Mental Health Awareness and Family Scapegoating Abuse (FSA)
Shining a light on an insidious form of invisible family abuse and hidden trauma
This is a public post and you’re welcome to share it on your social media or restack it here on Substack. Scroll down to see the date for my next (collaborative) video Livestream here on Substack and to find my free FSA Recovery resource list.
May Is Mental Health Awareness Month
As Mental health awareness month comes to a close and we continue to broaden our understanding of factors impacting well-being, it's essential to acknowledge insidious forms of family dysfunction.
One such form of dysfunction is the phenomenon I named Family Scapegoating Abuse (FSA), a unique and damaging systems-driven dynamic that, for too long, remained largely unrecognized and unnamed.
My qualitative research on FSA over the past 15 years has not only identified the patterns and mechanisms of this form of systemic ‘invisible abuse’ but has also furnished a comprehensive language, terminology, and nomenclature to describe and discuss it.
This means survivors now have the w…