Pathological Altruism

     Are you chronically crazy-busy, multi-tasking, harried, stressed-out & sleep-deprived from work, as well as all the work you do at home? Has this now essentially become who you are - your identity (part or subpersonality)? While one part of you may be thoroughly fused with this self-concept, doesn't another part of you resent it? Are you stuck in the glory and hell of being "stressed-out, multi-tasker, super-hero"? You likely started out being altruistic, but now may be feeling the strain of this inner conflict.
     Can you entertain the possibility that this is not who you really are? Is it possible that all the drama, noise & confusion is just a collection of no-longer-helpful habits of mind (conditioning)? Is it possible that you can notice, accept, and with self-compassion, gentleness & persistence, gradually let all of this extra stuff go?
     What will be left behind? Will you be reduced to a puddle of mush unable to do anything? After releasing the noise, only your authenticity remains. Instead of being driven by fear, you will return to being unconditional love and will nurture the people, places, & projects you deal with, like a grandparent caring for a grandchild or a gardener lovingly tending a garden - spontaneously providing what is most appropriate & necessary for all to flourish. Stabilizing in, & acting from authenticity, you are being altruistic in a healthy, sustainable way. Instead of it feeling like a strain & heavy burden, authenticity feels effortless, pleasant, nourishing, right for all concerned.
 
     "When our altruism shifts out of selfless goodness into obligation, duty, or fear … or we simply feel burned out from giving, we may start to churn with negative emotions.
     We may also believe that helping a patient, student, or relative gives us permission to offer unsolicited advice or to control their actions. … Altruism’s edge in these situations can easily crumble when our anxiousness or need to fix take the lead.
     If we can learn to view altruism as an edge, we will become more aware of the risk and peril of this geography, and can realize what’s at stake: harming others, ourselves, and even the institutions in which we serve. If we find ourselves on shaky ground, we can learn to sense when our actions are likely to send us over the edge. In the best of circumstances, we can pull ourselves out of our precarious situations and move back to solid ground.
     When altruism goes over the edge and into the abyss, it becomes pathological altruism, a term used in social psychology. Altruism that is sourced in fear, the unconscious need for social approval, the compulsion to fix other people, or unhealthy power dynamics easily crosses the line into harm. And there can be tough consequences, from personal burnout to the disempowerment of entire countries. It is important to unmask situations where we see pathological altruism operating, whether in the lives of parents, spouses, clinicians, educators, politicians, aid workers, or one’s self. Recognizing and naming this phenomenon has opened the eyes of many who have found themselves slipping down the precarious slope of good intentions gone awry.
     Pathological altruism is defined as “behavior in which attempts to promote the welfare of another, or others, results instead in harm that an external observer would conclude was reasonably foreseeable.” (Barbara Oakley, Ariel Knafo, Guruprasad Madhavan, David Sloan Wilson eds.
“Pathological Altruism.” Oxford University Press, 2011.) 

     A familiar example of pathological altruism is codependency, in which we focus on the needs of others to the detriment of our own, often enabling addictive behavior in the process. I knew a married couple who let their twenty-five-year-old son, alcoholic and unemployed, live in their basement for a while. They didn’t want to kick him out onto the street with no job or home – but his presence strained their finances and, as a their resentment grew, tested their marriage. They tried to make him go to AA and to inpatient rehab, and they found temporary jobs for him, but their attempts to control his behavior and modulate his addiction always backfired. For their son, having a free place to stay wasn’t a good thing either, because he had no incentive to change his situation.
     Other manifestations of pathological altruism include animal hoarding and ‘helicopter’ parenting.
     Parents, teachers, health care professionals, employees within the justice system, and activists working in crisis situations are especially at risk of pathological altruism from exposure to others’ suffering. The consequences can manifest as resentment, shame, and guilt, and also as the toxic sides of the other Edge States: empathic distress, moral suffering, disrespect, and burnout.
     Also, viewing ourselves as ‘saving,’ ‘fixing,’ and ‘helping’ others can feed our latent tendencies toward power, self-importance, narcissism, and even deception of ourselves and others.”

       Joan Halifax. “Standing at the Edge. Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet.” Flatiron Books, 2018.