Emotional rescue
Emotional rescue
15/11/08 13:05 Filed in: Psychology of Love | Psychology
In my life and in my friends and loved ones, I know some very warm, loving and caring people. They have so much to give to someone else and to the world in general. They are giving of themselves by nature. But they keep doing something that makes me cringe every time I see it. They are rescuers.
I have a male friend who is habituated with MySpace, the free cyber-dating agency posing as a social network.
Every so often I look at the friend’s profiles listed on his home page there. My friend subsists in an unhappy marriage. Looking at his MySpace friends, there is a whole coterie of extraordinarily beautiful women. I read their profiles. Almost every one of them is a damaged suffering child crying out for help. Don’t get me wrong. Some of these women are immensely successful; some are stars of stage and screen or media entrepreneurs. But every one is troubled and hurting in some profound way.
My good friend is a wonderfully caring, loving and tender man. He is also a fairly clever man. He remains unhappy. In his own way, I believe that he feels he will find his own happiness by rescuing others and by giving.
It’s not working. He’s a rescuer.
The psychologist, Abraham Maslow, spoke of ‘deficiency love’. The goal of deficiency love is that somehow, some other person will compensate for something one is unable to find in oneself.
In the case of the rescuer and person in recovery, frequently the person in recovery will feel hope that the rescuer will bring about the recovery that they are unable to bring about for themselves. This is often the basis on which the rescuer and the sufferer will first engage in a relationship. It is a deeply flawed rationale since it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for someone to give you that which you cannot find in yourself.
I am sure that there may be many and complex reasons why the rescuer enters a relationship with a sufferer.
There is altruism, of course; simply the belief that they might make a positive difference to the life of another. I wonder though if the pathological need to rescue others might be based on another personal need, a need to bolster one’s sense of self-worth by feeling that one is motivated to do good to another.
In a way, perhaps, entering a relationship as a rescuer might be less demanding than entering a relationship on normal terms with another.
Another difficult aspect of the rescuer / sufferer interaction is that there is a sense that the rescuer enjoys some level of emotional or other superiority in their relationship with the sufferer. It is an unbalanced and unequal partnership. What at first might appear as a loving act of giving and kindness might be a narcissistic act of self-endorsement for a frail ego gained at another’s expense.
If one asks anyone who has successfully undergone recovery from say, an addiction or alcoholism, from an unhappy relationship, or from trauma or victimisation, I suspect they will all tell the same story. They will tell you, almost without exception, how ultimately their recovery came from within themselves, from their own commitment and determination to recover. They were motivated strongly to recover and they did. Others, generally those who are skilled, trained or experienced in helping others in recovery may have assisted or even facilitated the recovery, but ultimately that recovery came from themselves.
Last year, I suffered a serious and potentially fatal illness. I had some wonderful medical treatment. I’m not sure if I was cured exactly. My recovery came from a moment of realisation that in order to get better I needed to add my own strong will and determination to whatever treatment was provided to me. I needed to take responsibility for my own care. Thank goodness, I did, since I had been misdiagnosed as suffering from two conditions, both of which were potentially terminal. In the end, it was found that I had contracted a bacterial infection, that whilst it was life threatening, was curable with antibiotics. The turning point in recovery for me was the moment I decided that I was going to get better and the point when I found the self-belief in me to do so.
The rescuer and sufferer relationship is an entirely risky business.
Without an act of will, even courage or determination from the sufferer, the rescuer may be drawn into an unending process of failure. Worse still they might project an imagined state of recovery upon the sufferer in order to justify or support the idea of the relationship or their actions within it.
There is another shortcoming where the sufferer fails in recovery, and it’s one that I believe that Eric Berne identifies in his book, “Games people play”. The rescuer in engaging with the sufferer who fails to recover may take on a multiplicity of roles. They may even engage in collusion with the sufferer acting in a way that sustains the sufferer’s difficulties or problems (The rescuer buys the drugs or the drink. Berne calls this role “the dummy” or “the Patsy” )
What is more usual is that the rescuer may take on the role of critic or judge. By judging or criticising the sufferer, they free themselves from the idea of failure borne of a false premise that the rescue was in fact possible. This is a damaging place to be as the judge or the critic is one step away from being a persecutor.
So the first and most likely outcome between the rescuer and the sufferer is one of failure. The most damaging consequence for the sufferer is that the rescuer adopts an attitude towards them that reinforces or holds them in the difficulty. Criticisms and judgements do not facilitate recovery.
A second risk for the rescuer and the sufferer is that recovery may be so painful for both parties and tear the relationship apart. People coming out of difficult relationships, addiction or damaging life experiences are not at their best. A relationship that might work at another time may not work when someone is going through recovery.
A third risk is that the sufferer does actually recover and when they do the role of the rescuer no longer makes any sense and has no purpose. The people involved in the relationship may not easily be able to shift roles. The sufferer having recovered may also come to see the rescuer as simply a reminder of a painful and difficult past.
Probably, the greatest risk of all is that the relationship is built on a foundation of difficulty or illness rather than health or wellbeing.
Where recovery becomes the central focus of a relationship, the difficulty or illness itself may represent the foundation of the relationship, rather than an unpleasant time that the sufferer needs to leave behind in their life.
Ultimately, while others can play a role in assisting in recovery, the decision to recover and the pain that it often entails must be borne by the sufferer. Therefore, emotional rescue as the basis of a relationship will, I believe, fail more often than it will succeed. Personally I have never witnessed a relationship based on emotional rescue that has been successful in its outcome, or nurturing of its participants.
