Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    I found the following article to be interesting and thought provoking. 
    Again, I didn't know where to put this (either here or in the "News 
    Clips" note) but decided this was the better place for it.

    I started going to a feminist therapist about 6 months ago.  I think 
    she's absolutely _the best_ therapist I've ever had.  As a well-worn 
    traveller of the self-help aisles in bookstores far and wide, and a 
    veteran of several unsatisfactory (and brief) alliances with counselors
    of varying qualification, age, sex, and of uncertain theoretical 
    position, I'd started having my doubts about the "help" I was getting. 

    I suppose it started when I went to a presentation about the Stone 
    Center and heard about and then read Jean Miller's "Toward a New 
    Psychology of Women."  All along I was reading WOMANNOTES.  Then I 
    started reading a little "radical feminist literature" (this is 
    relative, of course -- most of the people I know think "Toward a New 
    Psychology of Women" is radical) and this led me to "say things" in 
    mixed company and to my mother and sisters that they found shocking.  
    (Oh my!)

    I guess what I'm trying to say is that traditional therapy, the "fad 
    therapies" (rational-emotive, vanilla behvioristic stuff...), and 
    mongrels therefrom, ultimately, did not make sense to me and I got 
    Nowhere: Yes, I do need other people.  I especially need supportive 
    people around me.  I am affected by other people, and most affected by 
    those closest to me.  Relationships are about connectedness and 
    interdependence.  They're also about risk and trust and honesty and 
    vulnerability; they are not easy to maintain and they don't "just 
    happen", they need attention.  Attending to them and being affected by 
    them is not "abnormal" or indicative of a parasitic ("dependent") 
    personality.  I don't always feel quite so "flawed" anymore, even if 
    someone feels a need to tell me that I am! (This usually takes the form
    of being told I'm "too sensitive", "too serious", "too complicated", or
    "too" something.)  I've begun to think more often: 'Well, maybe it's 
    _their_ problem.'

    I rambled on more than I expected to and fear there is no focus here
    or that this is just too personal for anyone to relate to.  Here's the 
    article; maybe there's something to discuss?  
    
    ----------

    "Is Everyone Co-Dependent?" 
    
    [From the May/June issue of the Utner Reader, "In Brief" section
    "Psychology".] 
    
    "Challenging the idea that codependency is a disease. 
    
    Every few years, the self-help movement touts a new illness to describe
    our human failings and weaknesses: mid-life crisis, Type A behavior, 
    life passages, eating disorders, addictions of every stripe.  The 
    hottest one these days is codependency -- the disease of people whose 
    problem is an excessive tendency to help other people. 
        
    If that sounds like a dubious disease to you, you're not alone.  Asks 
    David Treadway in "Family Therapy Networker" (Jan./Feb. 1990), 'Does 
    that mean that altruism and unselfishness are diseases?'  Equally 
    troubling is that, as it is defined by movement guru (and author of the
    movement bible "Codependent No More") Melody Beattie, the label 
    codependent could apply to almost anyone.  She defines a codependent as
    "a person who has let someone else's behavior affect him or her and is 
    obsessed with controlling other people's behavior." 

    Sharon Wegscheider, an expert in the codependency field, says in Anne 
    Wilson Schaef's book "Codependence: Misunderstood--Mistreated" that 96
    percent of us suffer from codependency.  John Bradshaw, a 
    $700-a-seminar codependency group leader, says in "Texas Monthly" 
    (Feb. 1990), 'Codependency  is a plague upon the land--the Black Plague
    doesn't even compare to the ravages of our compulsions caused by 
    codependency.' 
    
    Even critics of the codependency theory admit that, to the extent that 
    the estimated 1,800 groups nation-wide of Codependents Anonymous can 
    help partners of alcoholics and drug addicts to extricate themselves 
    from painful, no-win relationships, the movement is performing a 
    positive service. 
    
    To support these people is one thing, argue some mental health
    professionals, but to call it a disease is destructive.  Says David
    Treadway in "Family Therapy Networker", 'In some cases labelling
    someone as codependent may perpetuate the process of blaming in a new
    language.'  Says Bette S. Tallen in "Sojourner: The Women's Forum"
    (Jan. 1990), 'There's an implication [in calling it a disease] that
    codependency may actually be a more serious condition than addiction
    to a substance.' 
    
