yes, therapy helps!
Wendy's syndrome: people who need the approval of others

Wendy's syndrome: people who need the approval of others

March 29, 2024

We have already spoken in another article about the characteristics of Peter Pan Syndrome. Behind someone who suffers from this syndrome, there is always a person taking care of him.

The Wendy Syndrome

That person is Wendy, and she has an imperative need to satisfy the other, mainly if it is her partner or her children .

Examples of Wendy syndrome would be the father or mother who practically does his homework to his son, who wakes him up every morning so that he does not arrive late to school even though he is old enough to do it alone, always seeks to make life easy for those around him or the housewife who assumes all the responsibilities in the home so that the husband and the children do not have to do it; or a member of a couple who assumes all the duties and makes the decisions and also justifies the informality of their partner before others.


Characteristics of Wendy's Syndrome

To make it clearer, let's look at the characteristics of a person with Wendy Syndrome are:

  • It feels essential for others.
  • Understands love as sacrifice and resignation.
  • Feel the need to care for and protect others by assuming a motherly figure. It ends by assuming the role of the father or mother of your partner.
  • Avoid at all costs that people around him get angry or upset.
  • Try to make others happy constantly.
  • Always seeks to please those around her.
  • He insists on doing things and taking responsibility instead of the other person.
  • Constantly ask for forgiveness for all that you have not done or have not been able to do even when the responsibility is not yours.
  • It is depressed for lack of attention and depends on social acceptance.

Need for security

So far this description can make us remember our mothers and fathers and the reader may think that it is not negative since all this seems like something beautiful and altruistic , but Wendy does not do this for genuine pleasure, but this set of behaviors is done by fear of rejection , for the need to feel accepted and supported and for the fear that no one wants him. What, in short, leads them to be overly servile to others is a need for security .


Emotional dependence

Another negative aspect of this behavioral disorder is that those who suffer from Wendy's syndrome hardly control their own course in life, so they focus on trying to control the lives of other people. It is also likely that a Wendy mother has a child with Peter Pan syndrome.

Those who suffer from this syndrome hardly recognize that this is their reality and their diagnosis, although it's about a non-established clinical entity , it is done because people come to the clinic feeling "burned", oversaturated or overwhelmed. Those who suffer from this syndrome go to the specialist voluntarily.

As in the SPP, the origin of the syndrome is often found in the family history of the sufferer, in which the person felt separated and unprotected, so in adulthood compensates for the lack of direction and protection assuming the role of parents absent or wished to have. And unlike the SPP, Wendy's Syndrome affects more women than men , this may be due to cultural and educational factors.



How to Help a Child with Autism (March 2024).


Similar Articles