Articles on Codependency / Dependency

Eleanor Rigby and all the lonely people

In 1966, the Beatles wrote about Eleanor Rigby and the lonliness and depression she experienced:

All the lonely people Where do they all come from? All the lonely people Where do they all belong?

Loneliness is something that most of us will feel at times in our lives. Some of us living in the city crave a quiet moment to ourselves from time to time, to reflect and think. Time for self is important, but loneliness is something completely different. It is never sought, and never wanted. Loneliness is something which happens to us but never by choice. It is little consolation for those already living with loneliness to know they are not alone in their suffering. There are many people today, facing the same situation. Recent research shows that people who have experience loneliness for over 3 years are likely to continue to experience loneliness.

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Date Posted: May 10, 2013

Categories: Attachment Issues, Bullying, Codependency / Dependency, Depression / Bipolar, Emptiness, Ending a relationship issues, Happiness, Self-Esteem, Social Anxiety / Phobia, Social Isolation

Is there a relationship between codependency and ADHD?

Codependency and adult attention deficit hyperactivity are special areas of clinical interest for me. Over the past couple of years, I had begun to notice that clients who initially had come for codependency treatment, frequently exhibited symptoms of ADHD. It also seemed that clients in therapy for ADHD commonly reported rather adverse childhoods e.g. divorce of parents. These observations prompted me to think about a possible connection between codependency and ADHD.

Codependency refers to emotional and psychological problems experienced by adults who were subjected to abuse/neglect in childhood (Mellody, 1989). Other designations for what seems identical to codependency are “complex PTSD” (Herman, 1992) and developmental trauma disorder (van der Kolk, 2005).

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Date Posted: November 29, 2012

Categories: Adult ADHD, Adult psychological development, Codependency / Dependency

Coping with stress: What does love have to do with it?

When life tries to slap us down, we instinctively turn to others for support particularly our intimate partners. Although this tendency to seek emotional support from loved ones to heal our wounds has long been recognized, it is only in the past couple of decades that substantial scientific evidence has been obtained of its effectiveness.

Probably the most lucid summary of the importance of intimate relationships in recovering from stress, even traumatic stress, has been recently provided by Dr. Susan Johnson (2012). She did so as part of a series of online interviews with some of the world’s greatest experts on trauma and its treatment (National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine (NICABM), 2012). Before discussing her presentation and the specific scientific evidence for the power of a loving relationship to reduce stress, the different types of stressors and some examples will be detailed briefly.

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Date Posted: August 13, 2012

Categories: Codependency / Dependency, Couple Counseling, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) / Trauma / Complex PTSD

Introduction to Codependence

In this initial entry I want to introduce you to the topic of co-dependence which I feel is a valid and useful approach to helping people. I also use it because there are many resources available to help people recover from the effects of co-dependence (coda) including books, tapes, and videos so that you can work on your recovery outside of the counselling room. In North America there are many Coda 12 step groups which are extremely powerful in helping one recover from codependency. Asia would greatly benefit if such self-help groups were available here. If anyone is interested in starting such a group in Singapore please feel free to email me.

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Date Posted: October 19, 2011

Categories: Codependency / Dependency

How to recover from childhood trauma using the three A’s to better love the self

Those of you who are regular readers of this blog know that its dominant theme is to help those who have been abused, traumatized, or neglected in childhood and consequently experience a variety of psychological (and sometimes physiological) problems in adulthood. These individuals are variously referred to as suffering from co-dependency, complex PTSD, developmental trauma or borderline personality disorder.

As emphasized by workers in the field of co-dependency, such as Pia Mellody and John Bradshaw, one of the main ways we can recover from the distressing effects of childhood abuse is by learning how to love the self. This seemingly easy task for most people is one of the most difficult tasks of recovery for those suffering from developmental trauma. For this reason codas need some structured steps in order to learn how to love their Self. I hope to provide here a brief outline of how to do so using the three A’s of awareness, acceptance, and action.

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Date Posted: June 7, 2011

Categories: Codependency / Dependency, Self-Care / Self Compassion, Self-Love