate students listening to this for your master's or your PhD. Get in touch with me contact@scapegoat recovery.com and I've been in touch with some students from Dr. Jennifer Fraid who came up with Betrayal Trauma Theory and Darvo Deny Attack Reverse Victim Offender. She has some students who are teaching now in Washington. They contacted me. I would just love to see someone do some peer reviewed research on family skills scapegoating and recognize it as abuse and put my voice with those who are crying out for complex trauma to be in the DSM here.

[Tammy Sholenberger]

Thank you. This is wonderful.

[Listener]

Hello everybody. I was a blubbering wreck the last time that I shared and I feel a lot better today, which is good news. I know it's going to come in waves and troughs and stuff like that, but I'm going to enjoy how I'm feeling at the moment. I have been on a big kind of researching and analytical trip this week. I've always known I was the scapegoat child in my family, but I've never really done a huge amount of research into that and how that impacts a child. So I've been looking at YouTube videos and reading articles by a load of people who I respect a lot. Some people that you've had on your podcast as well, Andrea, which is really good. I found this really great thing on a video by Patrick Tehan. It separates the scapegoat child as an adult into two groups, one who rebels and one who complies. I hear a lot of people in this group talking about their kind of fawning response and their people pleasing and I've never really related to that and this has made a lot of sense because I definitely was not a compliant type. I was a rebelling type as a kid. So I guess I went into fight and flight response rather than freeze and fawn. And that's explained a lot about myself. It's explained to me why despite everything I went through, I've always had quite a good sense of who I am. I wouldn't say that that meant I've had self esteem because I haven't. I've got absolutely zero self esteem. But I knew who I was and that knowing who I was has helped me cope through the last 25 years or something since I left the family home. So the rebel acts out, protects the self and protects the others, is contrarian, is aggressive and vigilant and dismissive and non conforming. And all of those describe me really well. A lot of those behaviors come out in ways that I really regret in adulthood. For example, if I'm not feeling seen or heard in a romantic relationship, that little aggressive monster child that I developed as a teenager to protect myself against my narcissistic family system that comes out in relationships as an adult and I shame myself for it. But understanding where that self comes from, understanding that it's not really my true self, it's an aspect of who I became in order to protect myself, but it's not my true self, has allowed me to have compassion for myself and forgive myself for those behaviors. And this week I've even been able to apologize to my most recent ex who I still live with. And he is able to forgive me for those behaviors now that he understands and recognizes where they came from. And I'm so grateful to him that he's been able to listen to me explain all of this stuff as I've been understanding it myself. I've been making a little chart. I haven't really got to grips with my parts yet. And it's something I've tried to get into to try to map. And it hasn't really clicked for me yet. But I think doing this work here again, me being a bit contrarian, a little bit of a rebel and a creative type, I've made my own chart and it kind of. So it's got my parents at the top, my mother and my father. Now I have no qualms about diagnosing my own parents because I know them better than anyone. I am pretty certain that my father is a malignant narcissist and an alcoholic and that my mother is borderline and was probably addicted to painkillers or to antidepressants. I know that of me and My three sisters. I definitely fit into the scapegoat role. I always have done from when I was a tiny little baby. There's elements of being the lost child in there as well. And what I've understood from scapegoat children, they can come from two different families. One family being an emotionally illiterate child where the scapegoat isn't necessarily consciously chosen as a scapegoat but just happens to fall into that role. I don't think that's my family. I think my family is a volatile, narcissistic parent family where this is all kind of very planned and executed with deliberate intent by the narcissistic parent. In my family there are apparently eight different types of scapegoating and how a child, a scapegoated child responds. I'm going to read them out to you as a list. I've been really working on this. Like this is, you know, that meme of that guy with all of the posters on the wall going, this is connected to that. That's how I felt this week. So there's the caretaker. Yes. I acted as a stand in therapist for my mother quite a lot and she wasn't looking for my advice. She was looking for me to just be someone that she threw out all of her crazy hysteric thoughts to. Problem solver. No, I wasn't because I see that as kind of like a fawning, compliant kind of response protector. No, I didn't really have anyone protect except for myself. I wasn't protecting any younger siblings or anyone else in the family who was being scapegoated. Truth teller. 100%. I was 100% a truth teller. If I thought there was injustice in the family, if I thought I was being accused of something that I hadn't done, I would speak up about it loudly and I would shout, regardless of the consequences. Perfectionist. Maybe to an extent, not in a sort of golden child perfectionist way. But I, I say that I rebelled as a child, as a teenager, but in fact I didn't drink, I didn't smoke, I didn't take drugs. I did okay in school. I did loads of extracurricular activities by my own, you know, by my own drive. Rebel. Yes, I absolutely rebelled. I shouted back. I had a very anti authoritarian stance, collapsed. So delayed collapse. Suicidal. Yeah. Okay, so this is someone who kind of just falls apart completely and becomes suicidal and becomes addicted to substances and has no drive and motivation in life. That has happened to me, but that happened in my late 30s. It was a very Delayed collapse response. And then the eighth type of scapegoating characteristic is becoming covert narcissist. And I really hope I haven't, I thought along lots of times, am I a narcissist? Am I a narcissist? But I've come to the conclusion that I'm probably not. I think understanding all of this and doing this own little map of my own are the types of scapegoat child within a narcissist family dynamic is one helping me to understand who my true self is and who the self who was created to protect myself within a narcissistic family dynamic is. And I'm grateful for many of the elements of that young, rebellious, protecting child because he allowed me to hold on to my sense of identity. I know who I am, I know what I like, I know what I don't like. I know what I believe is just. I know what I believe is injust, unjust. And I'm proud that I. And my creativity, I think my creativity stems from being rebellious as a teenager and I've always held that with me and I've kept it going. And this week I've been out with my camera and been photographing the countryside, been photographing people in towns. I've had quite a good week. I'm understanding who I am, both my true self and the self that I developed to protect myself. And there's elements of who I became to protect myself that I want to hold on and incorporate into my true self. And then there's the elements that fill me with shame that I know that I can let go of. So now the, now the journey is to learn how to let go of those parts of myself and by understanding that they were there to protect me when I was young against the abuse that I suffered. That allows me to have compassion for those parts and that compassion will help to let go of those behaviors in myself that I developed that I don't like and don't recognize as my true self today. That felt good to get out. That felt really good to get out. Thank you for listening, everyone. Thank you, Laura, for the claps. Thank you, Karen. And Karen, thank you for your comment about confidence and self esteem being two completely separate things because that's something that's really made sense to me in the last couple of weeks that I have so much confidence in my abilities, in my intelligence, in my creativity. But the self esteem is a completely separate thing and that is what has always prevented me from achieving anything in my life that I can really be proud of. There are things that I'm proud of, but I don't feel I have much to show for it. And so understanding that it's time to connect the self esteem and the confidence together. Thank you for that, Karen. Thank you.

[Terry]

Cool.

[Listener]

Thanks. Everyone else. I love you all.

[Rebecca Manville]

What holding on to Just let it.

[Listener]

All go what's making you slow now?

[Rebecca Manville]

Let it all go what you got to do yet?