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Codependency

Also called: relational dependency

A pattern in which self-worth and a sense of purpose come to depend on caring for someone or keeping them stable — usually at the cost of your own needs.

The term emerged in addiction treatment settings, describing the partners of people with alcoholism, and has since widened to any relationship in which one person organises their life around another's state.

The core is not caring — caring is healthy. The core is depending on the caretaker role in order to feel worth something. Hence the recognisable pattern: enormous difficulty saying no, intense guilt when attending to yourself, a sense of being indispensable, and a growing tolerance for behaviour you would accept from nobody else.

An uncomfortable part: repeated help can sustain the very problem it tries to solve. Covering someone's consequences postpones them, and postponed consequences are the main reason an addiction persists.

The term is not a diagnosis and appears in neither DSM-5 nor ICD-11. It is a useful clinical description, but used as a label it quickly turns into an accusation aimed at the person who is trying to help.

What it is confused with

With empathy, or with being a good partner. The difference shows in what happens when you attend to yourself: if intense guilt and a sense of betrayal appear, this is something other than care.

With anxious attachment. They overlap often but are not the same: anxious attachment is about fear of abandonment, codependency is about identity built on the rescuer role.

With abuse. Codependency describes a pattern in the person who helps. It neither explains nor excuses the other person's behaviour, and using the term to tell someone they “brought it on themselves” is a form of victim-blaming.

Related terms

Personal boundariesAnxious attachmentToxic shame

Methods that work with this

Schema therapySystemic family therapy

These definitions are informational. They do not replace an assessment by a professional and are not enough for self-diagnosis.

Recognised something?

A term in a glossary is not a diagnosis. If it sounds familiar and it affects you, a 15-minute call is the simplest way to find out what comes next.

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