Tears of a Clown

I just finished reading an article on the dynamics of scapegoating in group counseling and how group leaders might intervene. It was a painful article to read because it reminded me of perhaps every time I've ever been a scapegoat.

I kept thinking about people who project their own weaknesses onto others as a means of coping, but at the expense of the scapegoat's comfort. There is an amusing saying that goes, "Comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." I like it because of the image it conjures, of shaking the status quo, of rattling people's cages, of refusing to accept things as they are.

I imagine a sad clown, a person hiding in plain sight behind a painted-on sad face, who needs a mirror image of himself in order to make sense of the sadness. So, he finds another sad person and attacks, says things designed to wound and make him feel even more sad. Before long, everyone in the room is sad. Then the door opens and another clown walks in, this one with a happy face painted on and a genuine smile behind it. "Why so sad, my clown friends? What happened, did someone die?"

Can you picture that scene? A room full of clowns. How could anybody be sad there? Well, maybe someone with coulrophobia (fear of clowns), but the so-called normal person would probably be cheered up sitting in a clown-filled room. I might not know the first thing about being normal, but I would certainly enjoy the company of those clowns!

This is just imagery, though. In a real group counseling situation, scapegoating can be a serious problem. It can make a bad situation worse; if a person was already feeling insecure and unsure of being really open and vulnerable with the group and then gets "shot down" with words by someone else in the group who is hurting, a new wound opens up.

I am now thinking back to what I wrote a few weeks ago, a blog post about a not so innocent bystander. I sort of ganged up on that guy, didn't I? It wasn't really intentional; it just turned out that way. By pointing out something that I noticed, his role in creating the situation he described, the picture emerged of a person being manipulative and even malevolent. And I played a role in creating that picture, describing the image so you would see it, too.

In this article (the one I linked to in the first paragraph) is a statement about how particular qualities of a scapegoated member can trigger an attack and that the target is hardly an innocent bystander. The example is given of a child bobbing his head and making bird sounds who becomes upset when other group members criticize his behavior.

Almost every time we open our mouths, we risk making ourselves targets of scorn and derision. It almost makes me want to take a vow of silence. This being impossible, however, I will keep communicating, even knowing it's a losing game sometimes. 

I wrote a short vignette a few years ago that now comes to mind. (The watercolor collage that illustrates it is mine, too.) There is a line in there about the Smokey Robinson song, Tears of a Clown, which I love. It comes right before a moment of clarity between two men who have suddenly become equals in that they both recognize their capacity for pain and acknowledge that tears can be healing. The next thing that happens is the therapist asks the client how he might be of help. I wonder whether that is perhaps the most important question we can ask.

How can I help?