When is Blame Appropriate?

Transcript:

Dr. Liz: Hi, I’m Dr. Elizabeth Bonet with floridapsychotherapy.com and Conversations for Effective Living. I am so happy to be back in the office today in Broward County. It’s actually after a long weekend, Labor Day weekend. I know most people hate going back to work, but I absolutely love it. I’m happy to be back to the routine. I love seeing my clients transform. I always look forward to every day, so happy to be here!

Today I’m going to talk about what I call “appropriate blame.” Often, people come in and we do this in our own lives, too, where we blame somebody. That’s not always a healthy process and actually, I think the 12-step movement has done probably the most work here in terms of people taking responsibility for what they’ve done in the past and any wrongdoings and going and making amends. That has spread to our larger culture, too. How do you take responsibility for some part of what happened, or sometimes all of what happened?

But sometimes this goes too far for people. What I’m talking about here is someone who had a really abusive parent and they’re reluctant to blame them. They’re like, “Well, maybe I had some responsibility there. Maybe I did this. Maybe I was this type of child.”

I just want to say, hands down, a child is never responsible for abuse. I don’t care what kind of child you are. I don’t care if you were born with a wild streak, which I really believe we’re born with personality types. But that doesn’t make you responsible for any kind of abuse that you suffered, either physical, emotional, spiritual.

Absolutely not. It is the parents’ responsibility to be able to see that child for who they are and work and work and work to try to find effective ways to parent that child. That is always the parents’ responsibility. In that case, the blame for something that happened lies with the parent. That’s what I call “appropriate blame.”

Part of the work I do in my hypnosis practice in Broward County / Fort Lauderdale is figuring this out – when is the blame appropriate, when it is inappropriate? What are we responsible for in our lives and what are we not responsible for? It’s a process to do this, sometimes a painful one but more often than not, clients find huge relief in really diving into this. Guilt and shame from ages past are lifted. And they’re able to move on in their life living more freely. Physical symptoms also often reduce when this happens.

I specialize in hypnosis for anxiety and chronic conditions in Broward county and the Fort Lauderdale area. To see if we’re a good fit to work together, schedule your free consultation at 954-309-9071.

Yours in health,
Dr. Liz