Addressing our Codependency
Many of us are unaware of the self-limiting and self-sabotaging behavior patterns that have been repeated and promoted throughout history in to moder society. Through media, movies, lack of correct information and blocks to therapy access. Codependency can range from addictive behaviors like overconsuming news media and videos to relying too heavily upon the opinions of peers, making decisions against our desired outcomes for the satisfaction of notoriety or pleasing others. Often, we don’t even realize or are cognizant that the decisions we make are to our detriment. So what can be done, how to address the root of the issue? Therapy is very important; however, it can be difficult to find the right medical professional and there are monetary blocks to access that have left many without and connection to care. There are many self-help books available and are easily accessed by internet or book stores.
Facing codependency details the disease of and symptomology of codependency, how to recognize it and the harm it can cause in the lives of those who struggle. From the perspective of self-discovery, the author Pia Mellody identifies the five main symptomology around what codependency is and how it can be hidden beneath people pleasing and other addictions. The idea of study begun though her own experiences with anxiety, anger and fear around a profound lacking feeling without any guide to what she was experiencing; she pieced together despite her best efforts of working within the medical field that she was living an unauthentic detached and disrupted life. She paints a hopeful recognition of symptoms around learning to cope and heal the parts of self that have become dysfunctional and profoundly unwell, unlearning patterns and belief systems that were learned within the development of childhood from the caregivers. Recovery is possible from patterns that are played out through negative control mechanisms and resentment that sabotage the person’s desire for cohesive and intimate relationships. Codependency can affect all areas of life and impair the ability to sustain intimacy in all relationships, most importantly how a person shows up in the world. Often it can be overshadowed by addiction as it has a component of avoiding reality, as people who struggle can seem like an adult in many ways yet feel fearful, confused and immature. To avoid these feelings of discomfort many of those who have learned the helplessness of codependency often experience addiction, physical and mental illness.
The chapters of this book highlight several points of how codependency manifests in actions and details how it evolves into negative and self-sabotaging traits that can exacerbate the suffering within a person’s life. This eye-opening perspective can help those who are struggling begin to identify and heal parts of themselves that have seemed confusing and destructive in life for quite some time. This is highly effective for those who are tuned into a guide of self-identification for previously unknown and lightly covered disorders within the DSM-V, where many disorders have similar symptoms yet the details for these symptoms are misunderstood or difficult to realize. As core symptoms influence other types of behavior seemingly unrelated, it can become a maze of inappropriate actions with little recognized patten to begin connecting. Many of those who struggle have defenses against recognizing abuse as there is a disruption of reality, someone can rationalize a behavior pattern due to having had no other defense from experiencing similar caregiver behavior during child development. These defense mechanisms can cause behavior that is confusing or distressing where the self becomes distorted and the feelings that were experienced are cognitively understood yet not felt. This leads to a new and altered perspective of behaviors and actions that minimize harm, denies accountability and provides a narrative of delusion for the person to struggle repeatedly with life goals and direction. This may even be a generational pattern that was a passed down behavior from a dysfunctional family of origin, where their growth and self-actualization was stunted by their parents own inability to recognize codependent or abusive patterns within.
If the reader was a struggling student or someone wishing to understand deeper the reasons why they cannot live a normal life with reasonable guidance or clarity of self-improvement, this is a worthwhile read. This is a great study for therapists and aspiring therapists to help themselves and clients hold a greater understanding of their own behaviors or those of their clients. Pia Mellody is a practicing therapist and helps to detail the challenges of those who are struggling with codependency and how to connect with those who may be developmentally different than Erikson’s or Piaget’s developmental behavior timeline. There is a new perspective behind addiction and the behaviors often masked by using substances, people, or negative behaviors to ignore or cover up emotions within the subconscious and even trapped in the body. This book is one of its kind as Pia Mellody has a recognized authority on the codependence topic, however she has coauthored this book with two other writers Andrea Wells Miller and J. Keith Miller who have contributed several books of their own like the topic. Facing Love Addiction, Breaking Free, A Hunger for Healing and Compelled to Control are other self-education books that cover similar topics as codependency.
References
Heyd, M. (2017). How to write a book review—and why you should. Journal of Hospital Librarianship, 17(4), 349-355.
Mellody, P. (1989, 2003). Title Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes From, How It Sabotages Our Lives. New York: HarperCollins.
Journal of Marital and Family Therapy. https://authorservices.wiley.com/Reviewers/book-reviewers/reviewing-published-books.html
