Codependence recovery: Information about therapeutic Workshops for Codependency

One of the many ways, but a critically important way, that people recover from codependency is by attending therapeutic workshops given by experts in the field and designed to help the recovery process.  In this post I will share with you the names of some of these experts and the website addresses of therapeutic workshops for codependency which I have personally attended or have knowledge of.  I hope readers will send in their comments and include similar information about coda workshops they have attended or participated in.  I will later compile all the results in a new post.  I have no financial connection with any of these institutions and of course cannot guarantee any particular results for them.  The purpose here is to provide a convenient source of information about such workshops for those interested in attending one.

My introduction to the coda and recovery movement was not through any psychiatrist or psychologist.  It was through friends who knew better than I did what I needed. I had been in therapy with psychiatrists and psychologists of various theoretical persuasions ranging from psychoanalytic to cognitive behavioral and had made some progress. But something was missing; what really was wrong with me remained a mystery.  Then an old friend suggested I watch the John Bradshaw PBS TV series on the family and soon after a work colleague suggested we go to a coda workshop being presented by this same John Bradshaw in Toronto.  It was called “Homecoming: The Inner Child Workshop.”

Little did I know that my attendance at this workshop would profoundly change my life!  I remember there were many people there, certainly over one thousand.  Men were very much in the minority.  I remember that things got very emotional with a lot of crying. Now I was a quite reserved, perhaps inhibited person back then, perhaps 30 years ago, and was astonished at my fellow Canadians crying publicly.   I was impressed with Bradshaw’s vast knowledge and how much it explained of my own behavior.  However the critical experience I had was a breakthrough bit of knowledge about my early history that had never emerged in years of therapy.  It occurred in a rather indirect manner.  Bradshaw lead his audience several times through a deep meditation or light trance for the purpose of reaching back from earliest infancy to various later stages e.g. adolescence.  We broke into small groups after each meditation and shared a bit what emotion we experienced.

After the first such meditation I felt happiness and joy and security. I seemed to remember sunlight and warmth but no specific memories of my earliest years!  However after the second meditation my emotional tone changed to one of fear and sadness. Again no details of memories emerged.   It was not until weeks after the workshop that I realized the importance of this change in emotional moods from infancy to age about four years until weeks after the workshop.  It was then that the question popped into my mind what happened to change my mood so drastically.

It was not until years later, after I left a career as a neurobiologist, and made a mid life change into clinical psychology that I gradually realized that at age four I had been traumatized by being left on a farm in Northern Ontario while my mother worked in a munitions factory in Toronto during WWII.  After I became a practicing clinical psychologist I attended other workshops on codependency  by people like Pia Mellody, Bessel van der Kolk and Patrick Carnes.  Each of them has a special wisdom which has helped me to know myself better and assisted me with my recovery from that early childhood trauma and my codependency.

I recommend, if you are codependent and have suffered some significant degree of childhood trauma or abuse that in addition to one-to-one psychotherapy, and learning about coda from coda literature, audio cds and videos, you also try attending a coda workshop.   I have listed below contact information for all the people and organizations I know of which provide therapeutic workshops for codependency.  If you have attended a coda workshop or know of one that you feel would be helpful for codependency, please send this information to this blog so that others can find one that is right for them.

The Meadows:

This recovery centre has a host of the consultants and leaders in codependency including Pia Mellody, RN, CSAC, Peter A. Levine, PhD, Maureen Canning, MA, LMFT, John Bradshaw, MA.,  Claudia Black, PhD, MSW, and Bessel A. van der Kolk, MD

As well as workshops the Meadows also has tapes, videos, and books on codependence.  I especially recommend the Survivors workshops.

The Meadows, 1655 N. Tegner St., Wickenburg, AZ 85390. info@themeadows.org.  Toll-free: 800-MEADOWS (800-632-3697)
Outside the U.S.: 928-684-3926;  Fax: 928-684-3261

Patrick Carnes:

Specialized services include the treatment of addictions, eating disorders, and professionals struggling with interpersonal difficulties.  Patrick Carnes is famous for his work on sexual addictions including cyber-pornography.  His book “The Betrayal Bond”  about abusive relationships is superlative.

Pine Grove Behavioral Health and Addiction Services

2255 Broadway Drive, P.O. Box 16389
Hattiesburg, Mississippi 39404

Phone: 1-888-574-HOPE (4673)

The Hoffman Institute:

The Hoffman Centre
Suite 3, 230 Toorak Road
South Yarra, Vic 3141

Telephone:  Australia: +61 3 9826 2133; Freecall: 1800 674 312; Facsimile:  +61 3 9826 2144;