About Healing the Scapegoat Wound

About Rebecca C. Mandeville

Welcome to my Substack. I’m the founding researcher who coined the term ‘Family Scapegoating Abuse’ (FSA) and the author of the best selling book, ‘Rejected, Shamed, and Blamed: Help and Hope for Adults in the Family Scapegoat Role’. I served as Core Faculty at the world-renowned Institute for Transpersonal Psychology and am the author of The Mandeville Theory of Systemic Identity Architecture (1998), on which my Kintsugi Method of FSA Recovery™ is based. I’m also an FSA survivor. Learn more about my research and my background by visiting my Scapegoat Recovery website.

📊 The Research

My FSA content is built in the clinical trenches. I’ve spent nearly twenty years mapping the mechanics of systemic projection in dysfunctional and narcissistic families and counseling thousands of scapegoat survivors.

My FSA research findings have been legitimized in peer-reviewed public health and medical journals and are now being adopted by clinicians worldwide—but most importantly, they have been validated by the tens of thousands of survivors who finally found their ‘lived experience’ in my Scapegoat Recovery website, YouTube videos, and my popular research-supported book, Rejected, Shamed, and Blamed.

Please note: My research-based term ‘Family Scapegoating Abuse’ (FSA) and my recovery frameworks are my exclusive Intellectual Property. I have NOT authorized any third-party ‘FSA’ recovery or counseling or coaching programs. Anyone utilizing this specific terminology or my trademarked frameworks is doing so in violation of my copyright and IP rights.

From “Identified Patient” to Sovereign Self

🌐 The Mission

You may have realized that “traditional” talk therapy and generic support groups aren’t enough to heal the specific, systemic trauma of being the family scapegoat.

I created this Substack to be more than an e-publication; it is also a supportive peer support community space for adult survivors ready to move beyond “just coping” and begin the rigorous work of reclaiming their Inviolate Self.

My intention is to provide you with the forensic data required to dismantle a narrative you didn’t create via my FSA content. True healing from FSA requires more than just “venting”; it demands a structured deconstruction of the projections placed upon you since childhood. By shifting our focus from the symptoms of the abuse or the pathology of the abuser to the mechanics of the system itself, we can finally clear the path for identity reclamation and integral transformation.

🔲 The Framework: Sovereignty Is Safer Than Compliance

On my Substack, we don’t just “trauma dump.” We instead focus on removing ourselves from the mechanics of the scapegoating family system so we can begin healing from the Outside-In via:

• Forensic Validation: Replacing family lies with peer-reviewed data.

• Nervous System Sovereignty: Moving out of “fawn” and “freeze” and into a state of self-governance. This includes focusing on physiological restoration as well.

• The Inviolate Self: Reconnecting with the core of your being that the family system was never able to b/reach.

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🔭 What’s Next: New FSA Recovery Platform

The research and insights shared here serve as the essential foundation for the new online recovery programs I am currently creating for FSA survivors and the clinicians who treat them. Although these programs will be on a different platform, I will still publish FSA content here on Substack.

• 🎓 Specialized Online Curriculum: This transition will coincide with the launch of my FSA recovery online courses based on The Kintsugi Method for FSA Recovery™.

• 💡 Unique Expertise: The online coursework with comment features are tailored to ensure you have direct access to my unique insights as the world’s leading expert on Family Scapegoating Abuse (FSA) as you work through the curriculum.

🔑 Why Subscribe to my Substack?

I plan to continue publishing new FSA content here indefinitely, and this will still be my community ‘home’ for now. When you join my Substack’s Healing the Scapegoat Wound community, you receive:

• 🔬 Primary Source Insights: Direct access to my latest research on Family Scapegoating Abuse (FSA) and systemic trauma, delivered from the “clinical trenches.”

• A Theme-Focused Prompt Every Monday (includes Action Steps): My Monday posts reflect my Kintsugi Method for FSA Recovery that I’m currently developing. You can find it on my home page or in your inbox Monday morning PST - do check your Substack settings in your profile to ensure your notifications are on (email and/or push notifications need to be on for you to receive my posts. These posts will also be on my Substack’s Home page).

• Notes: Visit my Notes, which are designed to support your FSA recovery process.

• 📜 Priority Protocol Access: Early notification and priority entry into my new FSA recovery online course platform before it is officially launched.

• 💬 Subscriber Commons: Access to our Substack Chat. I visit the Commons chat space as a community member and facilitator - NOT as a therapist, coach, or counselor.

• 🔭 Future-Ready Updates: Stay informed on the development of my Kintsugi-based FSA Recovery modular curriculum and receive a “first-look” invitation when my online courses are launched.

Rebecca C. Mandeville, MACP, LMFT, CCTP

Founding Researcher of Family Scapegoating Abuse (FSA) Education

A Note on the Integrity of this Work

The concepts shared here—including Family Scapegoating Abuse (FSA), the Kintsugi Method for FSA Recovery, the Identity Reconstruction and Self Restoration Framework—are the result of over twenty years of forensic research and clinical study.

© 1998-2026 Rebecca C. Mandeville. All Rights Reserved.