Ve Have Vays of Making You Talk - Part III: Blame Shifting

In Part I of this post, I discussed why family members hate to discuss their chronic repetitive ongoing interpersonal difficulties with each other (metacommunication), and what usually happens when they try.

I discussed the most common avoidance strategy - merely changing the subject (#1) - as well as suggested effective countermoves to keep a constructive conversation on track.  In Part II, I discussed strategies #2 and #3, nitpicking and accusations of overgeneralizing respectively.  In this post, I discuss strategy #4.

To review, the goal of metacommunication is effective and empathic problem solving. In this post, I will discuss another avoidance strategy that I call blame shifting, as well as appropriate counter-strategies. 

As with all counter-strategies, maintaining empathy for the Other and persistence are key.

Strategy #4: Blame Shifting

A favorite maneuver that is used by many families members to scuttle metacommunication is the counter-accusation. The counter-accusation may be aimed at the metacommunicator, or it may be aimed at a third party. 

For metacommuncation to succeed, people best take the  position that there are NO villains in the family drama. However, family members, including the metacommunicator, may have done very bad things, and that fact cannot be ignored without the ignorer sounding like a liar or an idiot.  

As I have said before, blame is toxic to metacommunication, and leads to fight, flight, or freeze reactions in others, none of which is productive.  No one wants or needs to eat crow, as it does not taste like chicken.  The important thing is to begin the process of changing problematic patterns in future interactions.

Individuals attempting to discuss a mutual problem with a family member without placing blame on anyone must usually bring up the Other's troublesome behavior within the family system. Even when individuals do their best not to blame anyone, the Other may nonetheless attempt to quiet them by acting as if they were behaving in a blaming manner.

Let's take the case in which the Other (O) becomes indignant and starts placing the blame for the problem on the Metacommunicator (M). In order to get M to become especially angry, O may magnify and exaggerate M's contribution to the problem and imply that M is entirely at fault.

This kind of maneuver is, of course, an attempt to distance M through the use of an unjust criticism. M will be sorely tempted to return the insult in kind. As with any other distancing maneuver, however, M should instead react by moving closer.

The biggest difficulty in designing an effective countermeasure for this maneuver is that the accusations of O will invariably contain a kernel of truth. M, being an integral part of the family system, is indeed part of the problem. If M reacts to O's accusation by merely defending himself, O will have and may use a wealth of examples from M's past as ammunition to back up his or her charge. M may then begin to become frustrated, angry, or feel guilty about his or her contributions to the family problem, and the conversation will sidetrack.

Luckily, however, the fact that the O's accusation does contain a kernel of truth can be used to get the conversation back on track. It can be used in the service of empathy.

Instead of becoming defensive, M can acknowledge the kernel of truth in the O's accusation, while either ignoring the exaggerations or pointing them out in a matter-of-fact fashion. M can then use his contribution to the problem as an example of behavior that is caused by the very family problem that they are now trying to discuss and solve. M can add that he used to criticize himself for the very "sins" of which O is now accusing him.

As we shall see in the following example, M can also use O's criticism to question traditional family beliefs. The latter subject is normally one of the last parts of the metacommunicative sequence that comprises effective metacommuncation, but O's blame-shifting maneuver provides an excellent vehicle for speeding up the process.
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Example:

Mr. M, estranged from his family and living far away, was in the process of calling up his older brother to metacommunicate about a family problem. Mr. M let the brother know that he wanted to come home on vacation to clarify some of the family issues. The brother, who had attempted but failed to escape enmeshment in the family by moving away as M had done because he had felt obliged to return, immediately began to indignantly criticize M's attempt at renewed family involvement. "You moved away and have your own life. Who the hell are you to come back here and try to fix the family?"

(As an aside, there is hidden altruism in the brother's seemingly hostile response:  he was trying to help Mr. M stay away from what the brother considered to be a toxic family situation.  Responding to the lexical content -just the words - will be the subject of a future post).

M responded, "I can understand your feelings. I often asked myself that same question when I first considered doing this. I have been away a long time, but I'm not happy about not being close to the family." The goal of this statement was to use it as a vehicle for bringing up the difficulty that the entire family had in resolving the riddle of how to remain close to one another while leading independent lives.

In response, however, the brother let go another accusation - one that the patient had often used on himself to discourage himself from trying to return to the family fold. The fatalistic belief that underlay this particular accusation was at the core of the family problem. (More on fatalism in a future post in this series).

"Look," protested the brother, "forget it. You're just going to stir up trouble. The people in the family are not going to change. Dad's been drinking for years, and he isn't going to stop. You're not going to save anyone."

The accusation that he was trying to be the family savior and that this was a major cause of trouble was particularly effective on M.  He had attended a self-help group for years, and the avoidance of the rescuer role was one of the hallmarks of their message. Indeed, the fatalism of the family made that organization and its message seem reasonable to the patient.

M reminded himself that he was not responsible, ultimately, for making the family change, but he could change the way that they related to him.  M empathized with the brother's feelings that the family members were fundamentally and irreparably damaged. He had, after all, felt that way himself many times. He could truthfully say, "I used to think that way, too." After expressing this empathy, he was in a position to question the validity of this assertion and to discuss the historical and cultural reasons that led to the family's fatalistic belief system.
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Now let us take the situation in which O shifts the blame off of him- or herself and attributes the problem entirely to the behavior of a third family member.  M may also be annoyed at the third party, so itis very easy for both parties to stop talking about their problems with one another, and non-productively start in on the other guy.

