Here is my third blog in this series supporting the work laid out by Dan Griffin and Rick Dauer in their article Rethinking Men and Codependency in the Addiction Professional. In that article, they name nine relational skills they believe are essential to healthy codependency recovery for men including conflict resolution, emotional expression, healthy boundaries, and self-care. As in my past blogs, my comments which follow are offered for both men and women.

I agree with all of their nine identified relational skills. And I believe there are many skills within those skills that have to be learned. In my book, Disentangle: When You’ve Lost Your Self in Someone Else I present more than 50 of those skills divided into four areas of work for our Self: Facing Illusions, Detaching, Setting Healthy Boundaries, and Developing Spirituality.

For example, learning how to detach and gain some emotional distance involves learning that I am a separate individual from the other person and to differentiate what is theirs and what is mine, learning to observe my self and the other so as to act not react, and paying attention to my motivations as I interact.

Learning to set healthy boundaries involves learning how to quiet our self, how to listen to our self, how to know what is true for our self in a given situation, being able to assert our boundary, being able to stick with our boundary, and learning how to manage our self as we feel the various feelings that come from stating and standing firm with our boundary.

The skills are numerous and important. Why don’t we already know these things? Well, it is likely that the roles we have taken on over our lifetime and the related socialization influences discussed previously have limited the skills we needed. We have operated in our prescriptive ways over and over. The good news is that you are reading this and are interested in change. New relational skills will definitely help with those changes.

This is the second in three blogs responding to the article in Addiction Professional on Rethinking Men and Codependency. In my previous blog, I cited three points with which I resonate. The second point here is the role of socialization in the origins of codependent behaviors.

In their article, Griffin and Dauer focus on codependency in men as an expression of their socialization based on gender. They look specifically at relational cultural theory emphasizing how men are raised to be separate, independent individuals who are taught the use of power and control on their way to manhood. In these ways, they do not learn ways to interact and form emotionally honest, healthily connected relationships. In their article they list important ways in which these effects of socialization are expressed in male codependent behaviors.

I, too, believe that our socializations are very important to understand as we look to make changes away from codependent behaviors. As I have written and presented on this topic of codependency over the past ten years, I have come to think of the influences contributing to codependency in the form of three concentric circles:

In the center circle is the individual, our core self who we are always attending to and cultivating. This self includes at least four areas: physical, cognitive, emotional, and spiritual

The second layer around the center circle is the family system which includes our family-of-origin as well as whatever constitutes our current family. This layer is emphasizing the influences of our family systems on the roles and rules we have developed over our lifetime.

The third layer around the center circle includes the social/cultural/political worlds in which the individual and their family systems live.

As I say in My Life as a Border Collie: Freedom from Codependency, “Each of these outer layers has profound effects on the individual it surrounds. To understand codependence in the individual without seeing these layers of influence on them is incomplete” (p. 28).

August 22, 2012

I am often looking for articles on codependency whether on the internet, in conference programs, or new books and articles. Just last week I opened the on-line Addiction Professional magazine to find an article on Rethinking Men and Codependency. It is an interesting article with thought, theory, and treatment recommendations. I am pleased every time I see that others understand the importance of this topic to both recovery and to good mental health and good relationships.

There are several points made in the article which I resonate with: seeing codependent behaviors on a continuum, understanding the role of socialization in the origins of codependent behaviors, and teaching relational skills as a means of treatment. I appreciate that the article is addressing men and codependency specifically, and yet here in my comments, I will simply be responding to their offerings about codependency itself. In this blog I will be addressing the first of the three points I list above: seeing codependent behaviors on a continuum. I will respond to the other two points in future blogs.

This article caught my eye right on the first page when the authors state that codependency pathologizes intrinsically human behaviors and that codependency can be viewed on a continuum of relational behaviors: independent, interdependent, and codependent. I agree with these premises.

My use of the continuum in working with codependency involves this: I believe that it is important to look at codependence in terms of the behaviors associated with it and then to look at those behaviors on a continuum from OK to Going Too Far. Devotion, care-taking, hard work, serving, and pleasing others can all have a healthy place in our relationships. Our assignments are to be aware of these behaviors, to be aware of any tendencies we may have to lose our self in these behaviors, to learn to intervene on our behalf as we start moving too far down the continuum of a particular behavior, and to then apply our knowledge and skills to find that ever-changing balance point of care of self and others that offers the health we seek.

