Projective Identification in the Narcissistic Family

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Scapegoating is a common yet widely unacknowledged reality in family systems dominated by narcissistic parents. A scapegoated child is targeted with negative projections from one or both parents, often in a lifelong pattern of devastating character assassination.

Projection

Projecting aspects of ourselves we are uncomfortable with, such as aggression or jealousy, is a defense we all engage in from time to time, particularly in childhood and adolescence. For the narcissistic personality, which suffers from a fundamental lack of ego integration in early childhood, projection is an ongoing compulsion in which repressed and split-off parts of the divided self (all "good" or all "bad") are attributed to others.

The Projective Identification Process

In the narcissistic family, projection may be taken to extremes, whereby the narcissistic parents not only identify one child with disowned parts of themselves but also pressure that child to behave in ways that reflect that projected identity. Through the projective identification process, the parents interpret and induce behavior in the child to identify with their projections.

As 20th-century psychologist Melanie Klein explained, "When these parts have been projected excessively into another person, they can only be controlled by controlling the other person." Thus the scapegoated child may be provoked with teasing and criticism, blamed for problems, deprived of resources, burdened with inordinate responsibilities, and harshly compared (implicitly or explicitly) with a favored child who embodies the narcissistic parents' projected delusion of superiority and entitlement.

Scapegoat and Golden Child

As an extension of the parents' grandiosity, the elevated "golden child" carries their idealized (all good) projections, the flip side of the devalued (all bad) projections carried by the scapegoat. To stay connected with the parents and reduce tension and conflict, both scapegoated, and idealized children typically feel unconsciously compelled to comply with their parents' projections despite how inauthentic the projected identities may feel to them. The idealized child, treated to overvaluation through unearned praise and privilege, often struggles with an underlying sense of empty fraudulence, while the scapegoated child carries internalized shame and self-contempt.

Smear Campaign

Compounding the situation for the scapegoated child, the parents typically also induce 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, particularly younger ones, may accept without question the scapegoated child's role as the recipient of anger and blame. Ones who recognize the injustice of the scapegoat's position are often too intimidated to challenge the parents for fear they will be targeted. Depending on their level of mental health and awareness, extended family members and friends may have some insight into the scapegoating and reach out to that child with forms of support, but more often, they accept the parents' narratives about their "problem child" and may even participate in further pathologizing and ostracizing that child.

How the Scapegoat Is Selected

What factors influence why a particular child is targeted with negative projective identification? The answer may be as simple as gender or birth order, but personality can play an important role. It is often the most aware, emotionally integrated child who perceives the family dysfunction and therefore comes to be viewed as a threat by the disordered parents. For this child, the mere act of seeing and knowing is a liability in the delusional universe of home. Frequently the most empathetic member of the family, this child may respond to the parents' emotional instability and negative projections with compensatory caregiving, self-abnegation, and endless efforts to prove their worth and lovability. As a result, it is common for scapegoated children to be heavily exploited by their needy and selfish parents, who both crave their empathy and devalue their empathetic gifts.

Long-Term Impacts of Family Scapegoating

As devalued and bullied members of hierarchical narcissistic family systems, scapegoated children struggle with a traumatized nervous system, self-esteem deficits, and eroded personal boundaries that make them vulnerable to health problems and further abuse dynamics in their adult relationships. They typically enter adulthood with anxiety, anger, depression, and other symptoms of complex trauma with only a vague sense of the roots of their suffering.

The Road to Recovery

To stabilize and work on recovery from the debilitated scapegoat identity, adult children must reject the negative projections thrust upon them by their narcissistic family of origin. This process can take a long time, as denial in scapegoated children can persist for decades, if not a lifetime. For the scapegoat, recognition of family bullying usually follows countless failed attempts at fixing a problem no one else will acknowledge. The adult scapegoat may be pushed into awareness by a severe health crisis such as an escalating addiction, autoimmune disease, adrenal or thyroid breakdown, spinal damage, cancer, or organ or heart failure. Or the adult may be brought to awareness by family bullying of their spouse or children.

For the scapegoated adult child, recovery usually necessitates limiting or ending contact with abusive family members, who force an existential choice between having a family and healing the self.

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