The Concept Of Codependency And The Problem Of Definition

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Codependency is understood as a violation of personal boundaries in the field of intimate, spiritual relationships, in the field of self-identification: there is a fusion of all the interests of a person with an addict.

It seems to me that the difficulties of defining and defining this concept are associated primarily with two points. Sadly, but addictions are very widespread in society, and in the "era of consumption", in principle, they take on the scale of an epidemic, they talk a lot about them, every second person abuses something, which means that the concepts associated with addiction and codependency are somewhat blurred … Quite often, I find synonymous use of the terms "codependency" and "relationship dependency" (or love addiction). And there, and there, there is a violation of the boundaries between the addict and his environment, close people, and probably not a specialist in this field, or a person who is in such situations, is not always available to differentiate concepts.

Meanwhile, an essential difference is the subject of dependence: in addiction of relations, the subject of dependence is the relationship with another person, the addict endows the other with highly significant features, and through him tries to appropriate a good object. In other words, the addict seems to think that he is bad in himself, but if such a wonderful person is around, then it means that he is also good. All the interests and attention of the addict are placed in a significant loved one, and in order to preserve them, it is necessary by any means to leave this significant loved one nearby.

With codependency, there is some other subject of addiction: a psychoactive substance, gambling or computer games, food and anything else through which the addict gets satisfaction, and the addict's close environment suffers from codependency. Having failed to cope with the pathological changes in the addict's personality, the codependent distorts the boundaries of his own personality in relation to the addict: for example, shares with him responsibility for the use, controlling the addict, or blames and punishes himself, unconsciously encouraging the addict to use. In other words, the relationship with the addict is not for the codependent the subject of his dependence; in psychoanalytic terms, they rather have a situation of triangulation: the dependent, the subject of dependence and the codependent, which is built in between them in various ways.

And the second difficulty in the definition of codependency: there is a temptation to call all relatives of addicts codependent, because when one is dependent, one way or another it affects the lifestyle of the whole family. However, for some of them, the dependence of a family member remains only a sad fact from their own biography, while for others it begins to determine the fundamental ways of building relationships with other people, often repeating the act of triangulation with addiction in later life. And here it seems to me that the basis of differentiation will be the stability of the addict's own personal boundaries: if they managed to be preserved, or restored after the experience of interacting with the addict, then there is no codependency as such.

Therapy for the codependent in any case should be aimed at resolving triangulation, at uncoupling one's own interests, values and plans from the interests of the addict, strengthening one's own personal boundaries, strengthening the ego, and placing charged affects associated with this situation.