Alternatively, the metacommunicator may feel the urge to defend the other guy. Even when certain family members may be furious at, say, Dad themselves, they will often defend him if anyone else attacks him. That's just the way people are - very protective of their kin group.

In this case, the counter-strategy involves validating O's point of view about the third party without necessarily agreeing with it, and avoiding going off on a non-productive tangent.  M can say something to the effect that, "Everybody in the family seems to get embroiled in this problem to some extent.  I plan to talk to [third party] as well.  But let's talk about how this plays out between the two of us.  I really would like for us to get along better."

How to Disarm a Borderline: Part IV: The Kernel of Truth

Before reading this post, particularly if you are going to try this at home with a real adult family member with borderline personality disorder (BPD) (which is not recommended without the help of a therapist), please read my previous posts Part I (October 6), Part II (October 29) and Part III (November 24).  In this post, I will begin to run down specific countermeasures to the usual strategies in the BPD bag of tricks used to distance and/or invalidate you, as well as to make you feel anxiously helpless, anxiously guilty, or hostile.

When people with BPD try to distance you (again refer to my Distancing: Early Warning post of July 6), you can use the momentum generated by their attempt to push you away to actually move closer to them in the emotional sense. The idea is a bit like the philosophy of Judo, in which the momentum of an attack on you is converted into something used against the other person - with one exciting exception (apologies to C&R Clothiers for my boomer fans in LA) . In dealing with BPD, the goal is for both sides to win.

Tone of voice is crucial.  You can use the same, and exactly the right, words and sound as if you are indeed feeling helpless, guilty or hostile, or you can sound like you are at peace with yourself and with your own limitations.  Since this post is not an mp3 you can listen to, I will do my best to describe how you should sound. 

You should make any of the counter-statements described below sound completely matter-of-fact.  You should sound warm but not condescending, and like you are taking the opinion of the person with BPD seriously even if you do not agree with it. 

#1:  Wild accusations and exaggerated overgenereralizations.  When those with BPD make overly dramatic, hyperbolic statements or accuses you of having ulterior motives for what you are doing or saying, they are literally inviting you to invalidate them (See my post Validating Invalidation from September 23). 

What is going on here is that, since people with BPD have usually been invalidated on a recurring basis by their family of origin, they respond by making it easy for those people to continue to invalidate them.  And they will often practice this skill on lovers and mental health professionals, or even on innocent bystanders when those bystanders try to be helpful. 

I know it is hard to believe that they have an altruistic motive for behaving the way they do.  They will not usually admit to it, and if they do it will be in a disguised and very subtle manner so you will likely misunderstand what they are saying.  I explain the biological reasons why we are all willing to sacrifice ourselves to our kin group in my books, How Dysfunctional Families Spur Mental Disorders, written for the lay public, and A Family Systems Approach to Individual Psychotherapy, written for therapists.  Most people in the mental health field do not agree with this idea.

In countering this ploy, the idea is to resist the invitation to invalidate them without agreeing to all the exaggerated histrionics or without agreeing that you are some kind of schmuck.  Remember, disagreement and invalidation are not the same thing.  The key:  no matter how awful or crazy-sounding what they say is, there is always a kernel of truth in it.  Always, no matter how small.

The countermeasure, taught to me by the best professor in my residency program, Rodney Burgoyne, is therefore to validate the kernel of truth in the statement and simply ignore all the exaggeration and the negative implications.

Let's start with hyperbole or exaggeration.  My favorite statement of this sort of all time is "Life is a sh*t sandwich, and you have to either eat it or die!"

Eeewwww!  The temptation here to reassure the person who says this that things can not possibly be that bad.  Wrong move.  The counterstatement should be something like, "It sure sounds like you've been having a pretty bad time of it."  Trust me, anyone with BPD is frequently quite miserable for very valid reasons.

Or how about, "Why bother going to a therapist?  They're only in it for the money!"  I used to hear that as an accusation as in, "You don't care about me, you're only in it for the money!"  I could get all defensive sounding and say, "Well you know this is how I make my living!" or I can say very matter-of-factly, "Well, after all this is how I make my living." 

I always thought it was better for the patient to have a highly paid professional therapist rather than an amateur.  The amateur would be too busy out making a living to have much time to devote to the patient's therapy and learning how to be a good therapist.  You get the idea, though.  If you want the patient to get help, you say much the same thing in the third person.

"You don't really care about me" is a favorite accusation of people with BPD that is very hard to validate.  After all, how can you really prove that you care about someone?  You could argue til the cows come home and you still could not prove it.  In truth, there is literally no way to prove it. 

So why bother? Besides, at those times during which they are giving you a really hard time, in actuality you don't care, or wish you did not.   I usually reply, "I wish there was something I could say that would convince you that I do care."

Another type of accusation is more indirect and has trap within it.  Someone in LA, for example, might say, "Anyone who is willing to put up with this horrible smog and traffic is a moron."  Assuming that you happen to live there, this statement in effect classifies you as a moron.  If you agree with it, you are saying that you are one.  Of course, if the person with BPD also lives in LA, he or she is also admitting to being an idiot, so if you agree, you are insulting him or her as well.  So what's the kernel of truth? 

Are smog and traffic bad things?  If you answer no to this question, I would have to question either your sanity or your sincerity.  The counterstatement: "Yeah, aren't those things a bitch!"

Coming up in the next post in this series: #2, countering escalating demands on you to do more and more.