Introduction

We’ve all done it.

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I know I have — and I’m not proud of the fact.

I bet you’ve done it too.

It’s not something I’ve made a habit of but sometimes it’s helped me gain an advantage.

What I’m talking about is the concept of pseudo-helplessness.

Pseudo-helplessness (or feigned-helplessness) is a situation where you pretend to be helpless or incapable of doing something. The reality, however, is that you are perfectly capable of managing. But for some reason you don’t want to.

So, why would anyone feign helplessness?

There’s no single answer to that question. But amongst the many possible answers are:

• To avoid responsibility,
• To gain attention,
• To manipulate others,
• The fear of rejection,
• A desire to be cared for,
• A lack of confidence.

I mention these in particular as they appear to be particularly relevant in the context of ageing parents. And this is primarily the focus of this article: pseudo-helplessness in ageing parents.

People of any age, any background, male or female — just about anyone — can display pseudo-helplessness behaviour. Although my focus in this post is ageing parents, I will make reference to other groups.

Let’s look more closely at the concept of pseudo-helplessness.

What Is Pseudo-Helplessness?

Pseudo-helplessness is not new. It has a long history.

Remember that pseudo-helplessness (or feigned-helplessness is where you pretend to be helpless). So, let’s have a look at a few historical examples.

Literary examples abound. For example in Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, Moll feigns helplessness to help her marry wealthy suitors. And in Oliver Twist, Fagin’s gang take advantage of their perceived helplessness as children to assist them in their criminal pursuits.

Fairy tales, as you might guess, overflow with examples. The wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, when disguised as the grandmother, appears weak and acts helpless to deceive Little Red Riding Hood.

Again, it will be surprise to find that the psychological literature is replete with direct or indirect references to pseudo-helplessness. Freud’s idea of regression comes to mind.

Regression, according to Freud is a coping mechanism where we revert to the behaviours of an earlier stage of our development. Regression is regarded as unconscious behaviour and pseudo-helplessness conscious behaviour. However, the demarcation between what is unconscious and what is conscious behaviour is not as clear cut as we might think.

Adler’s inferiority complex is another good psychological example of pseudo-helplessness. Exaggerating our weaknesses to gain sympathy or avoid life’s challenges are classic displays of Pseudo-helplessness.

So, the above examples give you a fair idea of how well established pseudo-helplessness is in cultural and social life. Also, you may have picked up that the name pseudo-helplessness is not often used. The expression appears to be of more recent use.

I want to look at one other example of pseudo-helplessness that I consider to be pretty important. It comes from a philosopher — one of the 20th century’s most influential philosophers — Jean Paul Sartre.

Jean Paul Sartre and Bad Faith (Mauvaise Foi)

Sartre was an undoubted genius. He wrote works on philosophy, he wrote novels and he wrote plays. His philosophical works, in far too many places, can be infuriatingly, frustratingly — but forgivably opaque.

We forgive him his opaque writing because in places he offers us some of the most profound psychological and philosophical insights into the arcana of the human condition.

One of those beautifully lucid insights is Sartre’s concept of bad faith.

I have written extensively about Sartre and how his ideas relate to ageing. In particular, I have addressed the concept of bad faith in The Truth about Ageing and Bad Faith.

Bad faith is a type of self-deception. We lie to ourselves to avoid the pain of responsibility.

Sartre tells us — using one of the most evocative phrases in philosophy — that we are condemned to be free. What he means is that we have to make decisions; we have to choose.

You’d think that being free is a good thing. But in the Sartrean world, it’s certainly not always a good thing. And the reason for this is the responsibility it places upon us.

We can’t avoid our radical freedom because even not choosing is a choice. And this radical freedom can place such an overwhelming burden upon us that we try to escape it.

We escape our freedom by deceiving ourselves into acting as though we have no choice — and this is what Sartre calls bad faith.

Can you can see where the connection with pseudo-helplessness lies?

Let me give you a real life example.

I had a good friend, whom we’ll call Tom. Tom became a university lecturer — in history — in his late 40s. He left his job as a civil servant at the Inland Revenue (as it was then called).

