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Key points
- Savior complexes position the person in need as inferior in some manner.
- Savior complexes are found among medical professionals who treat people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders.
- Doctors must be trained in treating people whom society writes off as beyond repair.
“What do you think made the difference in your recovery?” Megan* asked me with her red lipstick-covered lips stretched into a confident smile as the weighted anxiety blanket pinned my body, bloated from antipsychotic medication, to the chair.
“I dunno, I guess I just got lucky,” I replied, my eyes fixed on the beige carpet that matched the walls of the therapy room.
“How about our program?” Megan was my assigned therapist at the county-run center for young adults who recently experienced their first episode of psychosis. “You’ve been following our suggestions.”
I racked my brain, trying to remember any suggestions she’d given me besides the one I’d ignored, which was to take a lower-level, lower-paying job than I had before I’d gotten sick.
“Um, yes, sorry–you’ve been very helpful.”
It would be years before I understood what was behind Megan's self-congratulatory line of questioning.
It’s true that doctors possess critical knowledge and can prescribe treatments that the average person with schizophrenia can rarely access on their own. This could explain why many in the schizophrenia advocacy space who lack lived experience–caregivers, family members, and doctors–argue for giving medical professionals even more power to decide the circumstances of our lives.
They assert that with greater agency, doctors can help us overcome common barriers to recovery, like substance use and failure to adhere to medication. The creation of CARE courts in my home state of California, which many disability rights groups have argued paves the way to the expansion of involuntary treatment, is just one recent example of such an effort.
But exacerbating the power dynamic between doctor and patient with schizophrenia can feed into a pervasive, collective savior complex within the medical profession. Savior complexes, which position the person in need as inferior because they lack the knowledge and skills to improve their lives that the savior alone possesses, are tragically common among medical professionals who treat patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Doctors must be trained not just in the science of treating psychosis but also in navigating with delicate grace the social context of treating people whom society writes off as beyond repair.
In my experience, many providers view people with schizophrenia spectrum illnesses as unworthy of any significant investment of resources. During the ten-month bout of psychosis I experienced at my onset of schizoaffective disorder, multiple therapists quit on me, either telling me therapy wasn’t productive if they had to work so hard to pull information out of me or running down the clock with checklists of survey questions whose answers they never analyzed. Even after I fully recovered and returned to a higher-level, higher-paying job than before I got sick, I struggled to find a therapist willing to work with me after I disclosed my diagnosis.
The famously poor outcomes for people with schizophrenia likely fuel many doctors’ unwillingness to invest in people with this disease. But, one can’t overlook the reciprocal effect of the medical industry’s unwillingness to invest in us on our own poor outcomes. In light of the fact that many doctors give up on us altogether, the ones who don’t, like Megan, often view themselves as our saviors–which, sadly, all too often justifies a disengaged approach to treatment, as in this view, we should be grateful to receive any treatment at all.
Before Megan ultimately assumed credit for my recovery, she was often unsupportive of it. She discouraged me from pursuing full-time work, tried to cancel sessions despite my assertion that I was “miserable,” passed on opportunities to read my writing and watch my public speaking around my disability, and hardly ever responded to anything I said during our sessions, asking, “What else?” whenever I finished speaking rather than providing analysis or asking follow-up questions. As my "savior," she projected an attitude of inherent superiority as if I was lucky to have her intervention in the first place.
Megan once told me, “You’re miles ahead of all my other patients at this point in their journeys. Most people get stuck in a victim mentality,” implying that these patients don’t recover, not because Megan failed to provide them with adequate care, but because they are unwilling to accept responsibility for their illness. When I managed to recover, she attributed it not to my own resilience or hard work but to her contributions and supervision.
For those who manage to overcome the odds, savior complexes perpetuate the perennial problem of low self-esteem. People with schizophrenia are socialized to hate themselves by a society that rejects and dehumanizes them. Where we might see resilience, strength, and determination in our recovery, the lens of a savior complex means we instead see another’s supposed altruism and the unworthiness they assign us. It was years before I began to take pride in thriving with schizoaffective disorder and overcame the false belief that luck and others’ willingness to treat me were responsible for my improvement.
In theory, initiatives like California’s CARE courts could provide transformative healthcare and save lives. But forcing treatment–particularly treatment fueled by a savior complex–upon a person with schizophrenia can be traumatic and disempowering. Perhaps our focus should not be on foisting treatment upon people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders with the threat of negative consequences if they don’t comply but on making healthcare less traumatic so that people with schizophrenia are more incentivized to participate in their own treatment.
A good first step could be equipping doctors with a much-needed understanding that people with schizophrenia are equal, capable human beings so that providers like Megan affirm our strengths and potential rather than regard us as inferior. Only then will the healthcare system empower people with this illness to be our saviors in sustained recovery.
*name has been changed