    Blaming the victim-- the codependent--takes on an especially ominous
    cast because so many of the 'diseased' are females.  Says Alison Humes 
    in the New York weekly "7 Days" (Nov. 1, 1989), 'Spooky echoes of 
    sexist logic can be found in the thinking of the codependency movement:
    If you're unhappy it's your own fault.'  Because the altruistic, 
    caretaking attributes of codependents are also traditionally female 
    qualities, adds Tallen in "Sojourner", 'Codependency teaches us that 
    femininity is pathology, and we blame ourselves for self-destructive 
    feminine behavior, letting men evade any responsibility for their 
    violent and abusive behavior.' 
    
    Even more fundamentally, argues Bette Tallen in "Sojourner" and Carol
    Tavris in "Family Therapy Networker", concentrating entirely on inner
    feelings and a higher power ignores the very real fact that women have
    had these problems for decades in our society. 'Codependency adherants
    argue that we can get "well" without fundamentally altering the very
    institutions that created the situations in the first place,' says
    Tallen.  Somehow being 'diseased' becomes preferable to admmitting that
    you're being treated unjustly, says Menninger Clinic Therapist Harriet
    Lerner.  'Women are so comfortable saying, "I am a recovering addict, 
    the problem is in me."  They are so uncomfortable saying the F-word: 
    "I am a feminist; the problem is also in society."  Women get much more
    support when they define their problems in medical rather than 
    political terms.'  Ultimately, that's the biggest problem with
    codependency, argues Hume in "7 Days": 'It makes the political
    entirely personal.' 
    
    As troubling as the notion of universal codependency is, it's just   
    the latest wrinkle in a long line of self-help literature promoting   
    conformity, argues Wendy Kaminer in the "New York Times Book Review"
    (Feb. 11, 1990). She traces back to Norman Vincent Peale's 1950s best
    seller "The Power of Positive Thinking" '...the reliance on simple,
    universal techniques to facilitate individual change and the belief 
    that we never need be victims of circumstance.' 
    
    At its worst, then, says Kaminer, the codependency movement supports
    conformity--the hunger to belong to a group with identical problems 
    rather than to face the lonliness of the individual search for self." 

                                              -- Lynette Lamb 

    Re: .1
    
    That's a very powerful article; thanks for taking the time to enter it!
    It's certainly something I want to think about!
    
    Nancy

My reaction: bah humbug.

Co-dependency *is* real.  If it isn't, why is it so common for partners of
addicted/abusive partners to get out of that relationship, only to end up
in *another* relationship with addictive and/or abusive partners?

The problem with the article is this idea of laying "blame".  I do *not* 
believe that modelling co-dependency as a disease "blames" the victim.  But
I think it enables the victim to recognize that they *do* have control over
the patterns of their lives.

If my life is dysfunctional, because I continually get involved with people
who I think I can help, who abuse me and don't appreciate me, if I seek
validation for myself from how much I can help others, I need to change my
life so that it *is* functional.  Saying that "fault" lies with society, etc, 
might be *true*, but it doesn't help *me*.  Before I can do anything for
anyone else, I need to help myself.  Blaming the problem on abstract constructs
such as "society" doesn't help me be happier and more in control of my life.
Recognizing that there is a problem, and that the problem is within (which
doesn't mean that the problem is my *fault*, just that it exist inside me)
gives me the power to *fix* the problem.  If I try to fix society while my
life is dysfunctional, nothing will ever happen.

As a matter of fact, I think the article is doing what it claims society does.
It is putting society, and other people, *before* the individual person.
This is what society has been doing to women forever: "You aren't important.
It is your duty to help others, not yourself."  The article suggests that 
women who are co-dependent should try to fix society before they try to fix
themselves.  And to that I say: bah humbug!

No, generosity and altruism aren't diseases.  Giving of yourself until there
is nothing left for *you*, *that* isn't altruism, that's unhealthy.

Recognizing co-dependency as a disease gives those who's lives are affected
by it the power to heal *themselves*, rather than being dependent on the
ever-elusive society to "get better" and thus rid them of their problems.

D!

I agree, D! Though I do think the article raises good questions. 

My nit has to do with calling co-dependency a disease. I see it as
a behavior pattern, not a sickness.

Kathy

	This article makes my blood boil. It presents a simplistic and
        spurious approach to something that's a very serious problem.
        ( I've read several issues of
	the Utne Reader, and they all seem to be written in a similar
	simplistic, pseudoanalytical, "let's propose something-anything
	and spend the article arguing the point", without establishing
	base-line facts.)

