Healthy Dependency

Robert F. Bornstein, PhD, Mary A. Languirand, PhD

• Publisher: Newmarket Press
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781557049063
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Interpersonal Relations in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

From the psychologist who coined the phrase "healthy dependency"—the first and only book that outlines its four key steps and helps readers understand and use these principles to achieve balance in love, in friendships, with family, and at work.

The research is clear: Too much dependency in our relationships can be a bad thing, but too little dependency is just as bad. Healthy dependency—that flexible middle ground between rigid independence and unhealthy overdependence—is the ability to balance intimacy and autonomy, lean on others while maintaining a strong sense of self, and feel good (not guilty) about asking for help when you need it.

The authors' studies confirm that healthy dependency brings a wealth of positive effects including:

• increased satisfaction in love relationships
• greater likelihood of academic and career success
• better family communication and improved parenting skills
• enhanced physical and psychological health

This unique book, meticulously organized and laced throughout with case studies, anecdotes, relationship-style questionnaires, and research findings, draws from the authors' more than 20 years of research and clinical experience. A valuable guide to achieving healthy relationships between men and women of all ages, it will help readers identify where they are on the relationship continuum, and understand the skills they will need to address in order to strengthen their personal, professional, and family relationships.

1

HEALTHY DEPENDENCY: A FRAMEWORK FOR CHANGE

Ellen and Michael were siblings, but they couldn’t have been more different. Ellen was the strong one—always in charge, always in control. In high school she had been valedictorian of her class; now, twenty years later, she was president of her own Internet marketing firm, with a staff of thirty and a corner office overlooking midtown Manhattan. Ellen’s business was her life, and everything else—including her marriage—ran a distant second. Many things had changed in Ellen’s world during the past twenty years, but two things never changed. Everyone admired Ellen and respected her strength and insight. Yet no one felt they really knew Ellen. They just couldn’t get close to her—couldn’t connect.

Ellen understood how much people looked up to her, and she found great satisfaction in this. Still, sometimes late at night, when the day was done and her guard was down, Ellen felt sad, almost empty, as if somehow something was missing. She never revealed these feelings though, even to her husband. Instead, she shoved them away, controlled them, and crushed them through sheer force of will. By the time she hit work the next morning the troubling feelings were gone, and it was the same old Ellen everyone admired: strong, capable, competent, focused, always in control.

Over the years, Michael had gotten used to his sister’s solitude, but he wished things were different between them. Like Ellen, Michael had a successful career, but for Michael, the main part of work was the people. He spent much of his day wondering what others thought of him, and he devoted an enormous amount of time planning things he might do to impress his supervisor, Mr. Worth. The sad thing was, no matter how much he planned or how much he did, Michael never really felt secure—the smallest slights would send him into a panic. One time when Mr. Worth walked past him without saying good morning, Michael spent two sleepless nights—two—tossing and turning, obsessing and ruminating, convinced that his boss now hated him.

Things weren’t much different at home. Michael’s wife Kathleen had once remarked that he was more afraid of their daughter than she was of him. Kathleen was right, too. Michael knew it. Most of the time it didn’t matter: Kathleen was the “bad cop,” Michael the “good cop,” and things worked out okay. But two weeks ago when Kathleen was working late, Michael had given in to Kimberly’s pleas, and he let her stay out past her curfew to visit a friend across town. By the time Kim got back, it was one in the morning, and Michael and Kathleen were convinced something terrible had happened—that the car had broken down…or worse. Kathleen was furious, Michael was ashamed, and both of them knew something had to change.

What in the World Is Healthy Dependency?

We can’t tell you how many times we’ve been asked this question—by students, patients, professional colleagues, science writers, and reporters…you name it. When people first hear it, the term healthy dependency sounds strange. “Healthy” and “dependency”? Those words don’t go together. Most of us try to avoid being dependent. We’d rather be self-reliant and do things on our own. Independence is good, so we’re told; leaning on others for help is bad.

Or is it?

The research findings are clear: Too much dependency in our relationships creates problems, but too little dependency is just as bad. As we strive to make a place for ourselves, to carve out our niche in a challenging world, many of us take self-reliance too far. Like Ellen, we become too independent, and we lose the ability to connect with other people. Or like Michael, we become overwhelmed by the demands of adulthood, and retreat into unhealthy overdependence. This, as we’ve seen, has costs as well.

HEALTHY DEPENDENCY

The ability to blend intimacy and autonomy,
lean on others while maintaining a strong
sense of self, and feel good (not guilty)
about asking for help when you need it.

