Key Points
Projective identification is the psychological mechanism that leads families to blame others.
Narcissistic parents project their internal psychological division, the separate good and bad parts, onto their children.
The narcissistic parent sees the negative parts of the self that they deny in their blamed child.
Through projective identification, they induce their blamed child to devalue behaviors and beliefs that support their projections.
Blaming others is a common but not widely recognized reality in family systems dominated by narcissistic parents. The blamed child is subjected to negative projections from one or both parents, often in a lifelong pattern of destructive character assassination.
Projection
Projecting aspects of ourselves that we are uncomfortable with, such as aggression or jealousy, is a defense that we all engage in occasionally, especially in childhood and adolescence. For the narcissistic personality, who suffers from a fundamental lack of ego integration in early childhood, projection is a persistent compulsion in which repressed and divided parts of the divided self (all “good” or all “bad”) are attributed to others.
Projective Identification Process
In a narcissistic family, projection may be taken to an extreme, where narcissistic parents not only identify a child with parts of themselves but also pressure that child to behave in ways that reflect this projected identity. Through projective identification, parents interpret and induce behavior in the child to identify with their projections.
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As 20th-century psychologist Melanie Klein explained, “When these parts are excessively projected onto another person, they can only be controlled by controlling the other person.” Thus, the scapegoated child may be teased and criticized, blamed for problems, deprived of resources, burdened with unusual responsibilities, and harshly compared (implicitly or explicitly) to a favored child who embodies the narcissistic parent’s projected illusion of superiority and entitlement.
Scapegoat and Golden Child
As an extension of parental grandiosity, the elevated “golden child” carries their idealized (all good) expectations and the flip side of the demeaning (all bad) expectations carried by the scapegoat. To stay connected with the parents and reduce stress and conflict, both the scapegoat and the ideal child often feel an unconscious compulsion to conform to their parent’s expectations despite how inauthentic the projected identities are to them. The ideal child, who is treated with exaggerated appreciation through undeserved praise and privilege, often suffers from an underlying sense of empty fraud, while the scapegoat carries internalized shame and self-loathing.
Smear Campaign
Adding to the complexity of the situation for the scapegoat child, the parents often also encourage other members of the family and the family’s social circle to accept their narratives about that child, which amounts to an ongoing smear campaign. Other children in the family, especially the younger ones, may unquestioningly accept the role of the child who is being blamed and resented. Those who are aware of the injustice that the scapegoat imposes on their parents often fear being targeted. Depending on their level of mental health and awareness, extended family members and friends may have some insight into the scapegoat and reach out to this child in supportive ways, but more often than not, they accept the parent’s narratives about their “problem child” and may even engage in further pathologization and ostracization of this child.
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How the Scapegoat Is Selected
What factors influence why a particular child is specifically targeted for negative projection? The answer may be as simple as gender or birth order, but personality can play a significant role. It is often the most aware and emotionally integrated child who is aware of the family dysfunction and is therefore seen as a threat by the disturbed parent. For this child, the mere act of seeing and knowing is a burden in the imaginary world of the home. This child is often the most empathetic member of the family and may respond to the parent’s emotional instability and negative projections with compensatory caregiving, self-abandonment, and endless efforts to prove their worth and love. As a result, it is common for children to be severely exploited by needy, selfish parents, who crave their sympathy and devalue their empathic gifts.
Long-Term Effects of Self-Sacrifice by the Family
As disrespected and oppressed members of hierarchical, narcissistic family systems, children who are self-sacrificed suffer from traumatized nervous systems, lack of self-esteem, and eroded personal boundaries that make them vulnerable to health problems and other abusive dynamics in their adult relationships. They often enter adulthood with anxiety, anger, depression, and other symptoms of complex trauma, with a vague sense of the roots of their suffering.
The Road to Recovery
To stabilize and work through the debilitating scapegoat identity, adult children must reject the negative projections imposed on them by their narcissistic families of origin. This process can take a long time, as denial in self-sacrificed children can last for decades, if not a lifetime. For the scapegoat, acknowledging family bullying often follows countless failed attempts to fix a problem that no one else will acknowledge. The adult scapegoat may be brought to consciousness by a severe health crisis such as a worsening addiction, autoimmune disease, adrenal or thyroid failure, spinal damage, cancer, or organ or heart failure. Or the adult scapegoat may be brought to consciousness by domestic bullying of a spouse or children.
