What is Codependency, Anyway?

To many, the word Co-dependency is psycho-babble; a word used willy-nilly to mean too dependent, too close, too controlling, too attached, too caring, too something or other, but what the heck is it exactly, anyway?

According to Melody Beattie, author of Codependent No More (published in1987), the word Co-dependent appeared in the late 1970’s out of the field of addiction recovery. It evolved from the term C0-Alchoholic and was used to describe symptoms thought to be caused by living with an alcoholic or drug addicted person.   It described the wife of the alcoholic who compulsively searched the house for hidden bottles; the daughter who regularly called in sick for the drug addicted mother passed out on the couch; the husband driving from bar to bar looking for his wife, terrified that she was going to get into another drunk driving accident.

By 1989, only two years later, Pia Melody published her book, Facing Codependence. She explained how the meaning evolved. As co-dependents sought their own therapy, it became clear that the framework for these symptoms existed prior to their relationships with the current addict in their lives.   Co-dependents realized that their family of origin also included alcoholism, drug addiction or other dysfunction. What I mean by “dysfunction” is a family that was unable to nurture the appropriate needs of the child. In a healthy family, parents are stable, themselves, and able to focus on the physical and emotional needs of the child. In a dysfunctional family, the parents are unstable, and the child is raised to focus on the parents’ needs.

When a child must focus on the parents’ needs in order to be emotionally or even physically safe, he develops a focus on others and doesn’t develop a connection to himself. He becomes out of touch with his own feelings and needs, and has no belief in his right to get his own needs met. In fact, he develops shame about having any emotional needs whatsoever. These children grow into adults whose self-esteem is based in pleasing, taking care of, or not bothering others. This is what D. W. Winnicott in his article, “Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Self” (1960), refers to as the false-self, because there is no, or very little, connection to the real self.

This is not a conscious choice. It is a condition. It is the way one grew. A plant grows towards the sun to become nourished. A co-dependent person grows towards meeting other’s needs in order to be nourished. The irony is that he never gets his needs met, and unless he goes into recovery, he never understands why.   In a nutshell, Co-dependency is a childhood adaptation that causes the child to be centered on others, rather than centered from the self.

Co-dependency can be a very serious condition. It can absolutely destroy lives, especially the life of the Co-dependent. The feeling that I can only be happy if: You like me, you are OK, you are happy, you understand me, you agree with me, you get it, means that I can never be responsible for my own happiness.

When I ask a client “How do you feel about that?” And the client answers, “I feel like he/she just doesn’t get it.” I try to help him or her to recognize that this may be the thought, but that he or she is having an inner experience, too, a feeling. A feeling can usually be described in one word, such as happy, sad, angry, or scared. A feeling is experienced on the inside. When I ask, “Where are you in all this?” and I hear, “I just don’t understand why he can’t stop drinking, appreciate me, want a relationship…” it indicates to me that the self is felt to be located in the other. Co-dependency puts responsibility for our feelings on someone else. This can lead to feeling lost, hopeless, and ultimately depressed. In severe cases the need to change someone’s mind or feelings can drive dangerous behaviors towards ones-self or others. Codependency is no joke.

A Co-dependent person will say, “No matter what I do, he just won’t get it. How do I make him get it?” A healthier person can say, “No matter what I do, he just won’t get it. And so, what do I need to do to take care of myself? It’s up to me to make my life better.”

Recovery takes courage, dedication and time. Recovery is about gaining awareness of the self and the valid wants and needs that were suppressed in childhood. It is about coming out of shame about having emotional needs and about being vulnerable; and it is about learning how to care for the self.   Recovery focuses on self-care before other-care. It is about the individual’s responsibility to the self. So how does one begin this journey of recovery? You must make recovery your top priority. One way to set yourself on the road to healing is with a combination of psychotherapy and the 12 Step program, Codependents Anonymous, http://coda.org. If you find, after giving it a real try (3 or more different meetings) that a 12 Step program is not for you, then decide to keep finding and trying other support structures until you find the right fit. Make a decision that you will take responsibility for your own healing. Only with this foundation of self-responsibility and self-love, can there truly be freedom to live.

 

Recommended Reading on Codependency 

Codependent No More, Melody Beattie, New York, Harper & Row Publishers by arrangement with the Hazelden Foundation, 1987

Facing Codependence, Pia Melody, San Francisco, Harper & Row Publishers, 1989

Healing the Child Within, Charles L. Whitfield, M. D., Deerfield Beach: Health Communications, Inc., 1989

Beyond Codependency: and getting better all the time, Melody Beattie, Harper & Row Publishers by arrangement with the Hazelden Foundation, 1989

 

Why Do I Feel So Wrong? Recognizing and Treating Gifted Adults

 

“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death.”

