DESCRIPTION: The difficult child, the black sheep: Why families agree on a scapegoat, what this consensus conceals, and why a child’s disorder does not explain the role they are assigned. With Vogel and Bell, Richter, Ogden and Stierlin.

The family’s scapegoat: what unity against a child conceals

A family may agree on who their problem is, and precisely because of this, fail to recognise what the problem actually is. A child’s behavioural issues do not in themselves explain the role their family assigns to them. The concept of the family scapegoat describes what this consensus fails to acknowledge.

The black sheep and the problem child

The difficult child, the black sheep of the family, the problem child, the person who is always causing trouble: such labels seem to describe a character. At the same time, they define a relationship. They determine where the family may look for its conflicts, and where it need not look.

In 1960, in the *Psychoanalytic Review*, Ezra Vogel and Norman Bell examined the emotionally disturbed child as the family’s scapegoat. The title itself links two things: the child’s disturbance and the function that this disturbance fulfils in family life.

Consensus on the culprit

This role emerges when different difficulties are consistently attributed to the same cause: ‘This child is the problem.’

In such a dynamic, tension between the adults can be channelled towards a shared object. What cannot be resolved between them appears as a difficulty with the child. Family therapy describes this shift as triangulation (a concept developed by Bowen): A couple directs their tension towards a third family member because the couple’s relationship alone is too unstable (as illustrated by Poljak Lukek et al. 2023). Systemic family therapy refers to the child in this situation as the ‘symptom-bearer’: they display the symptom that belongs to the entire family system.

The benefit does not lie in harmony. A family can remain loud, divided and unhappy, yet stabilise in one respect: everyone knows who needs to change. Agreement on who is to blame spares the family from having to argue about what the problem actually is. A child can thus become the focal point of conflicts that the family is unable to acknowledge as shared.

When defence mechanisms require a relationship

In *Patient Family* (1970), Horst-Eberhard Richter describes how people defend against inner conflicts by assigning roles to others. The child can serve as a substitute for a partner, as a parent’s ideal self, or as their negative self. In this latter role, the child can become a stand-in for what a parent cannot or will not acknowledge in themselves: weakness, neediness, aggression, shameful failure.

The cruelty lies in the fact that it feels like the truth to those involved. Anyone who constantly sees the child as ruthless does not need to explain their own hostility. It appears to be an appropriate response. Yet the child may well act ruthlessly too. What is decisive is the unequal distribution of freedom of interpretation: the child’s behaviour confirms their character, whilst the adults’ behaviour is explained by the circumstances. No one needs to agree on this order of things. It is enough that everyone adheres to the same explanation.

How an attribution becomes a self-image

Projection alone does not explain how an attribution becomes a permanent role. Thomas Ogden elaborated on the concept of projective identification in his 1979 work *On Projective Identification*. This involves the unconscious fantasy of placing an unbearable aspect of the self within the other, and an actual pressure within the relationship under which the other begins to feel and behave in accordance with that aspect.

Applied to the child, this means that the attribution does not remain external to them. Repeated expectations and reactions contribute to their sense of self. They must respond to a position that others have established for them. This gives rise to an effective confusion of cause and effect. What has developed under the pressure of a relationship is subsequently regarded as proof that the relationship was justified from the outset. The theory thus explains a possible process. It does not follow from this that this is how things would play out in every family with a scapegoat.

Why a child clings to the role

The question of why a child maintains a position that causes them suffering presupposes a free choice that does not exist. In *Delegation and Family* (1978), Helm Stierlin described how family mandates are linked to loyalty. A mandate exerts its influence through the relationship with those from whom it originates.

Not every delegation amounts to playing the scapegoat. However, the term explains why even a demeaning position can involve a sense of connection. Anyone who adopts their parents’ explanation retains the belief that their parents are essentially right and that the relationship would change if their own failings were to cease. In this interpretation, self-blame can be more than a lack of insight. It can be an attempt to maintain a relationship internally. This bond continues into adulthood, even if there is hardly any contact left. This does not imply that the child bears any shared responsibility for their vulnerability. Dependence and responsibility operate on different levels.

What recurs across generations

The question of parental defence mechanisms does not end with the parents. They, too, have learnt which feelings are permitted in relationships and which are not. A theoretical study by Poljak Lukek, Pate and Gostečnik (2023) links the assignment of the scapegoat role to triangulation, projective identification and impaired affect regulation under excessive strain. It does not collect its own data and does not establish a single cause.

