An innocent person is walking along the street and gets attacked why?  The attacker needs something. Money, revenge (actual or displaced), angry at the world and needs to take it out on someone? Whatever the reason, it belongs to the attacker. The victim is someone just trying to live their life. 

Two people I know have recently suffered viscous attacks when going about their business practicing as ethical and professional counsellors. It is often not actual clients, but the people surrounding those clients, who are troubled themselves, but unable to own and work on their own issues. They need to blame. 

These weren’t physical attacks, they were verbal, accompanied by threat. Verbal attacks can be as painful as physical ones. Being counsellors, they naturally looked at themselves and as human beings they felt shaken and hurt. Both had acted in a professional and ethical manner for the benefit of their clients. 

What causes people to blame others for their own unhappiness? Why do people dump their stuff on others and cause so much pain?  If you blame others you don’t have to look at your own part in it because that’s too scary. When we attack we wound, we want someone to have our pain. We think it will go away, but of course it doesn’t ,so we look for someone else to blame . Counsellors are good targets because they’re not real people are they?

In my experience counsellors are the most real people because they always monitor themselves and don’t dump their stuff on others.