–Pearl S. Buck

Most of us believe that gifted people lead happy, successful and fulfilling lives. It is true that many extremely intelligent and creative adults do lead fulfilling lives, but it is equally true that the gifted can be vulnerable to feelings of emptiness, low self esteem, isolation, anxiety and depression. The gifted client is a minority individual. The National Association of Gifted Children and legislation in most states define gifted children as those who are in the upper 3% – 5% of the population in one or more of the following areas: General Intellectual Ability, Specific Academic Aptitude, Creative Thinking, Visual or Performing Arts, and Leadership Ability (Webb, 2005). It is a fair assumption to generalize this percentage to adults as well. We have more information than ever on the emotional needs of gifted children, but gifted adults, many of whom don’t even know they are gifted, can remain invisible to both the world and worse, to themselves.

As a society, and as therapists, many of us have a blind spot about what giftedness means, what it feels like, and the emotional challenges involved in growing up gifted. Lack of awareness about the unique experience of the very bright and creative individual can lead to misinterpreting, misdiagnosing, and ultimately injuring your patient. It is of the utmost importance that we can distinguish between characteristics of giftedness and the characteristics of psychopathology. We must also see the connection between giftedness and difficulties in self esteem, relationships and career. So, what does it mean to be gifted, how does it feel from the inside, what are the challenges and what we must keep in mind to facilitate healing with the gifted grown-up?

Identifying Giftedness

2 year old Bianca was ready to explore. Like a race horse, she was off, out of the living room, where her mother was sewing, and out of sight. There was so much to see and to do in the kitchen. She climbed up on a chair and started pressing the on button of the coffee grinder. “Whrrrrr! Whrrrrr!” followed by peals of laughter. “Bianca! No!” Her mother was exasperated. What was wrong with this child that she kept doing such crazy and dangerous things? Why couldn’t she behave? She picked Bianca up and carried her, screaming, back into the living room. Bianca was devastated. Why was she stopped from the fun toy? Why was her mother so angry? What was wrong? She wasn’t ready to stop playing – it was so fascinating! Crushed, baffled and utterly bereft, Bianca cried, wept, screamed and kicked. She had a genuine, heartfelt tantrum. “Stop it,” whispered her stoic mother. And when Bianca didn’t, she got a time out, alone in her room, dumbfounded and abandoned, until she couldn’t cry anymore.

This is one of many memories Bianca has of being punished for her energy, curiosity and fullness of emotional expression. These qualities, fundamental to her giftedness, were misunderstood as pathology. It is no surprise that this brilliant researcher entered therapy as an adult with broken relationships and a certainty that something was very wrong with her.

The entire concept of giftedness has developed over the last decades. Once defined by IQ scores and academic success, giftedness today is seen as a whole person phenomena based on the capacity for higher development and a drive to move the world from “what is” to “what ought to be” (Lind, 2001). Characteristics indicative of giftedness are (Streznewski, 1999):

• Curiosity
• Energy
• Speed of learning or of getting things done
• Empathy
• Sensitivity to both beauty and pain
• A highly developed moral sense and a need to speak up
• Ability to see patterns and analogies and to do abstract thinking
• Playfulness
• Intensity

Other qualities found in the gifted are (Lovecky, 1986):

• Perceptivity: the ability to use intuition, abstract thinking and empathy to see through many layers of self, others and societies
• Entelechy: to a drive towards fulfilling one’s potential
• Divergency: uniqueness of thought, feeling, ideas and personality

This depth and breadth of thinking and experience predispose the gifted individual to be idealistic, concerned with moral issues and to feel a strong desire for social justice.

 

 

Intense and Excitable

Many who are gifted are not merely more intelligent than average, but also have a heightened and more intense experience of life. Kazimierz Dabrowski (1902-1980), a Polish psychiatrist and psychologist, believed that what was called “psychoneurotic” was not necessarily a defect or an illness (Dabrowski, 1972). He developed his Theory of Positive Disintegration out of his belief that conflict and inner suffering were necessary for advanced development of both the individual and the human race.

It does not seem that authentic creativity of a high level is possible without the activity of neurotic and psychoneurotic dynamisms. There is no great drama, great poetry, religious mystery (which after all, present the original experiences of their authors) without significant elements of suffering, disruption, depression and inner conflicts. There are no epoch-making philosophical works without serious disintegrative experiences of those who created them (Dabrowski, 1973).

