Survivor’s Guilt

A form of guilt that is experienced when individuals believe that they are – simply by furthering their own causes – experiencing good things at the expense of others, and that their success will make others feel bad by compassion. They assume irrationally that the attainment of good things is unfair to those who have not attained them, or is at the expense of those who have not attained them.

Reference:
O'Connor, L. E., Berry, J. W., Weiss, J., Bush, M., & Sampson, H. (1997). Interpersonal guilt: The development of a new measure. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 53(1), 73-89. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-4679(199701)53:1<73::AID-JCLP10>3.0.CO;2-I

Weiss, J. (1986). Unconscious guilt. In J. Weiss and H. Sampson (Eds.), The psychoanalytic process: Theory, clinical observation and empirical research (pp. 43-67). New York: Guilford Press.