The Victim Archetype

The Victim archetype is one of the most powerful lessons I have learnt from Caroline Myss’ work on archetypes (you can find a link at the bottom of this article for more info). In a nutshell, Caroline Miss challenges us to reflect on the fact that we might be taking the role of the victim to benefit from the advantages that it brings.

From a young age, if we do not feel well we are rewarded with parental attention and we are allowed to stay at home and not go to school (a place where most kids would rather not go every day). Unconsciously we learn that not feeling well and feeling weak brings some treats that we would not have otherwise. This is a powerful way to reinforce this behaviour.

In IFS, we call “exiles” those parts of us that hold the energies of when we were young (generally). Exiles are both the most joyful parts of us, and the most hurt by the wounding of trauma. Childhood and puberty are the times in our life when we had little decisional power. We could not earn money, and we had to ask permission to go anywhere. It is clear that, during those years, we developed parts that carry aspects of the victim archetype, which are

• powerlessness

• fragility

• hopelessness

• lack of energy

In general, when we step into any pattern of thoughts and emotions that make us think of ourselves as a victim of others and/or situations, and when this way of seeing the world remains unchanged, we are in the presence of parts what have taken the role of victim. I am not saying that feeling a victim is always an illusion. There may be situations in which we are, indeed, at the mercy of others, and the role of psychotherapy is to bring enough clarity to understand what aspects of the current situation are objectively as we see them, and what aspects of are the result of distortions in our way of seeing the world.

The healthy and unhealthy Victim archetypes

Any archetype can be either healthy or unhealthy. The healthy version of the victim archetype is a warning. If we feel victimised, it means that we need to take actions to get out of that situation. We can learn a lot from the healthy victim archetype, for example

• We can become aware of how we put ourselves in situations of victimhood

• We can recognise the signs of situations that do not serve us, and we can use our energies to make changes.

The unhealthy version of the archetype, unfortunately, is the most common. In this case we feel victim and we remain in this role because we cannot see or refuse to see that we can make changes, or because parts of ourselves are not ready to give up the privileges that being a victim carries.

There are two ways in which the Victim archetype surfaces in ourselves

1. Young parts of ourselves (exiles) who have been traumatised because they were victim of abuse, neglect, or other overwhelming events

2. Protector parts (usually managers) who do not want to give up the pay off associated to being a victim; in this case, protectors want to keep the exiling going on to make sure the victim state remains unchanged

Let’s have a look at how both situations look like

Exiles and the Victim archetype

Exiles are the parts of us that, genuinely, felt overwhelmed and powerless at some point in life. These are generally young parts, but traumatic events can happen at any time in life. Exiles are parts of ourselves that not only carry traumatic wounding, but are also kept out of our awareness as much as possible by our protectors.

The protection, though, is never complete and exiles can be triggered by present events. If you have an exile that got traumatised by bullying, you are likely to feel powerless and anxious as soon as someone talks to you or looks at you in a way that reminds the exile of those terrible times of bullying.

The exile, sadly, has not known any alternative to victimhood. Not only the traumatic events left wounding, but there was no protection available from people with power (carers, teachers, etc.). Our system then created protective parts to survive the trauma, and, while the system has made a great job at surviving, the exile remains traumatised and is likely to get triggered over and over again. At this point people usually seek therapy to figure out what is happening to them because, rationally, they see no reason to be triggered.

Exiles hold on to trauma until they are properly healed. IFS has developed a clear technique to provide such healing, and it consists of contacting the exiles with love and compassion to understand what is that they need to heal. Having said that, exiles are healed only when the protective parts have given permission, and only when the exile is ready to let go of the trauma.

If an exile does not want to let go of trauma, we can ask them if they are aware of what reason they have to not let go. Exiles usually know why they are not ready to let go of the wounding. Generally this happens when the exile does not trust the therapist or the client enough and, with time, exiles usually decide to heal.

The situation is rather different when protectors are the ones to stop the healing.

Protectors and the Victim Archetype

It might be counterintuitive, but our protectors can activate our exiles on purpose to utilise the energy that they carry. This is very common when we are under stress and we want to overachieve, overproduce and outperform ourselves or others. At times our system needs a boost in energy, and the best way of getting it (in addition to coffee and other substances) is to trigger exiles.

We might have protectors that have learnt to trigger exiles so that the system is flooded by energy that keeps us awake and productive. This is the mechanism that leads to stress. If our exiles are constantly triggered, we have access to energy that we would not have normally. Our protectors do that to help us achieve our goals, even though this leads to pain, discomfort and to the endless health conditions that are linked to stress.

If our protectors rely all the times on the energy of triggered exiles, we enter a state of chronic stress. You might wonder what this has got to do with the victim archetype, and here is my answer. If you are using the energy of the exiles to generate a stress response in you that gives you an extra boost, you are taking advantage of the victim archetype embodied by your exiles.

People often come to therapy because they have symptoms that are related to stress. The first sessions go very well and the client understands that their exiles are getting triggered by current situations (for example the job is too demanding). At that point I tell my clients that the obvious way forward is to heal that exile… they agree, but, despite trying to contact the exile, no healing happens.

How do we make sense of this? Simply put, there are parts of the client that are scared that, if the exile is healed, the energy of the victim will no longer be available and they will not perform as they should. In order to proceed with therapy, it is necessary to get to know all the protectors who are involved with the presence of an exile and that might be using the wounding of that exile to gather energy.

It might be the case that protectors disagree with the healing of an exile for fear of job or money loss. This is very true for people with high responsibilities who have bet all their life on a project and they are committed to go to any extent in order to succeed. In these circumstances, psychotherapy can only support the client release some of the stress, but no healing is possible and the symptoms will remain until the person decides to change their circumstances.

The tragic case of shame - when protectors cannot stop exiling

The last case I am going to discuss here is, unfortunately, the most painful one, and it is something I find in many cases of OCD.

Shame is the result of overwhelming fear of rejection due to something that is at our core and, therefore, we cannot change. The obvious example is homosexuality. We live in a world in which many countries consider homosexuality illegal and, therefore, only a handful of homosexual people have the freedom to express their sexuality with no fear. Chances are, though, that people feel ashamed of their own sexuality and decide to keep it secret.

From and IFS perspective, hiding something means that there is a part that is feeling the embarrassing thing that needs to be hidden, while other parts target the embarrassment with various strategies to keep it exiled. The exiling strategies are

• judging

• blaming

• feeling disgusted by

• scrutinise

• ignore

• numb

This configuration is the harder hurdle to healing the exile because the system does not want the exile to exist or express themselves. The very existence of the exile is a problem for the system, which has turned against the exile and makes the exile into a victim on purpose. Despite the grave damage to psychological and physical wellbeing that this continuous exiling and victimising generates, the system is too scared (and seldom obsessed) by the presence of the exile and remains stuck in a loop, which we usually label OCD.

Healing is possible, when the time is right

I am going to conclude this article by stating that deciding to heal is a big decision that cannot be taken easily. It is always wise to listen to protectors and to trust that they know the right way for our system to heal.

When we cannot step out of victimhood easily, we simply need to ask the right questions and find out what parts have got something against healing. IFS reminds us, over and over, the “ask the parts”. We do not have to know all the answers and our system will always guide us towards the best way to heal.

https://www.myss.com/free-resources/sacred-contracts-and-your-archetypes/appendix-the-four-archetypes-of-survival/

One final note…

I hope this article has given you some insight into the IFS method. I personally write these articles and they are freely available on my website. I kindly ask that you reference them by quoting this webpage if you use them for personal, professional or educational purposes.

If there are topics you would like to know more about, please let me know.