He was not a very good lecturer. There was a constant stream of student complaints. Tom was very knowledgeable but he just couldn’t explain things to people.

There was a greater challenge for Tom: time management. Students would hand in essays in October and if they were lucky they’d get them back around February.

Tom did a time management course where it was suggested to him that he used prioritised to do lists. Tom gave to do lists a shot. After a few weeks, he started a to do list for his to do list. I kid you not.

When he started a to do list to populate the to do list for his to do list … he gave up.

Tom would come to work about 8.00–8.30 in the morning and Monday to Thursday he rarely left before 9.00 pm. More than once, he got locked in — so you can imagine how popular he was with the security staff.

Tom was often off work through sickness — usually work related stress. During these absences, his colleagues covered for him but they didn’t do everything. Tom would come back and there’d be exams to mark, essays to mark, new exams to set…

…and Tom would be in a worse position than when went off.

Tom would tell anyone who would listen — and people who wouldn’t listen — that he was not cut out to be a university lecturer. He should never have left the inland revenue. He was a much better administrator than an academic.

The truth was, he struggled in his job as a civil servant. That was why he left. He thought academia would be easier.

People were always ready to help Tom. He was one of those people who gained the sympathy of other people. Colleagues would cover his lessons so that Tom could catch up on his marking — he never caught up.

Colleagues would write his exams so that Tom could prepare his lectures — he was always ill-prepared.

Colleagues would do some of his marking so that Tom could attend department meetings — he was always late for meetings and always left early.

Tom consistently denied his responsibility for the job he was now in and allowing others to help him kept him in a cycle of dependency.

Pseudo-Helplessness and Ageing Parents

So, let’s tie everything together and look at how ageing parents can display pseudo-helplessness.

If you have ageing parents, grandparents — or even great grandparents — this will be of interest to you.

It always seems to me that with ageing parents the two big dangers are over-protective children and over-dependent parents. It’s probably not quite as simple as that. But those two extremes are problematic. Over-protective children is a topic for another post.

I have written before about the challenges that I had with my ageing father. Until 2019, we lived some 200 miles from each other. In that year, because of his poor health he moved close to us (my wife and I) where we rented an apartment for him.

I went out of my way not to be an over-protective, interfering child. I’d had experience of this in my professional life. I didn’t want him to become dependent on me or anyone.

I thought that was what he wanted. We talked about it and he seemed to agree. I recall saying to him how I didn’t want him to become dependent on me — or anyone for that matter.

My father died in 2020. When I reflect on my experience in his final 18 months, I now believe that he wanted that over-protection. I was well aware of the concept of pseudo-helplessness. And he displayed it with a guilt coating.

I’ll give you an example in a moment. Before I do, let’s just take a little excursus into the realms of ageing parents more generally. The book I mention below you will find extremely useful.

Excursus

Quite a few years prior to my father’s moving close to us I’d got hold of a book called You and Your Aging Parent by Barbara Silverstone and Helen Kandel Hyman. The book is first class.

[Incidentally, the link above is an Amazon affiliate link, if you click it and buy the book I receive a small commission at no cost to you.]

I got the book because I knew the day was going to come when my father was, more than likely, going to need some help from me. Until he was in his late 80s, he was pretty much independent — but slowly things were changing.

Silverstone’s and Hyman’s book was a troubling read. It alerted me to a number of things that I was to experience with my father — and some things I’d already experienced. I’ll just give you one little nugget. On page 55 of my copy (the 3rd edition) they write:

Older people are just as capable of playing games as younger people; in fact, they may become more skilful over the years.

When I read that now I don’t know why it surprised me. In my professional life, I run a domiciliary care business. I experience that type of behaviour, at least vicariously, almost daily.

I knew that older people could behave like that but I refused to believe that may father could be so … devious. He could. And my wave of cognitive dissonance dissipated on the harsh rocks of reality.

So, let’s go back to my father and examine a classic example of pseudo-helplessness.

The TV’s Not Working Again

I still find this difficult to work out.

Had you asked me 20 years ago, I’d’ve told you, emphatically, that there is no way my dad would ever want to spend too much time with me.

Our relationship was okay, but we had little in common and our conversations were usually strained.