There is a healthy middle ground between rigid independence and unhealthy overdependence. Healthy dependency is the ability to blend intimacy and autonomy, lean on others while maintaining a strong sense of self, and feel good (not guilty) about asking for help when you need it. Healthy dependency means depending on people without becoming dependent on them. It means trusting people enough to open up and be vulnerable, yet having the self-confidence you need to survive those inevitable relationship conflicts that everyone experiences at one time or another.

When you use healthy dependency to connect with those around you, you’ll find inner strength you never knew you had. Friendships and love relationships will deepen, parenting and career skills will sharpen, and you’ll become physically healthier—and happier, too.

How Does Healthy Dependency Differ From Unhealthy Dependency?

Several years ago, we administered a battery of personality tests and other psychological measures to a group of young adults. We asked them to report on romances, friendships, and family relationships. We inquired about their moods, their beliefs about the future, their overall satisfaction with life, and their willingness to confide in others about life’s problems. And we profiled each person’s dependency style as well.

The results of our study were clear: The happiest, most satisfied, most well-adjusted people were those who showed features of healthy dependency—intimacy balanced with a good dose of autonomy, self-confidence blended with a generous helping of trust. Most important of all, these well-adjusted healthy dependent people had the ability to lean on others for support without feeling guilty, weak, or ashamed.

The bottom line: There’s nothing wrong with feeling dependent now and then. It’s a normal part of life. Problems arise when people lack one or more key healthy dependency skills, and express their normal healthy dependency needs in unhealthy, self-defeating ways. Their relationships become unbalanced and unsatisfying, their lives unfocused and unfulfilling.

By the time you finish this book, you’ll be well on your way to mastering the four key healthy dependency skills, and recapturing your healthy dependency. Here’s what you’ll need to do:

• Separate what you do from who you are. Everyone needs help sometimes, but in unhealthy dependency, we confuse asking for help with being helpless. Remember: Asking for help is something you do, not something you are. When you can begin to separate the act from the person, it will become easier to ask for help when you need it—and easier to cope if help is denied. We call this connection-based thinking, and it is a critical healthy dependency skill.

• Move beyond old stereotypes. Asking for help has tremendous symbolic meaning. We associate help-seeking with insecurity, immaturity, weakness, and failure. When we reach out to others, we literally feel weak (and sometimes guilty and ashamed as well). Healthy dependency involves moving beyond these stereotypes, and creating new, healthier emotional patterns to take their place. As you do this, you’ll develop emotional synergy: You’ll feel capable and confident when you lean on other people, so you will draw strength from their support.

• Use dependency as a means, not an end. In unhealthy dependency, getting help is an end in itself: Once you’ve gotten what you wanted, you’re done—life’s easy. In healthy dependency, help is a route to positive change—it’s a way of becoming stronger, so next time you can do better. Think of it this way: In unhealthy dependency, we seek help to avoid challenges, but in healthy dependency, we seek help to learn and grow. This is called growth motivation—the third important healthy dependency skill.

• Learn how to ask for help. Healthy dependency means knowing how to ask for help and support, so people feel good—not trapped—when they lend you a hand. Healthy dependency also means knowing when to ask for help—learning to identify situations where it’s okay to lean on others and situations where it’s better to go it alone. This skill—called relationship flexibility—will enable you to bring healthy dependency to all your relationships.

When Healthy Dependency Is Gone, What Takes Its Place?

As we’ll see in Chapter 2, many life experiences distort our perceptions of ourselves and other people, and make it difficult to acquire the four key healthy dependency skills. These experiences literally cause us to “disconnect” from others—and sometimes from aspects of ourselves as well.

When people lose touch with their healthy dependency, they usually develop one of two self-defeating relationship styles. Some people (like Michael) develop a relationship style characterized by fearfulness and insecurity—a style known as destructive overdependence. Other people (like Ellen) go the opposite way and develop a defensive, closed-off style known as dysfunctional detachment.

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THE FOUR KEY HEALTHY DEPENDENCY SKILLS

Connection-Based Thinking, Emotional Synergy, Growth Motivation, and Relationship Flexibility—these are the building-blocks of healthy dependency.

As you might guess, people express destructive overdependence and dysfunctional detachment in many different ways (we’ll discuss these in detail in Chapter 2). For now, let’s look at the core features of these self-defeating relationship styles.

Destructive Overdependence: The Suction-Cup Relationship Style

We call destructive overdependence the Suction-Cup Relationship Style because overdependent people cling to others as a way of avoiding life’s challenges. Overdependent people see themselves as weak and vulnerable, and believe that without a strong protector, they won’t survive. Their greatest fear is that they’ll be abandoned and left t...