	Codependency is NOT "the disease of people whose problem is
	an excessive tendency to help other people."  Codependency IS
	an unhealthy addiction to another person, or a style of being
	addicted to other people, such that the individual lives through
	that other person.  Characteristic behaviors of codependents
	include not knowing what they, as individuals, want for themselves;
	putting other people ahead of their own needs, all the time,
	without regard for how severe their own needs may be; not being
	able to say "no" and set reasonable boundaries with other
	people; chronic low-grade depression; inability to ask for, and
	to receive, support and help when needed(to name just a few that
	come instantly to mind).  Of course, there's always sexual abuse,
	which results in severe problems of lack of personal boundary.

	Synonyms for "codependency" are "adult child of alcoholism", 
	"abused child", "sexually abused", and	"adult child of dysfunctional 
	family".  (It doesn't necessarily take alcoholism or abuse
	in the family to turn out codependents.)  Any family situation
	where the needs, feelings, thoughts, etc. of the individual are
	denied, belittled, put down, or downright abused...these families
	produce codependent people, because the individuals don't learn
	healthy separation.

	The quote from Melodie Beatty is taken entirely out of context.
	She talks about codependency in the terms I have described above.
	Various other authors in the field focus on specific aspects of
	codependency, for example, men-woman relationships, toxic parents,
	sexual abuse, etc.  Codependency is NOT a problem of letting 
	other people's behavior affect you; if we didn't allow ourselves
	to be affected by the behavior of others, we'd be robots.
	Codependency is when you're so enmeshed in the behavior of
	others, you lose your sense of who "you" are.

	Codependency work does NOT blame the victim.  Codependency work
	helps the individual unravel the past, in the sense of locating,
	as much as possible, what the unhealthy messages are that the
	individual internalized.  Messages like "I should never question
	my parents, to question my parents is to be a bad child"; "my
	needs aren't important"; "if I leave the family, my parents will
	not be able to get along without me."

	Also, codependency has no particular affinity for one sex or the
	other.  Just as many men suffer from an inability to identify
	and define their own needs, and get them met in an adult manner.
	It's more socially acceptable for women to admit to having
	"emotional" problems, and more women tend to go for help.
	
	Codependency is NOT a medical problem; it is clearly a family/
	social problem, and as such, I believe, is also a political problem.
	Yes, our society encourages women to be dependent on "their man",
	but it also encourages our men not to feel their feelings.  Two
	sides of the same destructive coin.

	Finally, the codependency movement DOES NOT support conformity.
	It encourages the development to the fullest of each individual's
	unique, wonderful selfness.  Belonging to groups with similar
	problems is part of the therapeutic process, whereby codependents
	learn, in supportive and safe environments, to identify and
	express their own feelings, get "strokes" for doing same, and
	learn how to accept support for their own unique selves.

	I've been codependent for 40 of my 42 years and I'm breaking those
	chains now.  Until two years ago, I didn't even KNOW that I wasn't
	feeling my feelings.  It's taken me the past two years to begin
	to feel my feelings, and start developing healthy boundaries for
	me as a unique individual. This article does a terrible injustice 
	to myself and the rest of us, struggling with this problem.

	Lynn
                         

    At a presentation in the Critical Thinking 500 course I'm taking,
    this thought was spoken, "If you're drowning, and someone else's
    life flashes before your eyes, you're codependent!"
    
    It got a laugh, from me as well as others, but I would describe
    it as, in general, rueful laughter.
    
    aq
    

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                  -< Topics of Interest to Women---Volume 3 >-
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Note 28.2                       Emotional Health                          2 of 3
ROYAL::NICHOLS "getting it right is SO complicated"  62 lines  22-APR-1990 12:54
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    The comments in the article reproduced in 28.1 seem to be saying that
    the concept of Codependency is somehow at odds with the true spirit
    of the women's movement. 
    
    That somehow for a recipient of abuse to address potential issues of
    Codendency makes the abusers less guilty. 
    
    e.g:
    "It's YOUR fault that I beat you up. It's the KIDS fault that I beat
    them. Why don't they stop crying! Its YOUR fault that I come on to
    you. Why do you where such sexy clothes?!"  And on and on and on. 
    
    That is not my understanding of Codependency at all.
    