Acknowledgements:
Abraham H Maslow, Motivation and personality, 1954
Eric Berne, Games people play, 1964
Robert J Sternberg, Love is a story 1998
I have a male friend who is habituated with MySpace, the free cyber-dating agency posing as a social network.
Every so often I look at the friend’s profiles listed on his home page there. My friend subsists in an unhappy marriage. Looking at his MySpace friends, there is a whole coterie of extraordinarily beautiful women. I read their profiles. Almost every one of them is a damaged suffering child crying out for help. Don’t get me wrong. Some of these women are immensely successful; some are stars of stage and screen or media entrepreneurs. But every one is troubled and hurting in some profound way.
My good friend is a wonderfully caring, loving and tender man. He is also a fairly clever man. He remains unhappy. In his own way, I believe that he feels he will find his own happiness by rescuing others and by giving.
It’s not working. He’s a rescuer.
The psychologist, Abraham Maslow, spoke of ‘deficiency love’. The goal of deficiency love is that somehow, some other person will compensate for something one is unable to find in oneself.
In the case of the rescuer and person in recovery, frequently the person in recovery will feel hope that the rescuer will bring about the recovery that they are unable to bring about for themselves. This is often the basis on which the rescuer and the sufferer will first engage in a relationship. It is a deeply flawed rationale since it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for someone to give you that which you cannot find in yourself.
I am sure that there may be many and complex reasons why the rescuer enters a relationship with a sufferer.
There is altruism, of course; simply the belief that they might make a positive difference to the life of another. I wonder though if the pathological need to rescue others might be based on another personal need, a need to bolster one’s sense of self-worth by feeling that one is motivated to do good to another.
In a way, perhaps, entering a relationship as a rescuer might be less demanding than entering a relationship on normal terms with another.
Another difficult aspect of the rescuer / sufferer interaction is that there is a sense that the rescuer enjoys some level of emotional or other superiority in their relationship with the sufferer. It is an unbalanced and unequal partnership. What at first might appear as a loving act of giving and kindness might be a narcissistic act of self-endorsement for a frail ego gained at another’s expense.
If one asks anyone who has successfully undergone recovery from say, an addiction or alcoholism, from an unhappy relationship, or from trauma or victimisation, I suspect they will all tell the same story. They will tell you, almost without exception, how ultimately their recovery came from within themselves, from their own commitment and determination to recover. They were motivated strongly to recover and they did. Others, generally those who are skilled, trained or experienced in helping others in recovery may have assisted or even facilitated the recovery, but ultimately that recovery came from themselves.
Last year, I suffered a serious and potentially fatal illness. I had some wonderful medical treatment. I’m not sure if I was cured exactly. My recovery came from a moment of realisation that in order to get better I needed to add my own strong will and determination to whatever treatment was provided to me. I needed to take responsibility for my own care. Thank goodness, I did, since I had been misdiagnosed as suffering from two conditions, both of which were potentially terminal. In the end, it was found that I had contracted a bacterial infection, that whilst it was life threatening, was curable with antibiotics. The turning point in recovery for me was the moment I decided that I was going to get better and the point when I found the self-belief in me to do so.
The rescuer and sufferer relationship is an entirely risky business.
Without an act of will, even courage or determination from the sufferer, the rescuer may be drawn into an unending process of failure. Worse still they might project an imagined state of recovery upon the sufferer in order to justify or support the idea of the relationship or their actions within it.
There is another shortcoming where the sufferer fails in recovery, and it’s one that I believe that Eric Berne identifies in his book, “Games people play”. The rescuer in engaging with the sufferer who fails to recover may take on a multiplicity of roles. They may even engage in collusion with the sufferer acting in a way that sustains the sufferer’s difficulties or problems (The rescuer buys the drugs or the drink. Berne calls this role “the dummy” or “the Patsy” )
What is more usual is that the rescuer may take on the role of critic or judge. By judging or criticising the sufferer, they free themselves from the idea of failure borne of a false premise that the rescue was in fact possible. This is a damaging place to be as the judge or the critic is one step away from being a persecutor.
So the first and most likely outcome between the rescuer and the sufferer is one of failure. The most damaging consequence for the sufferer is that the rescuer adopts an attitude towards them that reinforces or holds them in the difficulty. Criticisms and judgements do not facilitate recovery.
A second risk for the rescuer and the sufferer is that recovery may be so painful for both parties and tear the relationship apart. People coming out of difficult relationships, addiction or damaging life experiences are not at their best. A relationship that might work at another time may not work when someone is going through recovery.
A third risk is that the sufferer does actually recover and when they do the role of the rescuer no longer makes any sense and has no purpose. The people involved in the relationship may not easily be able to shift roles. The sufferer having recovered may also come to see the rescuer as simply a reminder of a painful and difficult past.
Probably, the greatest risk of all is that the relationship is built on a foundation of difficulty or illness rather than health or wellbeing.
Where recovery becomes the central focus of a relationship, the difficulty or illness itself may represent the foundation of the relationship, rather than an unpleasant time that the sufferer needs to leave behind in their life.
Ultimately, while others can play a role in assisting in recovery, the decision to recover and the pain that it often entails must be borne by the sufferer. Therefore, emotional rescue as the basis of a relationship will, I believe, fail more often than it will succeed. Personally I have never witnessed a relationship based on emotional rescue that has been successful in its outcome, or nurturing of its participants.
Acknowledgements:
Abraham H Maslow, Motivation and personality, 1954
Eric Berne, Games people play, 1964
Robert J Sternberg, Love is a story 1998
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