Dabrowski identified several innate characteristics he called overexcitabilities (OE) which, when combined with talent and intelligence, are predictive of advanced capacity for growth (Lind, 2001). In his work with patients, Dabrowski noticed that developmental potential went hand in hand with five basic psychic overexcitabilities: psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, imaginational and emotional (Dabrowski, 1972).

• Psychomotor OE refers to an innate physical energy and need to be active. This person may talk a lot, speak very fast, get up and move around, fidget, interrupt, or be the class clown. If channeled well, the person with psychomotor OE could become an athlete, dancer, actor, comedian, or race care driver. Some people might find those with psychomotor OE too much, and they are often diagnosed or misdiagnosed with ADHD (Lind, 2001; Webb, 2005).   The challenge (as with any of the OEs) is channeling this energy in positive ways.
• Those with Sensual OE have a heightened sense of sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing. A person with sensual OE may cut the tags out of her shirts, be very sensitive to smells, temperatures, lights, etc, (Lind, 2001). This is the princess and the pea. Someone with sensual OE will have a great love of music, art, languages, fabrics, foods, and sex. On the other hand, this person can be easily overwhelmed by sensual input and need to withdraw, such as people who hate shopping malls or theme parks.
• Intellectual OE is what is traditionally thought of as gifted. This is a drive to find answers, gather information or understand systems. It comes from a profound need to seek understanding and truth, to gain knowledge, and to analyze and synthesize (Dabrowski & Piechowski, 1977; Piechowski, 1979, 1991). The person with intellectual OE has a very fast mind, and is able to grasp ideas quickly. She may feel impatient with the pace of others, and voice frustration and criticism. A gifted person who doesn’t know she is gifted will expect others to keep up and cannot understand why they don’t, which can cause conflict at school, work, and with family and friends.
• Imaginational OE is most identified with creativity. People with Imaginational OE have a rich fantasy life, enjoy “make-believe,” use metaphor, have a high capacity for inventiveness, and experience vivid dreams. They may be daydreamers, writers, artists or actors.   A child with imaginational OE will find it hard to focus and stay interested in a class that is rigidly academic and non-creative.   She may daydream or draw pictures as a way of tolerating this sort of environment, but then run the risk of falling behind. If not in the right environment, the adult with imaginational OE may find the workplace stifling, demoralizing and ultimately depressing.
• Those with Emotional OE experience feelings intensely. There are extremes of complex emotions, high level of empathy and emotional sensitivity. They tune into others’ feelings and care a great deal about animals. Those with Emotional OE are often told that they are too sensitive or over-reactive. This trait is more likely pathologized than the others.

Early Childhood

A gifted adult is a grown up gifted child. The heightened energy, intensity and sensitivity of the gifted person can pre-dispose him to injuries to the self along the road of development. Like Bianca, an intense, excited, sensitive baby can be seen as a difficult baby, and because of this, there is an added likelihood of misattunement and misunderstanding from caregivers. A parent who doesn’t recognize the child’s intensities as part of giftedness may ask “What is wrong with her?” or “Am I failing as a parent?” Misreading the child’s energy and intensity as a problem lays the foundation for a broken sense of self for the child. As the child internalizes these messages, she learns to experience her own feelings, drives and liveliness as proof of badness. “Often a child’s very gifts (his great intensity of feeling, depth of experience, curiosity, intelligence, quickness-and his ability to be critical) will confront his parents with conflicts that they have long sought to keep at bay with rules and regulations” (Miller, 1981). The early caregiver’s ability to both tolerate and contain the affect states is key to the developing health of the infant. These initial misattunements can lead to a splitting off of the true self (Winnicott, 1960), which is passionate, intense and alive. It is our job as clinicians to be able not just to tolerate, but to understand, validate, bring forth and help channel these sensitivies, excitabilities and enthusiasms.

The School Experience

School is where giftedness is usually identified. In the past, giftedness was only signaled by academic success (Kerr, 1997), so children who underachieved or did average work were overlooked. It is very likely that your gifted adult clients don’t know they are gifted. You may be the first to recognize them as such, and to validate their sensitivities and excitabilities as part of their great capacity for advanced development.

The drives and intensities of the gifted, whether or not combined with early childhood deficits and privations, can make the school experience a difficult one. Those who do not thrive academically (due to depression, family issues or boredom) may find school to be a stifling prison. A stimulating environment is necessary to psychological development, so a child in a too-slow environment can actually experience a mind-numbing deprivation and fall behind (Streznewski, 1999). Divergent and outspoken thinkers can be punished for insubordination or for not following directions. Children need to know that they are loved, liked and accepted for who they are. If they are misunderstood, punished or seen as a disappointment to important adults, their self esteem is in jeopardy. Even those identified as gifted still suffer if they were overly pressured to succeed by parents and teachers. The over-focus on achievement undermines the fundamental sense of being loveable for who you are, not for what you do.