April 27, 2012

Please know that these blogs are but brief looks at material that is covered in numerous books and articles. My intent here is to just keep pointing us all in directions that will increase our self-understanding and potential for healthy changes in our lives. I will be sharing the names of resources as we go along for you to explore further just as I am doing.

I have known of the work of Alice Miller, particularly her book The Drama of the Gifted Child, for the past 20 years, and yet not until this past year did I stop and intentionally study her work. I knew that therapists working with the inner child model quoted her and had built some of their work from hers. As I continued to write about codependency, I knew it was important for me to keep reading and learning. Alice Miller is one of the resources I studied, and I was thrilled to learn what she says and how it applies to codependency.

Alice Miller never uses the word “codependent,” but the “gifted child”‑ the child who is sensitive, intelligent, alert, and attentive - shares many characteristics with the codependent. But first a bit more background:

Alice Miller was a psychoanalyst who developed her material from both her professional and personal understandings. The Drama of the Gifted Child was first published in German in 1979 under the title Prisoners of Childhood. It was published in English in 1981 as The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self. This subtitle is so powerful and telling as far as I am concerned. Many of us now know that recovery from codependency is in fact the finding and developing of our True Self.

Miller maintains that in very early childhood some parts of our true self were split-off from us as a result of the way we were treated by our primary caretaker. Our feelings and needs were not attuned to and responded to by that caretaker. We were not mirrored and echoed by them. Instead, we learned to attune to the feelings and needs of our primary caretaker and to try to respond to what we believed they needed and wanted from us. Those needs of the primary caretaker for our mirroring of them were at an unconscious level within them and likely to have come from the parenting they received.

As a result of these experiences, we developed a strong capacity to attune to the feelings and needs of others and to respond to those feelings and needs as best we can. In doing this, we disconnected from our own feelings and needs. I see this as the very early seeds of focusing on the external and not our internal. And because we were not mirrored by our primary caretaker, we are unable to see and know our self. We thus developed a false sense of self vs. a true sense of who we are and how to respond to both our self and others in healthy ways.

Ways to help our selves with this false self vs. true self will follow in later blogs.

April 20, 2012

You have read my blogs and tweets from Codependence Camp. After our last Camp earlier in April, I decided to blog about some of the things we are learning at Camp, but first, a bit about Camp.

Codependence Camp occurs in a bed-and-breakfast setting in southwest Virginia. It is the home of my close colleague and friend, Margaret. Camp occurs twice a year, and we have had 14 Camps. We meet for 2 days and 1 night and use at least 9 hours of our time to study and learn about ourselves and codependency. We also have time for walks, expressive arts, mindfulness practices, rest, great meals, laughter, and a campfire, of course.

In our previous Camps we have studied everything from understandings of codependency to extensive skills to help us with healthy self-growth. Each Camp helps us to see where we are in our growth and what would be good to work on in future Camps. After our Camp last October, it was clear that we were ready and wanting to look further at the deeper roots of our codependency so as to increase our self-understanding and learn more ways to make these changes we desire for our self.

My plan in this blog series is to share with you some of the sources we studied including the work of Alice Miller, attachment theory, and family systems theory as well as the rules and roles that encourage our codependency. With this information in mind, I will then blog on what we are trying to accomplish in our recovery from codependency as well as specific things we can do to meet those recovery goals.

December 19, 2011

It is normal to want things and to get attached to that which is important to us. People, places, and things share our existence and enrich the quality of our life, or at least they should enrich our lives. Disentangling is not about ending the good attachments we have in life. It is about shedding unhealthy and dysfunctional attachments that detract or take away from the quality of our life.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - IV (DSM-IV) indicates that a disorder exists if whatever condition present causes significant distress or problems in one or more important areas of one’s life. These important areas of life include health, relationships, work, etc. A few examples of such problems that can come from unhealthy attachments include:

  

Loss . . . of job, of temper, of friends, of family, or anything else we deem important.

Neglect. . . of spouse, of children, of ourselves, of our health, of our work, financial, or school-related responsibilities.

Failure. . .to prepare for the responsibilities of life or to show up for life, for example by isolating or staying in bed all day or all week not due to a physical illness. 

