As most of us suspected, I've crossed the line and am now politically incorrect. It was my views on domestic violence and sexual assault that did it. The political crime I'm accused of is "victim-blaming." So, let's examine victim blaming and the flip side of that coin, which Caroline Myss calls "wound-mating." (The Anatomy of Spirit, 1996)

Victim blaming is a real problem. It happens every time we ask, "What did she do to deserve" such abuse? The assumptions built into this question by those who would blame the victim for any abuse are as follows: 1) there is a culturally-relevant accepted process (CRAP) by which humans determine who "deserves" punishment; 2) the abuser was somehow justified in carrying out the punishment meted out to the victim; 3) perhaps CRAP somehow took possession of the abuser and meted out justice through him -- sort of a variation on demon-possession; and 4) whatever the reason for the invoking of CRAP, it was the victim who set in motion a domino-like chain reaction that inexorably, and rightly, came back to punish her.

The invalid assumption in victim blaming is that the abuser has been drafted by CRAP into service as an agent of karmic law. The abuser, therefore, was acting not on his own behalf, but on behalf of higher principles of fairness, justice, truth, et cetera, ad nauseum. The truth is that: 1) no one deserves to be attacked; 2) no one is responsible for another's emotional well being; and 3) the law of karma is consistent with the biblical injunction that "vengeance" is the sole domain of God.

With that issue clarified, the next problem is what to do with someone who has been victimized? In brief, healing from the trauma is in order. Once the trauma is addressed, the healing process completed, it is now time to learn something useful from the traumatic experience so that the person can get on with life. The most useful thing I've seen folks learn is distinguishing between a healthy and a dysfunctional relationship set-up. In addition to that, they become aware of their loyalties to the dysfunctional system and break those loyalties, thereby becoming immune to the dysfunctional system in the future. At that point, it is safe to continue their lives.

When that doesn't occur, a "professional victim" is the likely result. Or, as Caroline Myss puts it, "[Mary] was thoroughly entrenched in her wounds, so much so that she converted her woundedness into a type of social currency. She felt she was owed certain privileges because of her painful childhood: the privilege of being able to call in sick at work whenever she needed to 'process' a memory; financial support from her father because of what he did to her; and endless emotional support from all her 'friends.' True friends, according to Mary, were people who understood her crisis and took over her responsibilities for her whenever they because too much for her." (1996, pp. 210-211) To which I'll add: the "right" to be rescued by the laws of the land, and perpetual punishment mandated for convicted abusers. Professional victimhood seems to be the driving force behind all of this counter-productive domestic violence legislation that began emerging in 1995. This legislation was an outgrowth of one strain in the "women's support group" movement.

Caroline Myss, again: "While the original intention of [women's] support groups was to help people experience nurturing, compassionate responses to a personal crisis, no one expected them to continue until the person was healed from the crisis, let alone function as an agent of that healing. They were intended merely to be a boat across a river of transition.... Without a schedule for healing, we risk becoming addicted to what we think of as support and compassion." (p. 213)

As I noted in a previous column, this support-group process evolved in Alaska to include the political process. Professional victims have become "wound-mates" with our political leadership. And all of us have been moved off the track we need to be on; which is, to provide treatment for abusers and victims so that they can both escape the downward spiral of the violence dynamic. We have really lost our way, but we can find our way back.

The current research confirms what we counselors have known for a decade or more. Criminal violence is a system founded in the shame-based internal drives of a rapist acting alone, or in both people (domestic violence). Fear that the reason for the shame will be exposed is the primary cause of the violence. The cycle of fear-shame-anger-guilt-fear changes the brain's structure. And thus chronic depression mixed with criminally violent outbursts, hypervigilance, flashbacks, anxiety attacks, age-regression, sleep and eating disorders, low self-esteem, and so on becomes the norm -- for both people.

Bruce Bibee, MTP, is a counselor in private practice. He is also the owner/instructor of the Kung-Fu San Soo Center.