Codependency
I recently got into an active debate with one of my recent LJ Friends about the definition and application of the term Codependency, and how it applies to interpersonal relationships.
This discussion largely fell to the back burner and almost was left on the wayside until I was reading a posting going into some depth on the Heart Chakra (Sanskrit name: Anahata / Meaning: Sound that is made without any two things striking; unstruck), and the term cropped up again as a potential dysfunction that can arise when this Chakra is either too open or too blocked.
Well, it got me to thinking about our debate again, and agreeably, my point of reference and source of definition for Codependency stemmed almost singularly from one source and that was a counselor I was seeing about 6 years ago for marriage counseling for my dysfunctional relationship with my now ex-wife.
A lot of people think that they go to marriage counseling to 'fix' the problems in their relationship so that they can go back to coexisting with each other in a happy and harmonious way. Admittedly, that was what both of us were thinking when I was starting the marriage counseling.
What I discovered along the way was that a (good) marriage counselor will help you to 'resolve' the issues in your relationship, but they do not help you to 'fix' them... this is a huge difference in meaning. Basically, the difference is that, if there is an unhappy situation in the relationship, the counselor will help to shake things up and get you to honestly look at things and make an informed assessment of what you 'want' and what you 'need' and help you to make the hard choices of following what you 'need' over what you 'want'.
This gets into a whole other topic on the difference between 'need' and 'want', but in brief, we don't always 'want' what we 'need' and we don't always 'need' what we 'want' (I want a billion dollars, but I don't need it... I had an infected tooth, I needed a root canal, but I neither wanted the dentist drilling in my mouth nor the bill that followed it that I had to pay).
The ultimate purpose is to break the stagnation (or stalemate) and move you either closer together or be free of each other and move on. Ultimately, a resolution, for better or for worse (at least as far as the relationship goes), but not a fix.
Basically the premise of codependency as it was explained to me was pretty simplistic, and involved a lot of drawings and diagrams.
Simplistically speaking, a codependent relationship is composed of one or more people that define a part of their relationship off of a second person. At least one person in a codependent relationship must be codependent to some degree, and arguably, the second person is too IF they continue to allow this dysfunctional relationship to continue for any real length of time.
There are 2 components to the dysfunctional relationship, and both candidates are equally codependent, but tend to be polar opposites in personality.
The first, is what my counselor called the 'hero' or 'savior' persona. This is the person who (on some level) can function independently, but tends to think that they are needed to continually 'save' or 'support' another person that they have deemed as incapable of saving or supporting themselves.
The second persona, as my counselor would say, is the 'victim' or 'helpless' mentality. This is the person who needs to be defined by having someone continually 'save' them. They tend to be very needy individuals and often seem to lack survival skills or display addictive behaviors.
So, you have these 2 basic people, one who needs saving and one who does the saving. As long as this remains unchecked or unchallenged, both may continue for years without any outward signs of dysfunction because neither complains about this arrangement. they are both getting what they want out of this relationship and each of their codependency traits are being fulfilled.
When one of these supports is broken (ie, one of them shows independence from the other), the remaining codependent person begins to feel that their relationship is threatened and and will often become agitated, expressing this in a multitude of ways such as becoming: emotional, depressed, aggressive, hostile, controlling, withdrawn, subservient, manipulative, etc.
All of a sudden this person starts to find fault with the other person in the relationship for failure to fulfill their codependent part in this dysfunctional relationship (by expressing independence or by expecting independence from the former). They begin to view this person as a 'dirt-bag', or a 'jerk', or any number of other derogatory insults. This is the third (outside) category that my counselor explained to me that is in expressed in the codependent cycle.
=============
Ok, that covers the basics of what my counselor said without going into too much detail or resorting to diagrams.
Now, my LJ Friend attested that this was a bit vague of a definition for actual codependency and one might be able to apply it to any interpersonal relationship between any 2 people. He attested that a true codependent relationship required that both individuals be codependent and specifically that one was controlling and domineering over the other who was submissive, essentially child-like, and incapable of caring for themselves.
At least... I think that was the jist of what he meant without repeating everything that was said.
After much heated debate, we eventually agreed to disagree and I had intended to go and do some follow up research as I realized that my source was very singular and I really should get a few different opinions on the matter at hand. which I promptly forgot to do... until now.
So first stop along the way... check out Wikipedia to see what it says there.
In short, Wikipedia is very narrow in it's scope and definition. It basically asserts that a codependent relationship manifests only when one individual takes it upon themselves to rehabilitate a drug addict specifically and sets themselves up as being better than their 'patient' and adopts a controlling role in their relationship.
Neither myself, nor my LJ Friend were so limiting in our definitions as to say that codependency must necessarily relate to drug rehabilitation specifically... so on to other sources.