    To my thinking, a 'correct' view of Codependency ENRICHes the
    women's movement. That insight into codependent issues has the
    potential for accellerating the movement.
    
    This view holds that -as an example- some people are more subjected to
    abuse than others. Why? Happenstance is clearly one! But, in addition,
    some people keep finding themselves in abusive situation over and
    over again. One that Bradshaw mentions...
    
    As I remember it, one of his patients -the daughter of an alchoholic-
    has been married four times. Each of her husbands was an abusive
    alchoholic. Now she brought SOMETHING to those marriages! She brought
    HERSELF. She married the bums!
    
    To say that it would be helpful for her to understand HER issues
    in NO way minimizes what the four husbands did.
    
    It does however, probably give her additional resources in her fight
    against the abuse of alchoholic husbands. Sure if they abuse her,
    they should suffer appropriate legal consequences. THEY ARE BAD
    GUYS.
    
    But she is a 'bad' guy too. (Please note the quotes.) It is certainly
    at least plausible that the behavior of her alchoholic father
    conditioned her to put herself into abusive situations. (A lack of self
    worth perhaps? She feels she doesn't deserve any better?) Isn't
    one of the tenets of the women's movement, "You are a good person,
    treat yourself like one?"
    
    To understand what one brings -if anything- to an abusive situation
    IN NO WAY excuses the abuse!
    
    But it may be an additional tool in constructing a safer life and
    a more wholesome society.
    
    In terms of the womens movement.
    
    1)Understand yourself and people well enuf to recognize the bastards!

    Don't marry them. (the signs of abuse seldom start only after marriage.
    Don't go to work for them 
    Don't date them
    Don't let them dominate meetings
    etc

    2)When they abuse you, involve the authorities AND get away from them.
    
    
    Ain't easy!

    Spring Hill 
    432 Columbia Street
    Cambridge, MA 02141
    617-252-0905

    I attended one of their weekend workshops last week.  I think it's one 
    of the best things I've ever done for myself and I intend to go back,
    when the time is right.

    You can get a brochure by calling the office.  Workshop fees are on a
    sliding scale.  The weekend Opening the Heart workshops are held at 
    their center in Ashby, Mass.  (Just north of Fitchburg, Mass.  It's a
    beautiful place!)

    They have Opening the Heart workshops for: individuals; couples; adult 
    children of alcoholic and/or abusive parents; women survivors of sexual
    abuse; gays, lesbians, and bisexuals; men in recovery; sexual abuse 
    survivors and their partners; and many other specialty workshops.

    From the brochure:

    The Heart-Centered Approach

    "This approach recognizes love as the greatest healing force.  While we
    all want to love and be loved, anger, hurt, and fear often stand in our
    way.  The heart-centered approach looks to dissolve these blocks to our
    natural, loving selves.  To this end, we draw upon many different 
    techniques and traditions, all of which support the value of love and 
    personal truth.  The heart-centered approach calls us back to the 
    wisdom of the human heart, which is the ultimate source of our healing 
    and the key to our transformation."

    And...

    "What do we really want?  Most of us want love and acceptance.  We want
    to feel listened to and understood.  We want to feel more alive.  We 
    want to live in the moment.  We want to be more real.  We want 
    closeness, belonging, and community.

    Spring Hill is a psychological and spiritual growth center dedicated 
    to helping people fulfill these desires.  Through the nationally known 
    Opening the Heart workshop and our other activities, we help people to:
    resolve emotional issues that hinder them; cope with stress; build
    self-esteem; address spiritual concerns; improve communication and
    relationships; and live more authentically.

    In addition to the workshop, Spring Hill offers trainings, specialty 
    workshops, celebrations, ongoing support groups, mini-heart gatherings,
    and more.  We hope you'll join us in this community of the heart."

    You can "get a taste" of Spring Hill on the first Thursday of each 
    month.  From the brochure:

    "...On the first Thursday of each month, Spring Hill hosts an evening
    gathering for Spring Hill style singing, celebration, sharing, dancing,
    games, and more, led by staff members....Bring friends, a desert or 
    (non-alcoholic) drink to share, and $5 per person (suggested donation).
    The Cambridge evenings are slated for 8:00-10:30 p.m."

    I'll be going the next time they have one, which I figure must be March
    7th (but I'm going to call and check).  If anyone wants to check it out
    with me, send mail.

    Christine