A Lifetime of Being Different

Uniqueness is a large part of why being gifted is a mixed blessing. Those with gifts usually do not fit into the mainstream. Although some brilliant individuals succeed socially, many end up troubled to the core from a lifetime of feeling different. I have had many clients say to me, “I wish I wasn’t so intelligent. Life would be so much easier,” or “Why don’t people like me?” They may have trouble finding friends and fitting in. These patients find themselves alone in their sensitivity to current events, social issues, and interpersonal dynamics. They do not understand why they care passionately when others around them do not.

Another challenge is that many gifted individuals, especially females, learn to hide their brightness in order to fit in, be loved, and even to please teachers who value “good behavior” over intellectual or creative expression. It is common to make oneself small to avoid the jealousy of parents, peers or teachers. This is most dangerous when the brightness goes into hiding and creates a loss of self.

Isolation and Alienation

The wounded gifted adult typically enters therapy experiencing isolation. Beneath the refrain of “people don’t get me” or “I don’t understand why people don’t like me” is a deeper, wordless feeling of aloneness. When people are responded to consistently, over time, like they are too much, too sensitive, too emotional, too weird or too anything, they end up experiencing themselves as flawed to the core. A feeling of shame develops like scar tissue around this core, not letting anyone in or oneself out. A shame based person will be afraid to speak up, show up and to be themselves with others. Whether successful or underachieving, the gifted adult is at risk for feeling unlovable at the very center of his being.   Even the extraverted, social or compliant individual may be imprisoned by this ability to adapt, because with a successful false-self, the true self gets pushed more and more into the shadows (Winnicott, 1960).

Emotional Needs in Therapy and Beyond

Just as an intense, sensitive, excitable baby can be experienced as a difficult baby, the gifted adult may be experienced as a difficult client. It is important to see this is a sign of hope and health, rather than illness. A fussy, dissatisfied, challenging patient is trying to find herself in your presence by correcting your attunement or differentiating herself from you. Likewise, you may find an easy, compliant client in the gifted adult, and then you will have this layer of adaptation to work through. The gifted adult often comes in feeling stuck in a box, whether this is an internal box of depression or an external one of trying to meet others’ needs in order to be accepted, and failing. As the therapist, you may be the first person ever to be interested in the emotional needs of your client. Likewise, many gifted adults lack people who can track with them, so having the ability to track a quirky, bright, quick and intense client is necessary to the success of the therapy. Being open to correcting the inevitable therapeutic misattunement is equally important. Because the gifted are so vulnerable to being misunderstood, to being told to calm down, make nice, or not be a “know-it-all,” it is essential to realize just how much they need:

• To be really heard
• To have not just their words but their behaviors understood
• To have their strong feelings validated
• To be allowed to be big/intense in terms of affect or idea
• To be allowed to solve their own problems and in their own way
• To be supported in making their own decisions regardless of what others want for them or think they should do
• To have permission to be imperfect
• To be able to own their gifts without internal or external judgment (to risk sounding “conceited”)
• To be able to vent without censorship or guilt
• To disagree with you
• To challenge you
• To be smarter than you without retaliation
• To be mad at you

Gifted adults have a history of having to take instruction from those with lesser abilities or more narrow thinking than their own, and are sensitized to this frustrating experience. Therefore, any attempt to fix, solve, teach or be the expert will foreclose on allowing them to access themselves in our presence. In their attempt to please us, they may actually find themselves feeling more isolated and hopeless. Chances are your client has had to squelch impatience, need for autonomy, anger and frustration, guilt, feelings of being too much, too sensitive, too emotional, too needy, too angry or too monstrous. Your client may also be afraid that if she acknowledges her gifts she will become selfish or narcissistic. Give your client a lot of room to be big, both emotionally and intellectually. Let your client be bigger than you, smarter than you, and to correct you while still keeping vigilant of the feelings underneath. Leave your ego at the door, and be willing to be present. Keep your focus wide and deep. If you get stuck in the content or problem you will be distancing yourself from your client. It is our job as therapists to hear the content level, validate it, and connect it to the deeper feelings, experience and issues underneath; to reach them at a deeper level that has too long been neglected.

The Importance of Being Present

Gifted adults are often accustomed to being treated as either problematic or idealized. Therefore, they can lack a true feeling of connectedness with anyone. We must be open to their inner selves, and to stay present to what they are telling us and feeling at any given moment. This presence and interest in the client’s experience in the moment makes contact possible. There is a neglected inner self that needs company and understanding. The therapist’s human presence with this raw and vulnerable inner self is the real beginning of healing. Being with the bigness, rage, aggression and intensity that feels so monstrous to them, along with the vulnerability, and continuing to be interested, present and caring allows for an unbinding of the bound up self. If we can not be with it, we can not help them to integrate those aspects of self, and we abandon them once again to a feeling that they can never be understood.

