Is Blame the Name of Your Game?
Recognize the behavior and communication style of “The Blamer”
What is the world’s oldest game? According to The Guinness Book of World Records, the game is “blame”; our human instinct to pass responsibility off to someone else. The behavior is formed in childhood. By early adolescence, there is an unspoken expectation for youth to take personal responsibility for their actions. Some excel. For others, this skill is not inherent.
Take Reg. His best friend Gary had a massive heart attack when the men were in their mid-forties. On the day of the tragedy, Reg and his wife Helen jumped in their Honda Civic and sped off toward the hospital. Two kilometers from their destination, Reg turned to Helen and inquired if she had purchased a get well card. Puzzled, Helen, replied she had not — time was at the essence, and above all else, Gary was Reg’s best friend — not hers.
Helen continued to explain how Gary was in the ICU, a unit that doesn’t allow flowers or cards. Reg huffed in anger. When Helen responded, her husband jerked the car into the right-hand lane and, without checking his mirror, intended to pull into the local mall.
No turning light, no signal — crash!
Blame is as old as humankind. In the Judeo-Christian world view, we first meet Adam and Eve as the originators of the human race under the context of blame. The text describes original sin as the consumption of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Before Eve’s arrival on earth, God provided Adam with the instruction to avoid eating the fruit. When Eve becomes his companion, she consumes the apple with Adam. God confronts Adam, and in return, he responds with:
The website Bible Hermeneutics, poses the question “did Adam blame Eve?” with a plausible response:
Since we know that Adam received God’s command directly and that he was present when Eve made the decision to eat it and did nothing to dissuade or prevent her from violating God’s command and, in fact, joined with her in her disobedience fully aware of what was happening, it seems reasonable to argue that Adam bears the true blame for this sin.
In our modern world, various psychological and psychotherapeutic behavioral modalities are available to support a client who struggles with blame-shifting.
Personal responsibility is a core principle of Gestalt psychotherapy. verywellmind.com describes the goal of:
allowing clients the opportunity to own and accept their experiences. In blaming others, we lose our sense of control and become victim to the event or the other person involved in the event.
Virginia Satir, (1916–1988) renowned psychotherapist and pioneer in family therapy developed four categories for understanding communication styles and included blame as detailed by theravive.com:
- Placater: apologetic, eager to please (hides fear)
- Computer: super-reasonable, abstract (afraid of feelings)
- Distracter: irrelevant, talkative (afraid of reality)
- Blamer: fault-finding, critical (hides pain)
Matt Davies, Medium writer, Psychotherapist, and Counselor for individuals and couples comments how:
Satir observed that people react to stress and threats to their self-esteem with one of the above defensive communication styles. We tend to use one or a mixture of these styles out of shame, guilt, fear and low self-esteem as a way to protect ourselves.
Satir describes the behavior of The Blamer as that which seeks fault. People who fall under this type struggle to accept personal responsibility for their actions and try to blame someone or something else.
The Blamer points out problems or issues of the other person to deflect from themselves. The intent is to hide feelings of alienation and loneliness behind a hardened and complacent mask. Blamers are more likely to initiate conflict.
Virginia Satir created speaking positions to accompany each communication style. Changingminds.org describes this process as:
body language positions that convey the emotions of Virginia Satir’s Stress Responders and are particularly useful for understanding people who are speaking. They may be used not just to express stress but also in talking with others to elicit particular responses.
In the Five Speaking Positions, changingminds.org describes The Blamer to demonstrate physically:
- The body is square and leans forward slightly.
- Finger on one hand raised.
- Finger points directly at other, for strong effect (this is an attack) or at the ceiling (this is a warning of attack).
- Head slightly down with eyebrows lowered somewhat.
We return to our real-life example. Reg’s Honda was totaled. The man driving in the right-hand lane never had a chance to swivel before he smashed into Helen’s passenger side. Upon impact, Reg’s wife cracked her head from bouncing off the window, blood oozing from her temple. Reg stopped the car and remained inside, unharmed, while the other driver called the police. Reg turned, pointed, and cursed at his wife:
“if you would have picked up a card, this never would have happened!”
Helen was stunned; her eyes swirled with floating stars. The policeman arrived. Reg welled up with emotion as the officer approached the damaged vehicle. In between the tears streaming down Reg’s face, he confessed to the policeman how he had shot nerves, and he didn’t see the guy behind him because:
“We’re on the way to see my friend, and my wife forgot to pick up a card.”
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