From a psychoanalytic perspective, the process can be interpreted as a failure of emotional processing. An emotion cannot be accepted as a separate, contradictory yet bearable state and is therefore relegated to a place outside the self. A way of dealing with inner tension is then passed on: what is shameful is met with shame, dependence is met with contempt, and fear is met with control. The parents’ own psychological damage explains why a defence mechanism may have developed. It does not determine what a child can reasonably be expected to endure.

The child may indeed be unwell

Criticism of this attribution must not turn into the assertion that the child is, in truth, always healthy. Vogel and Bell already brought both together in the title: emotional disturbance and family function. Suffering and role lie on different levels. A family can turn existing difficulties into proof of its entire narrative, and the fixation on a devalued position can, in turn, cause or exacerbate suffering.

The statements ‘It’s all down to the child’ and ‘It’s all down to the family’ both fall short. The first isolates the child from their relationships; the second dissolves them into those relationships. The analysis of defence mechanisms must account for both: the child has their own psychological reality, and the family may use this reality to relieve their own burden.

Relief through clear labels

A particular approach found in many self-help guides is open to criticism. It transforms a relational constellation into fixed characters: here, the unchanging toxic perpetrator; there, the self entirely defined by its role as victim. The criticism is directed at the practice of turning ‘toxic’, ‘narcissistic’ and ‘scapegoat’ into identities. What happens between people is then replaced by a judgement about who they are. The text on ‘therapy-speak’ illustrates how the word ‘toxic’ functions in everyday life.

It remains necessary to name injustice. However, this does not explain how this injustice is psychologically organised. Simply identifying who has been harmed does not mean that their desires, attachments and conflicts are understood. Those who harm others are not defined by a reprehensible character. A child’s unconscious involvement does not negate the power imbalance within the family. Otherwise, the analysis of defence mechanisms would serve to exonerate the more powerful.

A break in contact and psychological change address different questions. The break determines whether a relationship continues. It does not determine how that relationship persists in one’s own experience. This does not imply a mandate for reconciliation or an obligation to remain accessible. Texts can be found on both sides regarding breaks in contact amongst Gen Z and regarding ageing narcissistic parents.

What happens when the scapegoat leaves the family

The idea that the family must fall apart after the scapegoat has left is tempting. It promises retrospective proof: now the others realise who has borne the brunt of their conflicts. The assumption of a stabilising role does not imply a predetermined course of events. A family can continue to function even without the accused child, develop other forms of conflict, or change. The loss of the original recipient does not bring the role assignment to an end.

The theory of the family scapegoat should therefore not become the next narrative in which one person once again holds everything together, this time as a misunderstood saviour. Its strength lies elsewhere: it disrupts the taken-for-granted nature of the family narrative. The statement ‘There is something wrong with this child’ gives way to the question of the relationship in which the child is repeatedly needed. The child is then a person in their own right, whose suffering must no longer be used to relieve the others of the need to confront themselves.

The most important points in brief

·        A child’s disorder does not in itself explain the role that their family assigns to them.

·        Consensus on who is to blame spares people from having to grapple with what the problem actually is.

·        Richter describes the roles that parents assign to children, including the negative self. Ogden’s concept of projective identification explains how an attribution becomes a self-concept.

·        Stierlin’s concept of delegation shows why even a devaluing role can involve attachment.

·        The child may indeed be unwell. Suffering and role exist on different levels.

·        A child’s unconscious involvement does not negate the power imbalance. The child’s departure does not automatically bring the role assignment to an end.

Sources

·        Vogel, E. F. & Bell, N. W. (1960): The Emotionally Disturbed Child as a Family Scapegoat. Psychoanalytic Review, 47, 21–42. Title and research question only; full text not checked.

·        Richter, H.-E. (1970): The Family as Patient. The Origin, Structure and Treatment of Conflicts in Marriage and the Family. Reinbek: Rowohlt. Excerpt: psychosozial-verlag.de

·        Ogden, T. H. (1979): On Projective Identification. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 60, 357–373.

·        Stierlin, H. (1978): Delegation and the Family. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

·        Poljak Lukek, S., Pate, T. & Gostečnik, C. (2023): Physical Violence and Scapegoating Within the Family: An Exploration of Biblical Texts and Contemporary Psychology. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Related

• Narcissistic Parents in Old Age: Care, Cutting Off Contact and the Imperative of Reconciliation

• Toxic terms in everyday life: therapy-speak & pop psychology relationships

• Emotional incest and enmeshment: When parents turn children into partners

• No Contact: Why Gen Z is cutting ties with friends and parents

• Echoism and the Echoist: Understanding Narcissism and Toxic Relationships