The Importance of Depth Work

There is a trap in getting sidetracked by over-analyzing, intellectualizing or problem solving. The risk is that you abandon the client in the process of working through a deeper issue. Learning life skills may be part of the therapy, but it is important to explore what is going on beneath the dilemma. Ethan, a brilliant, successful and introverted novelist, had some questions for his publisher. He came in feeling pessimistic and extremely anxious about asking these questions. I felt the urge to offer advice and help him to see the possibilities of reaching out rather than the danger. But holding back, and asking him to elaborate more about the anxiety, uncovered an area of woundedness we hadn’t touched on before. He had been a precocious, parentified child who learned that he had to have all the answers. Ethan associated the vulnerability that came with not knowing with failure and the disappointment of others. Making room for the naive inner child allowed him to show up in therapy in order to heal. If I had jumped into problem solving, that little boy would have been neglected once again. I would have given advice over him, rather than respond to him.

The Need For Autonomy

Gifted individuals have a heightened need for autonomy. This can cause power struggles with parents and teachers, or conflict with loved ones. These clients may not have sufficient experience with others who can tolerate their desire to do things by themselves and in their own way. Peers may find them rejecting as they may prefer to work alone rather than in a group, and significant others, too, can misinterpret this need for autonomy as rejection. This will come up in therapy as well. Your gifted clients will want to challenge their ability to figure things out and do things on their own. This can take the form of wanting to stop therapy or take a break. It may seem to you that they want to stop therapy prematurely, and you may be right that there is more work to do. It is important to take the time with your client to really assess what is happening here, with an open mind towards the possibility that they may need to practice on their own to further strengthen their ability to trust their own judgment in making life decisions. At the same time, they need to know that you do not begrudge them this need to separate, practice and differentiate, and that you are there for them whenever they may need you. In other words we need to survive their need to differentiate themselves from us without rejecting them.

A Successful Outcome

A successful outcome of therapy with the gifted means they learn to embrace their gifts, intensity and uniqueness. Once these qualities are out of hiding, accepted and even celebrated, these clients are better able to make life affirming choices. No longer feeling the need to change themselves to fit in with the wrong others, gifted clients learn to find bright, interesting others to connect with, to find comfortable environments that support them, and to consciously choose how to deal with the challenges of life in ways that support them and allow them to feel alive.

For more information on the emotional needs of the gifted, log on to www.sengifted.org.

References:

Dabrowski, K. (1972). Psychoneurosis is not an illness. London: Gryf Publications, Ltd. Dabrowski, K. (1973) The Dynamics of Concepts, London, Gryf Publications, Ltd.

Dabrowski, K & Piechowski, M.M. (1977). Theory of levels of emotional development

(Vols.1 & 2). Oceanside, NY: Dabor Science.

Piechowski, M. M. (1979). Developmental potential. In N. Colangelo and R. T. Zaffrann (Eds.), New voices in counseling the gifted. Kendall/Hunt, Dubuque.

Piechowski, M. M. (1991). Emotional development and emotional giftedness. In N. Colangelo      and G. Davis (Eds.) Handbook of gifted education. Boston, Allyn and Bacon.

Kerr, B. (1997) Smart Girls: A new psychology or girls, women and giftedness, Great

Potential Press, Scottsdale

Lind, S. (2001) Overexcitability and the Gifted, The SENG Newsletter 1 (1) 3-6,

http://www.sengifted.org/articles_social/Lind_OverexcitabilityAndTheGifted.shtml

Lovecky, D. (1986) Can You Hear the Flowers Sing? Issues for gifted adults, Journal of

Counseling and Development, May issue. Retrieved from

http://www.sengifted.org/articles_adults/Lovecky_CanYouHearTheFlowersSing.shtml

Miller, A. (1981) The Drama of the Gifted Child, Basic Books, New York

Webb, J. T. et al, (2005) Misdiagnosis: and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults,

            Scottsdale, AZ, Great Potential Press, Inc.

Winnicott, D. W. (1960) Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Self, The Maturational

Process and the Facilitation Environment, International Universities Press, New York

Streznewski, M. (1999) Gifted Grownups: The Mixed Blessings of Extraordinary

Potential, New York, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

©2009, The Therapist, the publication of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, San Diego, CA. For reprint permission contact Eileen Schuster, editor, at Eileen@camft.org