SWEET COUPLE

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

SWEET COUPLE

“I am you, you are me,

and we don't need anyone …

Lyrics from a popular song

The focus of the psychotherapist's professional activity is often clients with the problem of codependent relationships.

What is a codependent client like?

Typical characteristics of a codependent personality are involvement in the life of another, complete absorption in his problems and affairs. A codependent person is pathologically attached to another: spouse, child, parent.

In addition to the highlighted qualities, the following are also characteristic of codependent people:

• low self-esteem;

• the need for continued approval and support from others;

• uncertainty of psychological boundaries;

• feeling of powerlessness to change anything in destructive relationships, etc.

Codependent people make the members of their system dependent on them for their entire lives. At the same time, the codependent actively interferes in the life of the addict, control him, knows how best to act and what to do, disguising his control and intervention under love and care. I wrote about this in the article "Aggression of Codependents"

Another member of the couple - dependent - possesses, respectively, opposite qualities: he is lacking initiative, irresponsible, incapable of self-control.

Codependent relationships from a household point of view

It is traditional to view addicts as a kind of social evil, and codependents as their victims. The behavior of codependents is generally socially approved and accepted, while the actions of the addict are unanimously condemned and condemned. And this is not surprising. The addict, due to his pathological attachment to the object of dependence, destroys the family, relationships, and himself, degrading more and more as a person.

From an everyday point of view, everything looks like this - the addict destroys the relationship in every possible way, while the codependent tries to save them.

A psychological perspective on codependent relationships

However, from a psychological point of view, the contribution of the codependent to such a pathological relationship is no less than the dependent. The codependent himself is no less in need of the dependent and he himself maintains this kind of relationship - he is addicted to addict. This is a variant of the so-called "Human" dependence.

Codependents themselves maintain dependency relationships, and when they become difficult to bear, then they turn to a specialist to “cure” the addict, that is, in fact, to return him to his former dependent relationship. Any attempts by the addict to get out of the control of the codependent cause a lot of aggression in the latter.

The function of the addict in a relationship

The partner of the codependent - the dependent - is perceived by him as an object and his function in a pair of codependent-dependent is comparable to the function of the dependent object (alcohol, drug …). This function is to "plug the hole" in the identity of the codependent (in our case, the partner) in order to be able to feel whole, to find the meaning of life. It is not surprising that for a codependent dependent, despite all his shortcomings (from the point of view of society and the codependent himself), it turns out to be so important, because he provides for him the most important function - meaning-forming. Without it, the life of a codependent loses all meaning. Hence the strong attachment of the codependent to the addict. For this, the addict has his own object of attachment - alcohol, drugs, etc.

It is not surprising that the other person occupies such an important place in the picture of the World of the codependent. But for all the need for the other for the codependent and fixation on him, the attitude towards him is purely instrumental - as a function. In fact, the Other for the codependent, due to his egocentric position as the Other, an individual with his experiences, aspirations, desires simply does not exist. Yes, the Other is present in the picture of the Codependent World, even exaggerated, but only functionally.

In terms of psychological development, the dependent and the codependent are approximately on the same level. Undoubtedly, this is the level of the borderline organization of the personality structure with characteristic egocentrism, impulsiveness as an inability to retain affect, low self-esteem, and infantilism (see the article "The World through the Eyes of a Border Client"). The dependent-codependent pair is formed according to the principle of complementarity. It is difficult to imagine a couple of a person with an autonomous self and a codependent.

They also have in common a pathological attachment to the object of addiction. In the case of a codependent personality structure, such an object, as mentioned earlier, is the partner. In the case of a dependent, a "non-human" object. The mechanism of the "choice" of an object is unclear, but in both cases we are dealing with a dependent personality structure.

How do people with this personality structure get to psychotherapy?

Most often, a psychotherapist deals with two types of requests:

1. The request is made by the codependent, and the addict becomes the client of the psychotherapist (the codependent leads or sends the addict to therapy). In this case, we are faced with a standard situation for psychotherapy: the customer is the codependent, and the client becomes the dependent. This situation seems to be prognostically unfavorable for therapy, since here we are not really dealing with the client - one of the necessary conditions of therapy is not observed - the client's recognition of his own "contribution" to the current problem situation, as well as denial of the existence of the problem itself. As an example of the situation under consideration, we can cite cases when parents address a request to “correct” the problematic behavior of a child, or one of the spouses who wants to rid a partner of a pathological habit.