My dad died in 2020 a couple of months short of his 94th birthday. For the best part of 10 years our contact was a brief weekly ‘phone call and a visit at Christmas.

And yet, almost from the day he moved into his apartment, he did everything he could to get me there and keep me there.

Having my own business, I was in a privileged position in having time to see him each day and prepare him some lunch. And we fell into a ritual in taking our leave from each other.

I’d say, “I need to go now.”

My dad would say, “You’re not going are you?”

I’d reply, “I have to get back to work.”

He’d reply, “Yes, work comes first.”

I could write a full article on how he said “Yes, work comes first.” I accept I might have been inferring things where there was nothing to infer.

But every time I heard it a monologue ran though my head that began “I’m going to do everything I can to make you feel very guilty. Yes, work comes first. But you know, I don’t really mean that. I come first.”

And the monologue would continue…

…and start again the next day.

One of his favourite ploys was to tell me — usually as I was just about to leave — that his TV wasn’t working. A nice variation on this was to telephone me to let me know his TV wasn’t working.

The TV always worked. Sometimes it was unplugged. Sometimes, he’d take the batteries out of the remote. Sometimes — often — he’d forget how to use the remote.

Forgetting how to use the remote was a masterstroke on his part. He’d had the TV for the best part of 10 years so he never, in fact, forgot how to use it. But, when he claimed to forget how to use it he would then get me to talk him through the steps so that he could take notes.

I’d ask him where the notes were that he took last time. He tell me, he’d lost them or couldn’t find them.

So we’d make new notes: And believe me that took time.

Silverstone and Kandel have an example in their book that as similarities. They tell the story of John whose mother could turn helpless overnight. Amazingly, she would often turn helpless when John and his family were about to go on holiday, or John was particularly busy at work.

She’d telephone John and begin by saying “You’re going to be very upset with me.” (My dad omitted such niceties.) John was expected to drop everything and the authors say “…John allowed his mother to run his life and his family’s.”

John’s not the only one who made this mistake. I did so with my dad. And I bet dozens of you are nodding your heads because you’ve done it or are doing it too.

Let’s finish by look at my experience with my dad and interpret it in terms of pseudo-helplessness and Sartrean bad faith.

Pseudo-Helplessness

My father’s behaviour is a prime example of pseudo-helplessness. There are many other examples I can give, but I’ll save these for other posts.

He could work his TV perfectly well. If I’m being charitable, there were occasions when he had, probably, disconnected his TV without realising it. And on at least one occasion, the batteries in his remote had gone flat.

His behaviour, though, was textbook pseudo-helplessness.

There is, however, a note of discomfort in this story. One of the reasons people display pseudo-helplessness is because they fear rejection. He did say to me on several occasions that he feared I might not continue to care for him.

I thought this was an attempt at manipulation. Another attempt to make me feel guilty. It was something I’d never have done. I think, with a pretty high degree of probability, that he knew that.

But I’m not sure.

A Sartrean Interpretation

Sartre said that we must make choices. Our choices, however, are always restricted. There are things we cannot, on a practical level, choose. Our physical and mental abilities place limitations on our choices.

My dad chose his pseudo-helplessness. He knew, once he had got me to go to his rescue once, that his behaviour would work time and time again. I pretty sure that the first time his TV didn’t work, it was something genuine. But his behaviour elicited a favourable response.

Bad faith is a type of self deception, and so is pseudo-helplessness. Did there come a point when my dad truly believed that he was incapable of working his TV?

I’m pretty sure he knew what he was doing.

Conclusion

You know, one of the frightening things for me is that, in my autumn years, I might behave in the same way as my dad.

I guess a few of you reading this may be thinking the same thing.

I leave you with a passage from Silverstone and Kandel. Sadly, I think this is spot on. There are some people in the pseudo-helplessness group, they say,

Who make self-pity their way of life, exploiting their old age and their incapabilities in order to gain an inappropriate amount of time and attention.

But my adult life has been deeply influenced by the thought of Jean Paul Sartre and existentialist thought more generally. Life is about choices. And as long as we have the capacity to choose the life we choose is the life we choose.