Playing the victim

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Playing the victim (also known as victim playing, victim card, or self-victimization) is the fabrication or exaggeration of victimhood for a variety of reasons such as to justify abuse to others, to manipulate others, a coping strategy, attention seeking or diffusion of responsibility. A person who repeatedly does this is known as a professional victim.

Contents

For abuse

Victim playing by abusers is either: [1] [2]

It is common for abusers to engage in victim playing. This serves two purposes:

For manipulation

Manipulators often play the victim role ("woe is me") by portraying themselves as victims of circumstances or someone else's behavior in order to gain pity or sympathy or to evoke compassion and thereby get something from someone. Caring and conscientious people cannot stand to see anyone suffering, and the manipulator often finds it easy and rewarding to play on sympathy to get cooperation. [3]

While portraying oneself as a victim can be highly successful in obtaining goals over the short-term, this method tends to be less successful over time:

Victims' talent for high drama draws people to them like moths to a flame. Their permanent dire state brings out the altruistic motives in others. It is difficult to ignore constant cries for help. In most instances, however, the help given is of short duration. And like moths in a flame, helpers quickly get burned; nothing seems to work to alleviate the victims' miserable situation; there is no movement for the better. Any efforts rescuers make are ignored, belittled, or met with hostility. No wonder that the rescuers become increasingly frustrated – and walk away. [4]

In political context

While failing to produce any affirmative values, the fetishistic lack of future is masked up by an excess of confirmation of its own status of victimhood, as noted by the Bosnian political theoretician Jasmin Hasanović, seeing it in the post-Yugoslav context as a form of auto-colonialism, where reproducing the narrative of victimhood corresponds with the balkanization stereotypes, being the very narrative of the colonizer where the permanence of war is the contemporaneity of fear, affirming the theses on eternal hatred thus strengthening ethnonationalism even more. [5]

In media

Selective portrayal of different groups or individuals as victims is used by the media to appeal to the sympathy of and mobilize both the political left and right. [6] Groups or individuals are often selected on the basis of class, race, ethnicity, gender, age and/or sexuality. [7]

Other goals

Victim playing is also:

In corporate life

The language of "victim playing" has entered modern corporate life, as a potential weapon of all professionals. [8] To define victim-players as dishonest may be an empowering response; [9] as too may be awareness of how childhood boundary issues can underlie the tactic. [10]

In the hustle of office politics, the term may however be abused so as to penalize the legitimate victim of injustice, as well as the role-player.[ citation needed ]

Underlying psychology

Transactional analysis distinguishes real victims from those who adopt the role in bad faith, ignoring their own capacities to improve their situation. [11] Among the predictable interpersonal "games" psychiatrist Eric Berne identified as common among by victim-players are "Look How Hard I've Tried" and "Wooden Leg". [12]

R. D. Laing considered that "it will be difficult in practice to determine whether or to what extent a relationship is collusive" – when "the one person is predominantly the passive 'victim'", [13] and when they are merely playing the victim. The problem is intensified once a pattern of victimization has been internalised, perhaps in the form of a double bind. [14]

Object relations theory has explored the way possession by a false self can create a permanent sense of victimisation [15] – a sense of always being in the hands of an external fate. [16]

To break the hold of the negative complex, and to escape the passivity of victimhood, requires taking responsibility for one's own desires and long-term actions. [17]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victimology</span> Study of victimization

Victimology is the study of victimization, including the psychological effects on victims, the relationship between victims and offenders, the interactions between victims and the criminal justice system—that is, the police and courts, and corrections officials—and the connections between victims and other social groups and institutions, such as the media, businesses, and social movements.

Factitious disorder imposed on self, also known as Munchausen syndrome, is a factitious disorder in which those affected feign or induce disease, illness, injury, abuse, or psychological trauma to draw attention, sympathy, or reassurance to themselves. Munchausen syndrome fits within the subclass of factitious disorder with predominantly physical signs and symptoms, but patients also have a history of recurrent hospitalization, travelling, and dramatic, extremely improbable tales of their past experiences. The term Munchausen syndrome derives its name from the fictional character Baron Munchausen.

Transactional analysis is a psychoanalytic theory and method of therapy wherein social interactions are analyzed to determine the ego state of the communicator as a basis for understanding behavior. In transactional analysis, the communicator is taught to alter the ego state as a way to solve emotional problems. The method deviates from Freudian psychoanalysis, which focuses on increasing awareness of the contents of subconsciously held ideas. Eric Berne developed the concept and paradigm of transactional analysis in the late 1950s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Berne</span> Canadian psychiatrist (1910–1970)

Eric Berne was a Canadian-born psychiatrist who created the theory of transactional analysis as a way of explaining human behavior.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karpman drama triangle</span> Model of human interaction proposed in 1968

The Karpman drama triangle is a social model of human interaction proposed by San Francisco psychiatrist Stephen B. Karpman in 1968. The triangle maps a type of destructive interaction that can occur among people in conflict. The drama triangle model is a tool used in psychotherapy, specifically transactional analysis. The triangle of actors in the drama are persecutors, victims, and rescuers.

Abuse is the improper usage or treatment of a thing, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, assault, violation, rape, unjust practices, crimes, or other types of aggression. To these descriptions, one can also add the Kantian notion of the wrongness of using another human being as means to an end rather than as ends in themselves. Some sources describe abuse as "socially constructed", which means there may be more or less recognition of the suffering of a victim at different times and societies.

Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially at fault for the harm that befell them. There is historical and current prejudice against the victims of domestic violence and sex crimes, such as the greater tendency to blame victims of rape than victims of robbery if victims and perpetrators knew each other prior to the commission of the crime.

Claude Michel Steiner was a French-born American psychotherapist and writer who wrote extensively about transactional analysis (TA). His writings focused especially on life scripts, alcoholism, emotional literacy, and interpersonal power plays.

Victim feminism is a term that has been used by some conservative postfeminist writers such as Katie Roiphe and Naomi Wolf to critique forms of feminist activism which they see as reinforcing the idea that women are weak or lacking in agency.

The Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, known simply as the SANU Memorandum, was a draft document produced by a 16-member committee of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) from 1985 to 1986.

Mind games are actions performed for reasons of psychological one-upmanship, often employing passive–aggressive behavior to specifically demoralize or dis-empower the thinking subject, making the aggressor look superior. It also describes the unconscious games played by people engaged in ulterior transactions of which they are not fully aware, and which transactional analysis considers to form a central element of social life all over the world.

Domestic violence occurs across the world, in various cultures, and affects people across society, at all levels of economic status; however, indicators of lower socioeconomic status have been shown to be risk factors for higher levels of domestic violence in several studies. In the United States, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 1995, women reported a six times greater rate of intimate partner violence than men. However, studies have found that men are much less likely to report victimization in these situations.

Victimisation is the state or process of being victimised or becoming a victim. The field that studies the process, rates, incidence, effects, and prevalence of victimisation is called victimology.

In psychology, manipulation is defined as subterfuge designed to influence or control another, usually in a manner which facilitates one's personal aims. The methods used distort or orient the interlocutor's perception of reality, in particular through seduction, suggestion, persuasion and non-voluntary or consensual submission. Definitions for the term vary in which behavior is specifically included, influenced by both culture and whether referring to the general population or used in clinical contexts. Manipulation is generally considered a dishonest form of social influence as it is used at the expense of others.

A narcissistic parent is a parent affected by narcissism or narcissistic personality disorder. Typically, narcissistic parents are exclusively and possessively close to their children and are threatened by their children's growing independence. This results in a pattern of narcissistic attachment, with the parent considering that the child exists solely to fulfill the parent's needs and wishes. A narcissistic parent will often try to control their children with threats and emotional abuse. Narcissistic parenting adversely affects the psychological development of children, affecting their reasoning and their emotional, ethical, and societal behaviors and attitudes. Personal boundaries are often disregarded with the goal of molding and manipulating the child to satisfy the parent's expectations.

Script analysis is the method of uncovering the "early decisions, made unconsciously, as to how life shall be lived". It is one of the five clusters in transactional analysis, involving "a progression from structural analysis, through transactional and game analysis, to script analysis". Eric Berne, the father of transactional analysis, focused on individual and group psychotherapy but today, transactional analysis and script analysis is considered in organisational settings, educational settings and coaching settings.

Role suction is a term introduced in the United States by Fritz Redl in the mid-20th century to describe the power of a social group to allocate roles to its members.

Victim mentality is a psychological concept referring to a mindset in which a person, or group of people, tends to recognize or consider themselves a victim of the negative actions of others. In some cases, those with a victim mentality have in fact been the victim of wrongdoing by others or have otherwise suffered misfortune through no fault of their own. However, such misfortune does not necessarily imply that one will respond by developing a pervasive and universal victim mentality where one frequently perceives oneself to be a victim. The term is also used in reference to the tendency for blaming one's misfortunes on somebody else's misdeeds, which is also referred to as victimism.

The feminist pathways perspective is a feminist perspective of criminology which suggests victimization throughout the life course is a key risk factor for women's entry into offending.

Jackie Wang is an American poet and scholar of the political economy of prisons and surveillance. In 2021 she was a National Book Award finalist in poetry for her book The Sunflower Cast A Spell To Save Us From The Void.

References

  1. ↑ Bailey-Rug C (2015) Life After Narcissistic Abuse
  2. ↑ Bailey-Rug C (2016) It's Not You, It's Them: When People Are More Than Selfish
  3. ↑ Simon, George K (1996). In Sheep's Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People. A.J. Christopher. ISBN   978-0-9651696-0-8.
  4. ↑ Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries (2014). Are you a victim of the victim syndrome? Organizational Dynamics 43, pp 130-137 https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2014.03.007
  5. ↑ Hasanović J. (2021). Mirroring Europeanization: Balkanization and Auto-Colonial Narrative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Berlin: De Gruyter, pp 93 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110684216-004
  6. ↑ Sally R. Munt (2016): Argumentum ad misericordiam: the cultural politics of victim media, Feminist Media Studies, DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2016.1259176
  7. ↑ https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/326247912.pdf
  8. ↑ Susan A. DePhillips, Corporate Confidential (2005) p. 65
  9. ↑ Anthony C. Mersino, Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers (2007) p. 60 and p. 43
  10. ↑ Mersino, p. 104
  11. ↑ Petruska Clarkson, Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy (London 1997) p. 217
  12. ↑ Eric Berne, Games People Play (Penguin 1964) p. 92 and p. 141-2
  13. ↑ R. D. Laing, Self and Others (Penguin 1969) p. 108
  14. ↑ Laing, p. 145
  15. ↑ Neville Symington, Narcissism: A New Theory (London 1993) p. 116
  16. ↑ Michael Parsons, The Dove that Returns, the Dove that Vanishes (London 2000) p. 34
  17. ↑ Polly Young-Eisendrath, Women and Desire (London 2000) p. 201 and p. 30
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