Codependency in relationships describes a dynamic where one person takes on the role as “the giver” and the other person the receiver, “the taker.” One person’s needs are met within the caretaker role, while the other person’s needs are met as the recipient of care. For example, a person with an active addiction seeks out someone who enables this behavior (e.g., financially supports and/or takes on the role of a caretaker (emotionally, mentally, physically, etc.). Originally, then, the term referenced enabling dynamics in relationships where there was substance misuse. However, ironically, both roles are formed around the need to control, such as the caretaker seeking a dependent partner (which helps them to feel in control), and the care receiver seeking a partner that is dependent upon them (again, mentally, emotionally, financially, etc.).
Codependency can emerge in intimate partner situations, within family systems, with friendships, and in workplace relationships. More subtle forms of unbalanced (codependent) relationships:
- One partner is emotionally unavailable and fears intimacy. They find a partner who carries the emotion of the relationship and/or who is also unavailable (e.g., frequent travel for work).
- One partner fears abandonment. They find a partner who is financially, or in other ways dependent upon them, which they believe will reduce the chance that they will leave.
- Low self-esteem, self-doubt, lack of trust in self and/or the world cause a person to settle for an unsupportive, even abusive employer. Something about this familiarity feels safer.
- Unhealed/unresolved feelings of shame (humiliation, rejection, feeling ‘less-than’), which lead to codependent relationships (friends, partners, workplace situations). This moves the focus onto others and is often a means to ignore painful feelings. This situation also perpetuates internalized beliefs of “I'm not good enough”. Again, something about this situation feels safer than leaving.
Despite its pervasive use in recent years, codependency is not a clinical term or a diagnosis (it is not included in the psychiatric diagnostic manual, the DSM-V). In fact, there is no scientific research supporting codependency as a relationship occurrence. As well, feminist and social justice literature largely reject the term, deeming it stigmatizing, pathologizing (e.g., labelling as problematic), and reenforcing stereotypic views of women as dependent.
In a parallel view, the role of individual agency to choose relationship roles as desired, in ways that meet needs, is often minimized in mainstream literature. In other words, each person determines their preferred roles and relationships. They might recognize "unhealthy” choices, yet this somehow meets current needs. On the other hand, if a person is feeling frustrated, exhausted, even resentful from unbalanced give-take dynamics, they might explore this dissatisfaction. Common features to be explored include family systems (therapeutic work), low self-esteem, people-pleasing behaviours, difficulty setting and following through with boundaries, impulses to control, caretaking tendencies, and dependency issues (emotional, psychological, etc.).
For more information please see: Psychology Today (article).
Reading and Workbooks
Codependency Recovery Workbook: Go from Fear of Abandonment, People Pleasing, and Self-Neglect to Thriving in Healthy Relationships (Interpersonal Mastery). (Andy Gardner, 2024). Amazon.
Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives.
(Pia Mellody, Andrea Wells Miller, J. Keith Miller, 2003). Amazon.
Love, Fear, and Health: How Our Attachments to Others Shape Health and Health Care
(Robert Maunder, MD & Jonathan Hunter, MD, 2015)
The authors draw on evidence from neuroscience, stress physiology, social psychology, and evolutionary biology to explain how understanding attachment - the ways in which people seek security in their close relationships - can transform patient outcomes. Using attachment theory, they provide a practical, clinically focused introduction to the influence of attachment styles on an individual's risk of disease and the effectiveness of their interactions with health care providers. Google Books.
Practicing Prodependence - The Clinical Alternative to Codependency Treatment (Robert Weiss & Kim Buck, 2022). Amazon.
Too Much: A Guide to Breaking the Cycle of High-Functioning Codependency (Terri Cole and Sounds True, 2024). Amazon.
The Language of Letting Go: Daily Meditations for Codependents (Melody Beattie, 1990). Amazon.
Comentários