A google search turned up the following site: http://www.allaboutlifechallenges.org/codependency.htm
I liked this brief definition, however instead of hero/victim, it set up the roles of codependency as controller/controlled. Effectively, one person in the relationship exerts control over the other, and the other person in the relationship allows the former to control them. This still works in the model that my counselor defined, but it becomes gray as to which role is controller and which is the controlled. In some instances, it is the hero/savior that is the controller, who exerts their domination over their charge to do what is best for them whether they like it or not because they know what is best, and their helpless charge is the one that meekly accepts what is given to them for their own survival, quietly enduring any hardships that may result from this, to include physical or emotional abuse.
However, the flip side of this is equally valid, the victim could be the controller while the hero is the one who is controlled. The victim can sit there and express their neediness and martyr themselves and lay guilt trips and be emotionally abusive to try and coerce the hero-savior to be in a constant state of running around trying to fulfill these seemingly endless needs. Since the hero-savior in this case is motivated by compassion and finds it difficult to say "no" to people, they to be qualified by their counterpart. To quote some passages from this site: "They believe that if they can be good enough, or loving enough, they can change the other person's behavior. They sometimes blame themselves for the abusive behavior" "They have difficulty understanding that instead of helping others by providing things they need, they may actually be hurting them by creating a dependent relationship." "Codependents may feel they never have enough time to fulfill all of their commitments because they have made too many."
codependents.org offers this page to help people recognize the Patterns and Characteristics of Codependence
Mental Health America goes on to say on their Co-dependency Factsheet that:
"Co-dependency is a learned behavior that can be passed down from one generation to another. It is an emotional and behavioral condition that affects an individual’s ability to have a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship. It is also known as “relationship addiction” because people with codependency often form or maintain relationships that are one-sided, emotionally destructive and/or abusive. The disorder was first identified about ten years ago as the result of years of studying interpersonal relationships in families of alcoholics. Co-dependent behavior is learned by watching and imitating other family members who display this type of behavior."
"Co-dependents often take on a martyr’s role and become “benefactors” to an individual in need. A wife may cover for her alcoholic husband; a mother may make excuses for a truant child; or a father may “pull some strings” to keep his child from suffering the consequences of delinquent behavior."
"The problem is that these repeated rescue attempts allow the needy individual to continue on a destructive course and to become even more dependent on the unhealthy caretaking of the “benefactor.” As this reliance increases, the co-dependent develops a sense of reward and satisfaction from “being needed.” When the caretaking becomes compulsive, the co-dependent feels choiceless and helpless in the relationship, but is unable to break away from the cycle of behavior that causes it. Co-dependents view themselves as victims and are attracted to that same weakness in the love and friendship relationships."
This discussion largely fell to the back burner and almost was left on the wayside until I was reading a posting going into some depth on the Heart Chakra (Sanskrit name: Anahata / Meaning: Sound that is made without any two things striking; unstruck), and the term cropped up again as a potential dysfunction that can arise when this Chakra is either too open or too blocked.
Well, it got me to thinking about our debate again, and agreeably, my point of reference and source of definition for Codependency stemmed almost singularly from one source and that was a counselor I was seeing about 6 years ago for marriage counseling for my dysfunctional relationship with my now ex-wife.
A lot of people think that they go to marriage counseling to 'fix' the problems in their relationship so that they can go back to coexisting with each other in a happy and harmonious way. Admittedly, that was what both of us were thinking when I was starting the marriage counseling.
What I discovered along the way was that a (good) marriage counselor will help you to 'resolve' the issues in your relationship, but they do not help you to 'fix' them... this is a huge difference in meaning. Basically, the difference is that, if there is an unhappy situation in the relationship, the counselor will help to shake things up and get you to honestly look at things and make an informed assessment of what you 'want' and what you 'need' and help you to make the hard choices of following what you 'need' over what you 'want'.
This gets into a whole other topic on the difference between 'need' and 'want', but in brief, we don't always 'want' what we 'need' and we don't always 'need' what we 'want' (I want a billion dollars, but I don't need it... I had an infected tooth, I needed a root canal, but I neither wanted the dentist drilling in my mouth nor the bill that followed it that I had to pay).
The ultimate purpose is to break the stagnation (or stalemate) and move you either closer together or be free of each other and move on. Ultimately, a resolution, for better or for worse (at least as far as the relationship goes), but not a fix.
Basically the premise of codependency as it was explained to me was pretty simplistic, and involved a lot of drawings and diagrams.
Simplistically speaking, a codependent relationship is composed of one or more people that define a part of their relationship off of a second person. At least one person in a codependent relationship must be codependent to some degree, and arguably, the second person is too IF they continue to allow this dysfunctional relationship to continue for any real length of time.
There are 2 components to the dysfunctional relationship, and both candidates are equally codependent, but tend to be polar opposites in personality.
The first, is what my counselor called the 'hero' or 'savior' persona. This is the person who (on some level) can function independently, but tends to think that they are needed to continually 'save' or 'support' another person that they have deemed as incapable of saving or supporting themselves.
