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What is Codependency?

written by Darlene Lancer May 31, 2019
What is Codependency

Codependency is sneaky and powerful. You may not be aware that it’s the root cause of your problems. Focusing your thinking and behavior around someone else is a sign of codependency. We react to something external rather than our own, internal cues. Addicts are codependent, too. Their lives revolve around their addiction – be it food, work, drugs, or sex.

Origin

Codependency derived from the term “co-alcoholic,” originating in studies of family members of substance abusers who interfered with recovery by enabling. Family therapists found that codependent behavior developed in their childhood growing up in a dysfunctional family. In the 40s, German psychoanalyst and humanist, Karen Horney, wrote about neurotic behavior caused by self-alienation. She described personality types that fit codependency and believed that they resulted from faulty parenting and the “tyranny of the shoulds.”

The 12-step program, Codependents Anonymous (CoDA) was founded in 1986 by Ken and Mary, two therapists who had grown up in abusive families.

Definitions

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