Welcome back dear readers! I hope you have all had good holidays and are ready for a New Year of rewarding growth! With committed effort, I have every confidence that you will make meaningful progress with your endeavors and ambitions as well as greater fulfillment in your relationships of all types. This greater fulfillment will include neutralizing some of the toxic impact that exists with individuals demonstrating narcissistic traits or perhaps the narcissistic personality disorder. Eventually, this greater fulfillment will include you attracting new friends, perhaps business associations – a whole stable, in fact, of healthy, vibrant, reciprocal people into your life!
Prior to the holiday break, I had promised to address the issues of codependency and how these patterns in a person fit into the dynamics with individuals who demonstrate strong narcissistic traits or perhaps the narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). In my second book, Discovering the Healthy Self and Meaningful Resistance to Toxic Narcissism, I offered a clarification of the term codependency, which I feel is important due to the evolution of the term.
In a nutshell, the term “codependency” was initially coined in the 1960s as psychology professionals were recognizing the common dynamics that occurred in families when one or more individuals suffered from the disease of addiction. Caught up in an ever-increasing effort to rescue and “fix” the addicted individual, family members became understandably – but ever more – preoccupied with these “helping” efforts and increasingly lost sight of their own needs (even their own thoughts and feelings). The behaviors and inner issues of these family members and close friends were termed “codependent.”
Eventually, as the field of psychology evolved, family systems (the observation and understanding of interpersonal dynamics in “stressed” families) and ego psychology and self psychology (the observation and understanding of intrapsychic realities inside an individual’s psyche) began to integrate. Similarly, the term codependence has evolved to indicate a selection of traits that are both behavioral and intrapsychic. So, let’s list some of these behaviors as well as intrapsychic struggles. In my second book, I use the term “codependent neurotic” to help remind the reader that we are referencing habituated patterns that are both external (behavioral) and internal (intrapsychic).
Common codependent behaviors:
- A habitual tendency to accommodate the desires of others. Experts of the past have called codependency “the disease of accommodation.”
- A tendency to avoid conflict – a defensive passivity, though it may not appear defensive.
- A tendency to avoid expressing opinions or feelings due to a fear of losing the approval of others, or a fear of creating tension in relationships.
- An automatic prioritizing of the needs and wishes of others, thereby contributing to the thwarting of energy and initiative for one’s own needs and goals.
- Considerable lack of assertiveness skills (a behavioral deficit) particularly within close relationships such as friends, family, and intimate partner relationships.
- A pattern of filling in the gap when others are not offering narcissistic supplies with much reciprocity or contributing mutual efforts in the relationship. A behavior of over-focusing on others.
Common codependent intrapsychic issues (evidenced in individuals with neurotic issues):
- Feelings of insecurity and low self-esteem.
- Persistent self-doubt (often accompanied by anxiety). Difficulty validating his/her own perceptions of reality.
- Under-entitlement issues – a tendency to feel guilty when initiating and asserting one’s own wishes and needs.
- Abandonment fears, leading to the preoccupation with the approval of others, particularly as it involves belonging to a family or group and connection with others.
- Ability for empathy of others (often referred to in today’s language as “empaths”), yet this empathic capacity is entangled with the tendency to idealize others, especially those perceived to be “more together.” This idealizing trait reinforces the tendency to give empathy without discernment or regard for the reciprocation of empathy from others.
- A tendency to feel responsible and introject (take into the self) the deficiencies in the interrelationship dynamics with others when problems arise. The codependent carries “neurotic guilt” – unfounded feelings (as in, not real) of responsibility for problems that exist. In other words, the feelings are real enough, but the perception of realty that they are based on is not real.
While this is hardly an exhaustive list of codependent behaviors and intrapsychic issues, you get the idea here. In addition, codependency, like unhealthy narcissism, exists on a continuum from mild traits, to moderate, to severe issues. Finally, while codependency is reflective of significant and painful issues, which is the bad news, there is also a reality to this picture that we could say is good!
As I mentioned in my last blog post, I have always enjoyed the phrase, “that’s bad – that’s good,” which came from the title of a children’s book that our son enjoyed when he was little. So, here is the “that’s good” part. Codependent neurotic issues also means that the person still has some connection (albeit, perhaps weak) to the authentic or healthy self and the vital functions of the healthy self.
Let’s remember that the three primary functions of the healthy self are:
- A capacity for self-regulation of impulses and feelings,
- A capacity for empathy with self and others,
- An observing self that is capable of gaining insights about the self and utilizing these insights in a healing and growth process.
Our capacity for growth and development is, in fact, dependent on our sustained connection to these functions! These are the functions that allow the codependent individual – or any of us for that matter – to recognize that we have a problem (or perhaps a significantly undeveloped aspect in ourselves) and undertake the work required to heal and grow.
Previously in an Instagram post, I summarized a concept from a book I have long admired and recommended by Howard Halpern, PhD, titled, How to Break Your Addiction to a Person. He illuminates the potency of “Attachment Hunger” and the profound emotional power it exerts particularly in individuals that have had significant wounding with regards to unmet attachment needs. Keep in mind here, that these issues will exist in everyone to some degree because they are a part and parcel of the human experience. However, when we are looking into the realities of codependency, one doesn’t need to venture very far into this book to see how well he identifies a core issue underlying some of the more intractable issues of codependency in a person.
The confounding challenge to extricate from an unfulfilling relationship (or an unproductive relationship if it is a business partnership) feels even more impossible when a codependent individual is involved with the seductive and manipulative dynamics of a narcissistic or NPD individual. In these instances we have the classic scenario of the codependent becoming trapped in a kind of relationship addiction dynamic. And, hopefully, as an experienced life traveler, you can at least appreciate from the sidelines – if not from experience – how formidable the task can be to break the attraction, attachments, and dependencies that are experienced from the trenches of addiction! So, if you are struggling to get out of a toxic relationship that you are only too aware needs to end, I would recommend that you add this book to your arsenal.
Obviously, there is much more to be discussed, and we will continue to delve into important realities related to recovery from codependence, narcissistic traits, and recognition of narcissism and codependence in its infinite variety. Identifying how to survive and extricate safely from toxic relationships, no matter what type they might be, is perhaps the first order of business. How to heal and thrive is another big stretch on the journey. And, while we are working on these different phases of recovery, we can also develop our awareness and skills so that we get better and better at navigating our new relationships, no matter how transient or long-term they may be depending on the circumstances that bring people in and out of our lives.