The result of these losses, negligence, or failures on our part is that they take up space in our mind, and our mental preoccupation with them drains us of our life’s energy. The preoccupation of our mind will cause us to engage in unhealthy behaviors. Pursuing, watching, sneaking, and above all waiting, drains us causing us to neglect other more important areas of our lives. Our focus narrows, and we concern ourselves only with the needs of the other person. As this preoccupation with the other person grows, our Self will wither and die deep down inside. When given the choice of meeting our own needs or that of another, we will choose to neglect ours in favor of those of the other person. As the unhealthy attachment continues to grow, we sink deeper into the hole we have dug for ourselves.

Unhealthy attachments rob us of our peace of mind. This concept is not new. The Buddha (563-483 BCE) discusses attachment in his Four Noble Truths. Essentially he said that suffering arises from attachment and it ceases when attachment to desire ceases. The damaging effects of attachment are documented throughout human history. How many conflicts are fought because a leader becomes fixated on taking, gaining, or having something…anything? How much mayhem is caused by someone whose romantic aspirations became larger than life and yet they chase the affections of another to the brink of insanity? Things can easily get out of hand without the ability to objectively view what is happening. It can happen…you can get hooked…on anyone or anything. The key is to recognize the attachment so you can begin to reverse the process.  

It is no surprise that attachment to another person can be so damaging to our health and welfare. Yet it can happen, and we may be unable to comprehend what is happening or when it is happening. We definitely feel its effects, whether physical or emotional, yet we still think we can handle it if we just try a little harder.

For now just think about the relationships you currently enjoy and ask yourself if any of them have become unhealthy or are draining you. Have any you used to enjoy become just too difficult and yet you can’t figure out what changed? Whatever you do, acknowledge it, but don’t dwell on it.

If there is an unhealthy attachment to another person in your life, there is still hope. You can disentangle, but in order to do that you must find YOU! And in my next blog I will discuss how to go about finding YOU.

December 6, 2011

In my last blog I introduced The Basics of disentangling. In today’s blog, I will discuss the first Basic: It’s about the experience of losing your Self.

Notice in this first Basic the word “Self” is capitalized. This is the first important concept for you to understand. Your Self is the real you, the spiritual you, deep down inside. Your Self is what is lost when you become entangled in relationships with others. This entanglement may not have been apparent when the relationship(s) began; it developed over time. As more and more of the “true you” went underground, you became emotionally drained and spiritually disconnected. Reversing this process so as to retrieve, connect with, and develop the true you is why I wrote Disentangle.

Losing your Self in someone else can happen quite easily. Enmeshing or entangling emotionally with someone else chips away at your sense of self and your individuality. This often happens in dysfunctional relationships that are familial, romantic, or can be professional. Living vicariously through someone else, and being emotionally consumed with another person can turn your life upside down. Worry, anger, confusion, anticipation, hopes and dreams—always centered on another person—is unhealthy.

Entangling is common among codependents and/or Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOAs). Many professionals in the counseling and addiction fields have differing definitions of codependence. However, regardless of the definition you choose, one similarity remains. That single similarity is the continued investment of one’s sense of self in the other person. This investment is damaging because when one links his or her sense of self to their ability to meet another’s needs—and those needs are dysfunctional and unstable—the result is suffering. Suffering comes in emotional and physical forms. The desire to change the other person, the desire to control them, or fix them is the root of much of the insanity. You cannot make them well or make things better by loving them more.

The other person with whom you are entangled may well be ill. That illness is often addiction-related but need not be. Controlling or care-taking behaviors may or may not be present. However, the insanity experienced when you are entangled keeps you hyper-vigilant or on a heightened state of alert. You can’t really take a break from the worry and stress if you are always attuned to the needs of another. Losing your Self causes emotional difficulties and can make you physically ill.

Stress and worry can manifest in many physical forms, including chest pains, difficulty breathing, upset stomach, body tension, and problems with sleeping and eating. If you have reached the point where you have physical problems associated with entangling you may need more help than this book can offer. There are many excellent options available to address the physical symptoms of the stress and worry.

However, if you are entangled you must also address the underlying loss of Self through the process of disentangling. Admitting that you have a problem—recognizing you have lost your Self—is the first step in getting well. I have helped many individuals along this path, and every journey and every story is unique. However, they all share a few common threads and they are a loss of Self, a desire to find it, and a desire to take the necessary steps to begin the process of change. Change is not always easy but it is vital if you find that you have lost your Self in someone else. Begin your journey today and look for future blogs addressing nine more of The Basics which explain the underlying processes of disentangling.