PSYCHOLOGICAL DEFLECTION
"Before you point your finger at anyone, always make sure that you're decent enough to do so". And frankly, a good and decent person will never take pleasure at pointing fingers at anyone because he/she will know exactly how it feels and that no one is perfect, including him/her. Unfortunately, in our time, finger pointing becomes a very common thing used by deflectors (narcissists), and it is called psychological deflection. Psychological deflection is somewhat similar to blame-shifting and it is a narcissistic abuse tactic that is often used by narcissists but more respectively, Covert narcissists in order to move attention for their bad behaviors away from them, and then redirect it towards other people they may use as their scapegoats. With this tactic, a narcissist is able to control the mind and the emotions of everyone around him/her.
What is a Cover Narcissist?
A Covert narcissist, also known as Over narcissist is a type of person who's very manipulative and self-centered, he/she doesn't care about other people's feelings or well-being and doesn't think about how his/her behavior or actions may affect other people. The only thing a Covert narcissist cares about is himself/herself. However, Covert narcissists are not the only ones who use psychological deflection, other people who are not narcissists have used it also as a form of coping mechanism strategy in order to mask their own impulses (guilt) by denying their mistakes and projecting them on the people around them.
Why do People use Psychological Deflection?
The main reasons people use psychological deflection is because of inner-fear and psycho-emotional immaturity.
Inner-fear:
Fear of losing his/her partner if he/she takes responsibility for his/her own behavior or actions, fear of being fired at work over simple mistakes that could be easily swept under the rug, fear if he/she tells the truth he/she might be in trouble with the law, fear if confessed a horrible sin he/she might get kicked out of the church or be treated differently, etc.
Psycho-emotional Immaturity:
As humans, from birth to adulthood, we go through different stages of mental/psychological development. It's vital that we go through all stages and mature them properly in order to become psychologically and emotionally mature. Any rupture (trauma) in either of these stages will affect our lives, especially in our adulthood. For example; someone who's been physically, verbally, or emotionally abused while he/she was a child, he/she may use psychological deflection or blame-shifting all the way to his/her adulthood in order to avoid more physical, verbal, or emotional abuses. Telling a child that you wish he/she wasn't born because of a mistake he/she made will cause that child to use psychological deflection or blame-shifting to avoid being verbally abused in the future.
(The Role Our Ego Plays in Psychological Deflection)
As humans, it is much easier for us to make a list or keep records of other people’s mistakes than to acknowledge our own. As a result, we become more interested in other people's business that we are interested in our own and try to find every little mistake as possible so we can bury them. The more negative things we can find on other people the better we feel about ourselves. This is because of our "Ego". Our Ego is the part of our mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity. In other words; our Ego is what controls our sense of self-esteem, self-worth, self-importance, etc.
Over time, if we let it, our Ego will develop a self-defense system that prevents us from admitting our own mistakes in order to protect our self-importance and self-image. As a result, it makes us feel less responsible for the consequences of our own bad behaviors or actions.
But here's the thing, that self-defense system that our ego develops to prevent us from feeling bad or remorseful for our own wrongdoings, over time, it will start having negative effects on the way we perceive the world around us as well as our self-image, which will make us to always believe that the causes of our mistakes are not related to our behavior or actions, and the external environment is always the one to blame.
Every time you see someone is so quick to point fingers at someone else, in your end, don't be too quick to judge or condemn the accused one. Do a little search or observation on the accuser, and you'll be amazed to find out that most of the time, the accuser appears to be talking about himself/herself unconsciously. Always remember, "To the degree that a person condemns others and try to find evil in them, he/she is to that degree unconscious of the same thing in himself/herself, or at least to the potentiality of doing the same thing." Translation; every time you judge or condemn someone, most of the time you're unconsciously judging or condemning yourself.
