La tragédie des sauveurs: Ou le besoin ardent d'être aimé

by Hélène Vecchiali

Qui sont ces inlassables sauveurs qui deviennent victimes de leur besoin ardent d’être aimés ? Ce sont des héros du quotidien qui poussent leur altruisme à l’extrême. Ils souffrent pourtant d’au moins deux tragédies : ils ont subi un entraînement précoce au sein de leur famille… et ne récoltent jamais l’amour tant espéré.
Hélène Vecchiali, psychanalyste et autrice renommée, nous dit tout sur les syndrome du sauveur, plus répandu qu’il n’y paraît. Elle analyse le drame intime de celui qui détient le pouvoir de sauver, mais qui, désespérément, cherche à être sauvé lui-même. Elle décortique avec tendresse son mode opératoire… et propose les pistes pour s’en libérer.

171 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 6, 2024

Reviews

[Ariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good psychology book about the savior complex. It explores the concept in depth and explains its different branches and manifestations in a detailed and structured way. I definitely recommend it.The reason I’m giving it 4/5 stars is the writing style;at times, the explanations feel overly technical and use professional terminology that isn’t always clearly explained. Other than that, it’s a very insightful and valuable read.

[Alexa Petre · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was recommended to me as part of a personal development endeavor I decided to pursue.

It was really useful and even eye-opening to understand the multitude of mechanisms saviours get into in order to fulfil their mission - to distract themselves from a wound they incurred long time ago and that it is probably still bleeding. I was surprised to see how many behaviors are actually saviour-material.

The book is written in an accessible language, without specialised terms or going into too much psychological detail. In my opinion, this is both a quality and a flaw, as it was super easy to read and even easier to remember parts of it. However, at times I felt the explanations were over-simplified and even borderline subjective. The final part about famous saviours in history seemed superflous.

All in all, an eloquent and useful book about the saviour's syndrome. Definitely worthwhile reading for anyone who resonates with saving others' as a coping mechanism for life, or who is living with such a saviour and would like to, or perhaps need to, understand that person better.

[G · Rating 3 out of 5]

According to Vecchiali, the saviour has two traits that are characteristic. A grandiosity, meaning that they invent a persona who is similar to Superman or Wonder Woman. That is perfect, knows a lot, posses a lot of strength, ready to help. I would rather say grandiosity implies the saviour to also be self-infatuated, so disagree a bit with the using the term “grandiosity”, as some times the saviours who are not narcissists, have low self esteem.

This comes from not being sufficiently seen and validated as a child, therefore he develops the immense force to be the saviour of others in search of validation. And he looks for love in return, but love is unconditional, so he only gets (temporary) admiration for his support - not love.

The second trait is the depression, when they realise they couldn’t save the day or satisfy completely the requirements of others. They do not get the so much sought after admiration and adulation.

The consequence of such a behaviour is that the saviour loses himself by focusing too much on the others. And worst is that he avoids healthy relationships with independent people in favour of relationships with people that are not (temporarily) self-sufficient, which he sees as his mission to save. And leave dissatisfied when the saved person becomes independent.

The first 50 pages were good, but the following was below par. I feel I didn’t learn much by reading the book. It’s quite superficial. And quite expensive also for what it has to offer in return. Perhaps because it is a relatively recent release, in 2024.

Especially the last part, in which examples of famous people that have sacrificed their lives to help others (Gandhi, Lincoln) seems very out of the context, because of the great contribution to our society. We do need heroes like these and I don’t think they were motivated by the adulation of people. But rather by a feeling of mission or purpose in life.

[Alessandra Von Dee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learned a lot about myself from this book…