INFJ Savior Complex

INFJ personality types are natural healers, and because we are natural healers we are attracted to wounds in other people. When we meet another person and get to know them, we see beyond their social mask. We see their essence as a person, and we also see the potential they have as a person, which means we can see the person they could potentially grow into if they did the inner work.

Our vision of the person’s potential often eclipses what they currently are, and it’s all too easy for the INFJ personality type to get lost in that vision. If the person has deep wounds, we also see that they need help, and much of the time we determine that we will become whatever that person needs us to become in order to help them.

The process of idealizing another person’s potential, and then changing ourselves to become whatever that person needs in order to reach that potential is a process that feeds into our own childhood wounding. Because so many INFJ personality types have emotionally immature parents, we often adopt the belief that, to be loved, we must be needed, useful, and/or enmeshed with the parent. We also adopt the belief that we aren’t allowed to have any needs of our own. Then, in adulthood, we go on to repeat this pattern with different wounded people.

However, it’s impossible to process growth and healing for someone else, and it’s also very difficult to get your needs met by someone with severe unresolved wounds. They often can’t even meet their own needs, much less yours. We must step back and disengage from our expectations of them in the relationship.

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