• Leave the 'Blame Game' on the Shelf
• Time to Get Your Tape Player Fixed?
• The Guilt Trap
• Life Doesn't Have to Be a Chain of 'Grudge Matches'
• 'Scapegoating' Isn't Kid Stuff
• Feel Cornered?
• Turning Criticisms Inside Out

Beyond the Blame Barrier: How To Pass Up the Past

Blame can take many forms, such as: "It's your fault!" or "Why didn't you do this?" Blame can be a one-way projection, or a back-and-forth argument, or a form of personal guilt.

But there are two things all types of blame have in common: One is that blame blocks effective communication, and the other is that there is an unspoken message that goes along with it. That message is: "I am a helpless victim of what is happening. I have no power and no responsibility to help change the situation."

Here are four ways that some families have found helpful in moving past the blame barrier:

1. Take a "time out." Stay cool. Anger is a natural defensive reaction, but it will not help build positive communication. To get more information about anger, check out "Being an Anger-Tamer."

2. Try to think of a creative response, such as: "What if we tried something like...." Try to analyze the situation as objectively as possible, by stepping aside and thinking about how you might advise another person to respond to it.

3. Conditionally accept part or all of the responsibility for a situation: "Maybe it is my fault, but let's talk about what we can do about it." Or: "OK, so what can we do to avoid this next time?" Be flexible and understanding-perhaps the other person feels somewhat at fault, too.

4. Suggest a sharing or division of responsibility. "Maybe if, from now on, I take care of this, and you could take care of that." For more information check out "The Power of Being Nice."


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Leave the 'Blame Game' on the Shelf

Nothing stops a good (or even a bad) conversation like a dose of blame: "Why do you ALWAYS do that?" is a double whammy-containing both the accusatory "Why?" and the exaggerated and unfair "always." Yet the "Blame Game" rivals Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly as a leading American pastime.

Family counselors report that new clients will nearly always start the sessions by recounting all the things that others in the family have done. "I tell them this is family therapy, not a history class," Clinical Psychologist John Marquis of Palo Alto says.

"There is no way anyone can change past behavior. They can only change their behavior in the future."

Dr. Marquis has borrowed a term from the law courts: stipulation- when both parties agree to a set of facts or conditions. "I have them make a stipulation that both have done terrible things-but those things belong in the history department!"

One real problem with blame is that it dredges up past injustices, and in doing so, rekindles the original anger. Then the anger gets in the way of addressing the important issues involved in the relationship or family situation.

Another crippling consequence of blame is that the person who is doing the active blaming (whether verbally or not) is putting himself or herself in the role of helpless victim.

This "victim scenario" leaves a person feeling weak and unable to influence the other individual(s) or the overall situation. That feeling leads directly to a sense of vulnerability-as if everything is happening TO you and you have no power to make anything happen.

Young children feel this when they spill something, like dropping an egg on the floor, or breaking a dish or a vase - as if things just happened to them that they had no control over, and thus they would not be held accountable.

What's the first defense for this vulnerability? "The cat did it!" (If life were a chess game, the "Blame Defense" would be popular strategy.)

Blame - having brought things effectively to a halt in terms of communication - also means that you don't have to face any fresh choices (or risks) in your relationships: The rules are already rigidly set.


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Time to Get Your Tape Player Fixed?

One reason blaming others is such a popular form of family entertainment, is that the habit is often treated as a family heirloom - passed down from generation to generation.

Parental messages somehow keep playing in our heads and reinforce feelings, in a process that has been called "tapes." Just as with a Walkman, we carry them with us and they play ONLY to us (until we replay them to someone else, such as OUR kids).

This particular form of intergenerational "self-talk" influences a great deal how we relate to ourselves and others. (See "Being an Anger Tamer.") Sometimes we can identify and verbalize the taped messages; sometimes they play softly (but deeply) and we are not consciously aware of them.

Tapes can include everything from harmless homilies ("Don't cry over spilt milk" - a good anti-blame motto) to positive messages ("You're a good kid; I love you") and destructive, name-calling insults ("You're stupid, lazy and incompetent").

In extreme cases, tapes become quite loud: One woman, aged 65, reported hearing a distinct voice forbidding her to have a piece of candy at an office birthday party - very upsetting! Only later during a therapy session did she realize it was her mother's voice.

These sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant messages often find new ways of playing themselves. When you think you've got a negative one singled out and modified or erased, you may later discover it playing in a different way.

A fascinating topic for family conversation can be discussing these "tape messages," according to families that have tried it. Write them down. Young persons are almost always interested in childhood experiences of their parents, and parents are invariably intrigued by what is going on in their children's heads.

Sharing tape collections can be a positive, not-so-threatening way of taking a collective look at what's behind some of your family's interactions.