The second persona, as my counselor would say, is the 'victim' or 'helpless' mentality. This is the person who needs to be defined by having someone continually 'save' them. They tend to be very needy individuals and often seem to lack survival skills or display addictive behaviors.
So, you have these 2 basic people, one who needs saving and one who does the saving. As long as this remains unchecked or unchallenged, both may continue for years without any outward signs of dysfunction because neither complains about this arrangement. they are both getting what they want out of this relationship and each of their codependency traits are being fulfilled.
When one of these supports is broken (ie, one of them shows independence from the other), the remaining codependent person begins to feel that their relationship is threatened and and will often become agitated, expressing this in a multitude of ways such as becoming: emotional, depressed, aggressive, hostile, controlling, withdrawn, subservient, manipulative, etc.
All of a sudden this person starts to find fault with the other person in the relationship for failure to fulfill their codependent part in this dysfunctional relationship (by expressing independence or by expecting independence from the former). They begin to view this person as a 'dirt-bag', or a 'jerk', or any number of other derogatory insults. This is the third (outside) category that my counselor explained to me that is in expressed in the codependent cycle.
=============
Ok, that covers the basics of what my counselor said without going into too much detail or resorting to diagrams.
Now, my LJ Friend attested that this was a bit vague of a definition for actual codependency and one might be able to apply it to any interpersonal relationship between any 2 people. He attested that a true codependent relationship required that both individuals be codependent and specifically that one was controlling and domineering over the other who was submissive, essentially child-like, and incapable of caring for themselves.
At least... I think that was the jist of what he meant without repeating everything that was said.
After much heated debate, we eventually agreed to disagree and I had intended to go and do some follow up research as I realized that my source was very singular and I really should get a few different opinions on the matter at hand. which I promptly forgot to do... until now.
So first stop along the way... check out Wikipedia to see what it says there.
In short, Wikipedia is very narrow in it's scope and definition. It basically asserts that a codependent relationship manifests only when one individual takes it upon themselves to rehabilitate a drug addict specifically and sets themselves up as being better than their 'patient' and adopts a controlling role in their relationship.
Neither myself, nor my LJ Friend were so limiting in our definitions as to say that codependency must necessarily relate to drug rehabilitation specifically... so on to other sources.
A google search turned up the following site: http://www.allaboutlifechallenges.org/codependency.htm
I liked this brief definition, however instead of hero/victim, it set up the roles of codependency as controller/controlled. Effectively, one person in the relationship exerts control over the other, and the other person in the relationship allows the former to control them. This still works in the model that my counselor defined, but it becomes gray as to which role is controller and which is the controlled. In some instances, it is the hero/savior that is the controller, who exerts their domination over their charge to do what is best for them whether they like it or not because they know what is best, and their helpless charge is the one that meekly accepts what is given to them for their own survival, quietly enduring any hardships that may result from this, to include physical or emotional abuse.
However, the flip side of this is equally valid, the victim could be the controller while the hero is the one who is controlled. The victim can sit there and express their neediness and martyr themselves and lay guilt trips and be emotionally abusive to try and coerce the hero-savior to be in a constant state of running around trying to fulfill these seemingly endless needs. Since the hero-savior in this case is motivated by compassion and finds it difficult to say "no" to people, they to be qualified by their counterpart. To quote some passages from this site: "They believe that if they can be good enough, or loving enough, they can change the other person's behavior. They sometimes blame themselves for the abusive behavior" "They have difficulty understanding that instead of helping others by providing things they need, they may actually be hurting them by creating a dependent relationship." "Codependents may feel they never have enough time to fulfill all of their commitments because they have made too many."
codependents.org offers this page to help people recognize the Patterns and Characteristics of Codependence
Mental Health America goes on to say on their Co-dependency Factsheet that:
"Co-dependency is a learned behavior that can be passed down from one generation to another. It is an emotional and behavioral condition that affects an individual’s ability to have a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship. It is also known as “relationship addiction” because people with codependency often form or maintain relationships that are one-sided, emotionally destructive and/or abusive. The disorder was first identified about ten years ago as the result of years of studying interpersonal relationships in families of alcoholics. Co-dependent behavior is learned by watching and imitating other family members who display this type of behavior."
"Co-dependents often take on a martyr’s role and become “benefactors” to an individual in need. A wife may cover for her alcoholic husband; a mother may make excuses for a truant child; or a father may “pull some strings” to keep his child from suffering the consequences of delinquent behavior."
"The problem is that these repeated rescue attempts allow the needy individual to continue on a destructive course and to become even more dependent on the unhealthy caretaking of the “benefactor.” As this reliance increases, the co-dependent develops a sense of reward and satisfaction from “being needed.” When the caretaking becomes compulsive, the co-dependent feels choiceless and helpless in the relationship, but is unable to break away from the cycle of behavior that causes it. Co-dependents view themselves as victims and are attracted to that same weakness in the love and friendship relationships."