Victim playing (also known as playing the victim, victim card, or self-victimization) is the fabrication or exaggeration of victimhood for a variety of reasons such as to justify
abuse
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 t ...
to others, to
manipulate
Manipulation may refer to:
*Manipulation (psychology) - the action of manipulating someone in a clever or unscrupulous way
*Crowd manipulation - use of crowd psychology to direct the behavior of a crowd toward a specific action
::*Internet manipu ...
others, a
coping strategy
Coping refers to conscious strategies used to reduce unpleasant emotions. Coping strategies can be cognitions or behaviours and can be individual or social.
Theories of coping
Hundreds of coping strategies have been proposed in an attempt to ...
,
attention seeking
Attention seeking behavior is to act in a way that is likely to elicit attention. Attention seeking behavior is defined in the DSM-5 as "engaging in behavior designed to attract notice and to make oneself the focus of others’ attention and admir ...
or
diffusion of responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility is a sociopsychological phenomenon whereby a person is less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when other bystanders or witnesses are present. Considered a form of attribution, the individual assume ...
. A person who repeatedly does this is known as a "professional victim".
For abuse
Victim playing by abusers is either:
*
Dehumanization
Dehumanization is the denial of full humanness in others and the cruelty and suffering that accompanies it. A practical definition refers to it as the viewing and treatment of other persons as though they lack the mental capacities that are c ...
attention
Attention is the behavioral and cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, whether considered subjective or objective, while ignoring other perceivable information. William James (1890) wrote that "Atte ...
away from acts of abuse by claiming that the abuse was justified based on another person's bad behavior (typically the victim).
* Grooming for
abusive power and control
Abusive power and control (also controlling behavior and coercive control) is behavior used by an abusive person to gain and/or maintain control over another person. Abusers are commonly motivated by devaluation, personal gain, personal gratifi ...
by soliciting
sympathy
Sympathy is the perception of, understanding of, and reaction to the distress or need of another life form. According to David Hume, this sympathetic concern is driven by a switch in viewpoint from a personal perspective to the perspective of ano ...
from others in order to gain their assistance in supporting or
enabling
In psychotherapy and mental health, enabling has a positive sense of empowering individuals, or a negative sense of encouraging dysfunctional behavior.Justification, to themselves, in
transactional analysis
Transactional Analysis (TA) is a psychoanalytic theory and method of therapy wherein social interactions (or “transactions”) are analyzed to determine the ego state of the communicator (whether parent-like, childlike, or adult-like) as a b ...
known as existential validation, as a way of dealing with the
cognitive dissonance
In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information, and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. ...
that results from inconsistencies between the way they treat others and what they believe about themselves.
* Justification to others as a strategy of evading or deflecting harsh judgment or condemnation they may fear from others.
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
Pity is a sympathetic sorrow evoked by the suffering of others, and is used in a comparable sense to '' compassion'', ''condolence'' or ''empathy'' – the word deriving from the Latin ''pietas'' (etymon also of '' piety''). Self-pity is pi ...
or
sympathy
Sympathy is the perception of, understanding of, and reaction to the distress or need of another life form. According to David Hume, this sympathetic concern is driven by a switch in viewpoint from a personal perspective to the perspective of ano ...
or to evoke
compassion
Compassion motivates people to go out of their way to relieve the physical, mental or emotional pains of others and themselves. Compassion is often regarded as being sensitive to the emotional aspects of the suffering of others. When based on n ...
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.
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.
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
Ethnic nationalism, also known as ethnonationalism, is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity, with emphasis on an ethnocentric (and in some cases an ethnocratic) approach to various politic ...
even more.
Other goals
Victim playing is also:
* An attention-seeking technique (see for example
Münchausen syndrome
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 t ...
).
In corporate life
The language of "victim playing" has entered modern corporate life, as a potential weapon of all professionals. To define victim-players as dishonest may be an
empowering
Empowerment is the degree of autonomy and self-determination in people and in communities. This enables them to represent their interests in a responsible and self-determined way, acting on their own authority. It is the process of becoming strong ...
response; as too may be awareness of how childhood boundary issues can underlie the tactic.
In the hustle of
office politics Workplace politics is the process and behavior that in human interactions involves power and authority. It is also a tool to assess the operational capacity and to balance diverse views of interested parties. It is also known as office politics and ...
, the term may however be abused so as to penalize the legitimate victim of injustice, as well as the role-player.
Underlying psychology
Transactional analysis
Transactional Analysis (TA) is a psychoanalytic theory and method of therapy wherein social interactions (or “transactions”) are analyzed to determine the ego state of the communicator (whether parent-like, childlike, or adult-like) as a b ...
distinguishes real victims from those who adopt the role in
bad faith
Bad faith (Latin: ''mala fides'') is a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another."of two hearts ... a sustained form of deception whic ...
, ignoring their own capacities to improve their situation. Among the predictable interpersonal "games" psychiatrist
Eric Berne
Eric Berne (May 10, 1910 – July 15, 1970) was a Canadian-born psychiatrist who created the theory of transactional analysis as a way of explaining human behavior.
Berne's theory of transactional analysis was based on the ideas of Freud but ...
identified as common among by victim-players are "Look How Hard I've Tried" and "Wooden Leg".
R. D. Laing
Ronald David Laing (7 October 1927 – 23 August 1989), usually cited as R. D. Laing, was a Scottish psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illnessin particular, the experience of psychosis. Laing's views on the causes and treatment o ...
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'", 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
A double bind is a dilemma in communication in which an individual (or group) receives two or more reciprocally conflicting messages. In some scenarios (e.g. within families or romantic relationships) this can be emotionally distressing, creating ...
.
Object relations theory
Object relations theory is a school of thought in psychoanalytic theory centered around theories of stages of ego development. Its concerns include the relation of the psyche to others in childhood and the exploration of relationships between ...
has explored the way possession by a
false self
The true self (also known as real self, authentic self, original self and vulnerable self) and the false self (also known as fake self, idealized self, superficial self and pseudo self) are a psychological dualism conceptualized by English psychoa ...
can create a permanent sense of victimisation – a sense of always being in the hands of an external fate.
To break the hold of the negative
complex
Complex commonly refers to:
* Complexity, the behaviour of a system whose components interact in multiple ways so possible interactions are difficult to describe
** Complex system, a system composed of many components which may interact with each ...
, and to escape the passivity of victimhood, requires taking responsibility for one's own desires and long-term actions.
Polly Young-Eisendrath Polly Young-Eisendrath (born 1947) is an American psychologist, author, teacher, speaker, Jungian analyst, Zen Buddhist, and the founder of ''Dialogue Therapy'' and Real Dialogue' and creator of the podcast ''Enemies: From War to Wisdom''.
She has ...
, ''Women and Desire'' (London 2000) p. 201 and p. 30
See also
References
*Anthony C. Mersino, Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers; The People Skills You Need to Succeed (2012) p. 60 and p. 43