2. The codependent seeks therapy himself. This is a more promising prognostic option for therapy. Here we deal with both the client and the customer in one person. For example, parents seek professional help with a desire to understand a problematic relationship with a child, or one of the spouses, with the help of a psychotherapist, wants to understand the reason for a relationship with a partner that does not suit him.

If in the first case psychotherapy is, in principle, impossible, then in the second the codependent client gets a chance … At the same time, such clients usually do not respond well to psychotherapy, since the range of their problems is due to a basic defect in their psyche. Lack of self-control, infantilism, a limited sphere of interests, "adhesion" to the object of addiction are a serious challenge for the psychotherapist.

Codependent relationships as a system

Working with both addicted and codependent clients is not limited to the therapist-client relationship, but inevitably draws the therapist into the field relationship. The psychotherapist has to work not with one person, but with the system. He is constantly drawn into these systemic relationships. It is very important for the psychotherapist to be aware of this. If he is drawn into systemic relations, he loses his professional position and becomes professionally ineffective, since it is impossible to change the system while being in the system itself.

One of the forms of "pulling" the therapist into the system is the so-called triangles. Triangles are a necessary attribute in the life of addicts-codependents. All the variety of roles that underlie the "games that people play" can be reduced to three main ones - the Rescuer, the Persecutor and the Victim. See about this in more detail in the article Once again about codependency: sister Alyonushka

Features of the therapeutic relationship

Relationship-dependent customers are easily recognized at the first contact. Most often, the initiator of the meeting is a codependent close relative of the addict - mother, wife … Often the therapist's first feeling is surprise. And it is no coincidence. After talking with the calling mother about the problems of her boy, you naturally wonder how old is he? To your surprise, you learn that the boy is 25, 30, or even more …

So you come across one of the central qualities of the addict's personality - his infantilism … The essence of mental infantilism is in the mismatch between the psychological age and the age of the passport. Adult men and women in their behavior demonstrate childish traits atypical for their age - resentment, impulsiveness, irresponsibility. Such clients themselves are not aware of their problems and are not able to ask for help from the environment - usually their relatives turn for help or someone brings them to therapy literally "by the hand." The psychotherapist will have to work with a “little child” who is not aware of his desires, needs, his own separation from the environment. The addicts always remain children for the codependents.

Analyzing the therapeutic relationship in the work with the described clients, it should be noted that they (the relationship) are rather unstable due to resistance in the work from both the client (addicted-codependent) and the therapist.

The codependent (most often the customer of the therapy) is dissatisfied with the results of the work, since the psychotherapist does not do what he would like. He most often deliberately resists therapy, hinders it in every possible way, using an arsenal from the most harmless methods - excuses of the addict to the therapy, to quite serious - threats to both the client of therapy and the therapist himself.

The addict (client) - on the one hand, he consciously wants changes, on the other hand, he unconsciously resists her in every possible way, since he is pathologically attached to the codependent. He is childish, lacking in initiative, he is held back by guilt, fear. He often unconsciously connects the objects of the system to the resistance.

The psychotherapist may also unconsciously turn on the mechanisms of resistance to work. The feelings that he has for the client can hardly be classified as positive: fear, anger, despair …

Fear arises as a result of the fact that the position of the psychotherapist is quite vulnerable, it can easily be harmed, since the content of psychological assistance is not clearly understood by ordinary people. In the work of a psychologist / therapist, there are no clear objective criteria for the success of therapy. The position of a psychologist / therapist is also vulnerable in legal terms - often he does not have a license for this kind of activity due to legislative peculiarities. The position of a specialist is also unstable in terms of competition with medical colleagues - “psychotherapists in law”. Any complaint from a dissatisfied client can create many difficulties for the psychologist / psychotherapist.

Despair stems from the fact that working with such clients is long and slow, and changes are minor and erratic.

Anger is due to the fact that the client is a manipulator, a borderline personality, he is a great specialist in breaking psychological boundaries, including the boundaries of therapy and therapist.

Therapy for a client with a dependent personality structure

Psychotherapy for a client with a dependent personality structure is a long-term project. It is believed that its duration is calculated at the rate of one month of therapy for each client's year. Why is this therapy taking so long? The answer is obvious - this is not a therapy for a specific problem of a person, but a change in his picture of the World and such structural components as the concept of I, the concept of the Other and the concept of Life.

For nonresidents, it is possible to consult and supervise via Skype.

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