All people take up certain roles in groups, often playing different roles at different times during the group’s development. In part, individuals are driven to take up certain group roles based on their own personal life experiences and personalities. But another way we can understand the phenomenon of why certain people play specific roles in a group is that people are unconsciously put into certain roles by the group to serve the needs of the group-as-a-whole. Thus, one’s role in a group is a combination of one’s individual predisposition to take up a specific role PLUS the need of the group-as-a-whole to unconsciously put that individual in that role. One such role is that of being a worker who functions in the group as a helper and a supportive follower of the group’s leader in support of the group task. Another role is to be a “hitman” who attacks the group leader and the primary task of the group. This person likely has a predisposition to play the role of the hitman or “anti-task leader.” He or she has mostly likely played this role before in other group settings AND the group has a need to place this individual in this role for the interest of the group.
One very common role that a group member may take up and be put into is that of the scapegoat. In the Old Testament, one kid goat was sacrificed and a second kid goat was sent into the wilderness after the Jewish chief priest had symbolically laid all the sins of the people upon that second goat. We use this term “scapegoat” to refer to a person who is blamed for the mistakes and problems of others often because it is convenient for the group-as-a-whole to keep someone in this role for the sake of the entire group. Remember, like any role in a group, the individual who becomes the scapegoat probably has a predisposition to take up this role based on his or her personal history and life experiences AND the group has an unconscious need to put someone in the role of the scapegoat. If all the wrongdoings and blame is located in one group member, then that member who is scapegoated becomes the problem and the other group members can split off their own sense of fault and wrongdoing. This is why we say that it is convenient to have a scapegoat. It is convenient to place all the blame outside of ourselves and locate it in an other. Like in the example from the Bible where this term originated, we can then expel that individual from the group. The thinking here is that if we (the group) just get rid of this one rotten apple (the scapegoat), then everything will be all good again and we can return to functioning as an effective group. And, in fact, this is often exactly what happens. Groups locate all their problems in one person. That person becomes the scapegoat. And often the group then finds a way to expel that person from the group, with the belief that the solution to the group’s problems is simply to get rid of that one person.
Think of the various groups you have been part of during your lifetime, such as in school, in your family, or at your workplace. You probably can think of experiences where this happened, where someone was the scapegoat who was blamed for all the wrongdoings of the group. Or maybe it even happened to you where you became the scapegoat of a group. And then, oftentimes, that scapegoat is expelled from the group, such as when someone is fired or let go from a work setting. Or in a family where all the wrongs are located in one child who becomes the “problem child.” Here, the person may not be expelled from the family, but it is convenient to persist in keeping that person in the role of scapegoat for the sake of the whole family. This is an all too familiar occurrence. The problem with this dynamic is that it doesn’t really solve the group’s problems because the group problems are not really located solely in any one individual. It may temporarily seem to work right after the scapegoat is expelled from the group, but inevitably the group’s problems will reemerge because they never were simply about the faults of one individual group member.
The scapegoat of a group need not be just an individual. It can also be a subgroup of the larger group. For instance, at a school it could be that the math department is the scapegoat for the school where all the problems get located. Maybe the front desk staff becomes the scapegoat for all the problems of the whole office. Or an entire family may become the scapegoat of a certain community or neighborhood, the one “bad apple” on the block. On a global scale, maybe it’s an entire continent. If each continent is a subgroup, then Africa is often the scapegoat for the problems of the world.
The majority of people lack the knowledge and awareness that the role of the scapegoat is not entirely about that one person’s individual issues and predisposition. When we don’t see that there is also a group need to scapegoat that person, we assume that all the problems lie simply with that individual and we may unknowingly participate in scapegoating that person and possibly expelling that person from the group. In this way, we are unconsciously participating in attributing all the “bad” of the group on that individual and we are perpetuating in keeping that person in the role of scapegoat.
Working with individual patients who have been predisposed to be the scapegoat in groups, it is important to explore and understand that person’s individual history -- family-of-origin, school, friend groups, work settings -- to come to a deeper understanding of what has contributed to this person having been placed in the role of scapegoat and oftentimes taking up that role as a very familiar life experience of theirs. In this way, perhaps we can effect a positive change for that individual so that he or she needn’t continue to take up this very painful role. Once we become conscious of what was previously unconscious, we then are more empowered to make choices that can lead to positive change.