the scapegoat * by William Holman Hunt, 1854. Hunt had this framed in a picture with the quotations "Surely he hath borne our Griefs and carried our Sorrows; Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of GOD and afflicted." (Isaiah 53:4) and "And the Goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a Land not inhabited." (Leviticus 16:22).
[Updated May 12 in the end]. On my bike ride I came to think of anger, justified and unjustified, and scapegoats…
Wondered what Miller has written about this.
Yes, for instance she writes at page 146 in the paperback edition of “The Drama…” (the revised version) that human beings who have got help discovering their past, whom in their therapies have learned to unravel (reda ut) their feelings and find their true causes out, are no longer ruled by the compulsion to cast off their hatred on innocent people to spare (skona) these persons who really deserved their hatred. They have the capacity hating what’s worth hating and loving what’s worth loving.
As they dare to know who deserves their hatred they can accommodate to the reality without falling into the blindness the mistreated child fell into, the mistreated child who had to spare her parents and therefore needed scapegoats.
There is no point in appealing to love and reason so long as those steps for clearing the early emotions up are protected of fear for our parents (whether in client or therapist). And most often we need help with this.
One can’t fight the hatred with arguments; one has to realize their origins and use tools which make it possible dissolving the hatred.
Experiencing the justified hatred liberates, not only because the body gets relaxed (the inner tensions are released), but particularly because this experience open our eyes for realities, liberate us from illusions, gives us our repressed memories back…
When one at last has experienced the hatred and understood its justification it becomes dissolved, and is only shown when there are real, true reasons for it. If not, it comes back and comes back. It’s bottomless. And even creates wars, of different sizes. From personal vendettas between two persons or between two (or more) families to world wars.
It is the unfair, to innocent cast off or displaced hatred, that is endless, and can never calm down. Not the justified. The justified gets dissolved.
And about therapy: Miller thinks we need more than the pure intellectual insight. The pure intellectual insight isn’t enough for healing and recovery. But an important (first) step. Some therapists (Bosch and Jenson) mean that cognition, behaviour and emotion are equally important. But I am not sure regression or primal therapy is the only tool to recover and heal. But reading their books has meant a lot. They also talk about the False Power - Anger defense.
* In wikipedia it stands about the scapegoat:
“The scapegoat was a goat that was driven off into the wilderness as part of the ceremonies of Yom Kippur/.../
The word is more widely used as a metaphor, referring to someone who is blamed for misfortunes, generally as a way of distracting attention from the real causes.”
My amateur translation to Swedish:
“Syndabocken var en get som drevs ut i vildmarken som en del i ceremonierna runt Jom Kippur/…/
Ordet används bredare som en metafor, syftande på någon som är klandrad för olyckor, allmänt som ett sätt att distrahera (dra bort) uppmärksamheten från de verkliga orsakerna.”
PS. Also read ”See No Evil -- A political psychologist explains the roles denial, emotion and childhood punishment play in politics,” Michael Milburn interviewed by Brian Braiker in Newsweek,
Addition May 12: have blogged about the interview with Milburn om my other blog, see here.
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