By Patricia Lefave, Monophrenic  

It's still not rocket science.

These are the connections that you can't make, mainly because you really don't want to make them. Making these connections would mean turning the “objective” gaze back onto yourselves, and onto the group dynamic as the real problem. That might mean the end of scapegoating and all the great benefits to the group that come with it.

So, the group members, led by one with a hidden agenda of domination can't see any connections between:

A. the initial “switch” of positions between aggressor and victim as suggested by the aggressor who plays “mystified” for you.

And

B. the group participation in it and all the acting out.

And

C. The victim stating that the group is acting it all out, including (eventually) complete strangers who have joined in the performance.

And

D. Psychiatry's denial of the group behaviour and the reinventing of the victim’s perception of it as “disease process.”

and

E. The group members being informed that the target is mentally ill and/or “just seeking attention/fame” for stating the awareness of the group behaviour, which psychiatry denies exists, and of course SO do the group members, since how would that LOOK if they admitted to it? 

The hateful, resentful and contemptuous justify their abuses by deluding themselves that it is all right, even “normal” for them to behave that way because others are doing it too, or because their target is “just getting what s/he deserves”, or best of all, the targeted inferior is just too stupid and/or crazy to be aware of the abuser's behaviour and the motivations for it. This is then thought to further “prove” to the abuser that the “lesser” one makes an appropriate target because s/he practically “chooses” to be victimized.

Above all of course, is the unspoken rule against genuine, direct communication with an “inferior.” One simply does not relate as an equal, to an “inferior.”

The abusers don't want to find out they are in the wrong and most of all, they don't want to become AWARE of the abused one's full AWARENESS of the abuser. You see THAT would ruin the abuser's self delusion. It would ruin the dysfunctional “game” and the emotional catharsis which comes as a benefit to all the group members for “playing” it. Dysfunctional groups are like naughty children playing King of the Castle. They don't want to be the dirty rascal you know.

Subsequently there is a predictable INCREASE in the group abuse of “inferior” targets because the group delusion of concealment, while acting out in plain sight, has been supported, enabled and validated by the invalidation of the target's perception of it, and APPROPRIATE emotional reactions to the reality of it. The power of groups to abuse socially sanctioned targets has then been made a permanent feature of dysfunctional groups, calling themselves “normal” through the metaphysical “magic” of tautology.

Unless this truth is seen and faced as REALITY, “help” will remain in effect, as an endless effort to maintain the dysfunctional status quo while pretending, for the sake of appearances of course, that that this reality does not exist and that there is no problem other than that of an individual's “perception” of a problem, which no one else sees[1].

Real sociopaths[2]  use their targets self interest to manipulate them. They also count on that self interest to manipulate them, and others, into concealing the truth about being conned or, even worse, into acting out on a target at the sociopath's suggestion, or direction.

When the targets conceal the truth about themselves, they ALSO conceal the truth about the sociopath, which enables him or her to CONTINUE to dominate and to conceal his or her “game” from almost everyone.

The most important parts in understanding this group phenomenon are these:

That the group behaviour and acting out is perfectly obvious to the target, though it may be misinterpreted for a awhile, but, that awareness of the group, by the target, is NOT obvious to most of the group members.

That the target is telling you the truth about the experience from the receiving end of it.

That the group members operate from behind a facade as a “norm,” and that they are keeping information about themselves and other group members, OUT of the picture.

That some of them, though not all of them, will blatantly lie to divert unwanted attention from themselves and their behaviour, and that even within the group, the members are keeping 'secrets” from each other  as well, for political reasons, based on power, control  and making sure they don't get caught or God forbid,  BLAMED for anything.