In psychology, codependency is a theory that tries to explain imbalanced relationships where one person enables another person’s self-destructive behavior:addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement.
Codependency includes high self-sacrifice, a focus on others’ needs, suppression of one’s own emotions, and attempts to control or fix other people’s problems.
People who self-identify as codependent are more likely to have low self-esteem.
The term codependent was first used to describe persons whose lives were affected through their involvement with a person with a substance use disorder, resulting in the development of a pattern of coping with life that was not healthy as a reaction to that other person’s substance abuse.
Codependency has no established definition or diagnostic criteria within the mental health community.
The concept of codependency carries three different levels of meaning:
An instructive tool that when explained to families, helps them normalize the feelings that they are experiencing and allows them to shift their focus from the dependent person to their own dysfunctional behavior patterns.
A psychological concept describing and explaining human behavior.
A psychological disorder, implying that there is a consistent pattern of traits or behaviors across individuals that can create significant dysfunction.
Codependency is not a disorder, but a relational pattern in which a person attempts to derive a sense of purpose through relationships with others.
A codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.”
A codependent person organizes thinking and behavior around a substance, process, or other person.
Codependency is a form of a relationship addiction, where the affected person has low-self esteem and high neediness, seeking fulfillment from external factors such as being needed by someone else, a situation that turns codependent when that someone is a dysfunctional family member.
Codependency as a psychological disorder, where the codependent partner in serves to increase problems within the relationship instead of decreasing them.
Often people who are codependent are raised in dysfunctional families or with early exposure to addiction behavior, resulting in their allowance of similar patterns of behavior by their partner.
Co-dependence is a recognizable pattern of personality traits, predictably found within most members of chemically dependent families.
Definition of codependency suggests an excessive reliance on other people for approval and for a sense of identity and purpose, and a high self-sacrifice, a focus on others’ needs, suppression of one’s own emotions, and attempts to control or fix other people’s problems.
Codependent relationships are often marked by intimacy problems, dependency, control, denial, dysfunctional communication and boundaries, and high reactivity.
There may be imbalance within the relationship, where one person is abusive or in control or supports or enables another person’s addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement.
The codependent person’s sense of purpose within a relationship is based on making extreme sacrifices to satisfy their partner’s needs.
Codependent relationships signify a degree of unhealthy “clinginess” and needy behavior, where one person does not have self-sufficiency or autonomy.
One or both parties depend on their loved one for fulfillment.
Codependency may occur within the context of relationships with people with diagnosable personality disorders.
There is a tendency for loved ones of people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) to slip into roles of a caretaker, giving priority and focus to problems in the life of the person with BPD rather than to issues in their own lives.
The codependent partner may gain a sense of worth by being perceived as the rational or responsible one.
Narcissists, with their ability to get others to buy into their vision seek and attract partners who will put others’ needs before their own.
A codependent person can provide the narcissist with an obedient and attentive audience.
The reciprocally interlocking interactions of the narcissist/obedient pair are the narcissist’s overpowering need to feel important and special and the codependent person’s strong need to help others feel that way.
In the dysfunctional family, the child learns to become attuned to the parent’s needs and feelings instead of the other way around.
Parenting is a role that requires a certain amount of self-sacrifice and giving a child’s needs a high priority.
A parent can be codependent toward their own child.
Parents who take care of their own needs, emotional and physical, in a healthy way will be a better caretaker, whereas a codependent parent may be less effective or may even do harm to a child.
Codependent relationships often manifest through enabling behaviors, especially between parents and their children.
The needs of an infant are necessary but temporary, whereas the needs of the codependent are constant.
Children of codependent parents who ignore or negate their own feelings may become codependent.
Individuals who struggle with codependency may benefit from psychotherapy-cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness practices.
Codependency is not a diagnosable mental health condition, there is no medical consensus as to its definition.
There is no evidence that codependency is caused by a disease process.