Psychoanalysis

Blaming Other People

By  | 

Blaming other people is a defense mechanism we have all employed to try to diminish the role we played in the creation and maintenance of our problems. By shifting the responsibility to someone else we get some psychic relief because we find a target for those negative emotions roiling and broiling within us.

This strategy is insidious. It appears to help you but it’s actually detrimental to your well-being because the only parts of your life you have the power to improve are the ones within your locus of control. You might briefly feel better but you effectively take away any chance to make your life better when you place all the blame on others.

Everyone has been treated unfairly, taken advantage of, betrayed, and this is probably why blaming other people works so well as a defense mechanism. Whether accurate in a specific case or not, it seems feasible to others but even more importantly feasible to you. For a rationalization to work you have to believe it, at least on a conscious level.

But if you want to increase your sense of power and put the wheels in motion to start improving your life, decide that blaming other people for your situation as it currently stands is a fruitless endeavor, designed to make you feel better but not designed to get you better. The only person you can count on to improve your life is you, and the most important step is taking the responsibility back in order to do just that.