Work on being a victim can be very supportive in the Healthy Grieving Programs because it is very common for individuals to feel like a victim in the experience of grief. This is true because the experience of being a victim is expressed as “somebody or something has been done to me that has taken away something I deserve or am entitled to so my experience of life is of hardship and struggle” — and these are common thoughts and feeling following a loss. As long as an individual is being a victim to the loss, it is essentially impossible to complete the grieving cycle.

As a victim to their loss, individuals believe that something has been done to them to cause their pain. In order to heal from the pain of grief, it is essential that an individual takes responsibility for their internal experience of the loss.The Healthy Grieving Programs include a Victim Worksheet that allows an individual to effectively process the experience of being a victim, which opens their heart to heal.

General Note: A victim mentality or victim complex is generally interpreted by mainstream psychology as “non-normative behavior” and there are no established standards for treatment. Thus, a victim mentality is considered something uncommonly seen among, what society deems, “healthy” people. From this perspective, a victim mentality is not defined as a pervasive integrated personality characteristic.

Our work with being a victim has demonstrated that it is a fundamental experience of human behavior. Though it can vary in extremes and subtleties, being a victim influences and limits every human’s experience. We believe that the reason victim mentality has gone undetected as a pervasive human behavior by the study of psychology is because the essential nature of feeling like a victim is the lack of self-awareness. Once individuals who are open to exploring their life’s predicaments are exposed to the concept of being a victim, evidence shows that a transformational change is possible in how individuals experiences themselves and life.