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The Guilt Trap

Guilt is a form of internalized blame that can paralyze personal relationships as well as any kind of external blame. When you are blaming yourself, you are indulging in a heavy dose of negative "self-talk" (inner messages) and making it harder to see new possibilities for living your life.


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Life Doesn't Have to Be a Chain of 'Grudge Matches'

"But what if it really IS his (or her) fault?" Well, so what? Does it help anything to insist on pointing that out or rubbing it in?

Even if 100% blame could be assigned, and nothing you did contributed even a little bit to the overall situation, experience has demonstrated that the more time you spend on assigning blame the less time (and inclination) there is to work on constructive things.

But what happens when you really are angry or hurt about something another person did, or another person's pattern of behavior? Things sometimes seem to just build up, and the background of angry feelings can evolve into a grudge - a kind of extenuated, continuing blame.

We know that acting nicer toward others will help the relationship-but what if we don't FEEL like being nice? A grudge also can eat at you, and can make you feel bad about yourself, about others, or the world in general. It's well worth trying to unload.

"We need time to get over a grudge after someone has wronged us seriously," says psychotherapist JoAnn Magdoff of Long Island University.* "The trick is to distinguish between appropriate and disproportionate amounts of anger and anguish. If a grudge persists, makes you feel unlovable, stops you from acting positively, causes you to behave in self-destructive ways, examine how you may be helping to keep the grudge alive. The key thing to understand about a grudge is that you're HOLDING ON to something."

The idea is that if you can realize what you are doing to perpetuate the feelings, you can assume responsibility for them and begin to let go - making way for new patterns for the future.

* Learning to Forgive. Vogue, February. 1983.


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'Scapegoating' Isn't Kid Stuff

When the oldest daughter reached 13, everything seemed to go wrong. Her grades dropped; tension built up in the family; she felt her parents were "doing these things to me"; the parents felt she was doing these things to them.

It was only years later that they realized that they had been caught in a "scapegoating" trap - in which all of the problems of the family are focused on one member, who accepts the load and plays out that negative role. The real problems end up not being dealt with.

There are many varieties of scapegoating:

• Sometimes it's a parent who gets nailed - a father who is too busy to spend time with the family; a mother who is wrapped up in her own concerns.
• Sometimes two children will scapegoat a third - assigning him or her the "troublemaker" role.
• Sometimes parents who are experiencing tension in their relationship will assign it to a "troublesome" child - whose behavior may in fact be
  reflecting the adult tension and uncertainty.
  
• Sometimes a child just gets into personal trouble, and is then assigned all the bad things in the family.

Tragically, the scapegoat often internalizes the assigned blame - which can manifest itself as guilt, anxiety, a sense of worthlessness and inadequacy, self-hate, and personally and socially destructive ways of scapegoating also create an environment in which no one in the family seems able to do anything about it - almost a "learned helplessness." Just as with one-on-one blame, families need to move past collective blaming if they are to address real issues constructively.

They need to start by just being nicer to each other, focusing on positive requests for change, sharing responsibility, and concentrating on doing the good things families can do - not by dwelling on who's at fault for what, or even who's playing the blame games.
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Feel Cornered?

If you feel cornered in a no-win "blame/guilt" trap, get confidential (even anonymous) help and advice:

• Teenline 327-TEEN


• Parental Stress Hotline 327-3333

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Turning Criticisms Inside Out

Blame is a form of criticism - a particularly heavy form. There are other forms that can be constructive and creative, and lead to positive changes. How you receive criticisms makes a tremendous difference in your ability to respond to them without getting angry or defensive. It really helps to be able to "turn criticisms inside out," as follows:

1. Stay calm and non-defensive. When you are being criticized, think to yourself, "I can handle this with no trouble."

2. If it is a "non-verbal" criticism (a dirty look, a tone of voice, a sigh) get the person to verbalize it with something like:

"I get the feeling you didn't like something I just said," or

"Is there something you'd like to say about what I did?" (Be straight in your comments and reactions-don't load them up with unspoken messages of your own.)

3. If the criticism is general ("You have a lousy attitude.") get the person to make it specific ("What did I say that....").

4. Move from the criticism to the future: "How could I do this better in the future?" or "What could I do to make you feel my attitude has changed?" Ask for specific-action requests.

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FAMILY LifeSkills
(copyright 1988-1997 Palo Alto Medical Foundation)
Family Lifeskills is a program to strengthen and enrich family interactions -- with the purpose of making each person and the family as a whole as strong as possible. It was developed jointly by the Palo Alto Medical Foundation for Health Care, Research and Education and Palo Alto High School.

Next: 3. The Power of Being Nice
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