Iron John, Robert Bly -- The perpetual "victim"

My first and only copy of this book came to me from a church, I believe, when my children were very young.  In and around that time, a men's movement called "Promised Keepers" was underway, inspired and initiated by the convictions of a college football coach.  

Robert Bly is more a poet but here, combines the mystic legends of manhood in combination with sage instruction, instances to reflect (on); here is one excerpt from the book: 

The inner boy in a messed-up family may keep on being shamed, invaded, disappointed, and paralyzed for years and years. "I am a victim," he says, over and over; and he is. But that very identification with victim-hood keeps the soul house open and available for still more invasions. Most American men today do not have enough awakened or living warriors inside to defend their soul houses. And most people, men or women, do not know what genuine outward or inward warriors would look like, or feel like.

When one is a perpetual victim or prey, everyone else is the predator, every challenge or constraint a predation, giving the excuse for  variety of indulgences and excuses.