I despise the term codependency. This term is often used in marriage counseling towards the target (partner) of an abuser/batterer and she is defined as having excessive emotional or psychological reliance on her batterer. By using this term the therapist shifts the blame for abuse to be shared equally between the 2 partners. Therapists are taught to be a referee; to navigate and keep the lines of communication between the couple open and fair; to help them hear each other’s grievances and respond with understanding and sincerity. Unfortunately that only works with a healthy relationship that is having difficulty communicating. When you are in a relationship with a Narcissistic Personality Disorder and you are asked to share in the blame for your own abuse; you leave therapy not only being labeled as a codependent, but also burdening you with more abuse not only from your abuser, but also from your therapist. Now, once again you are being told that it is you who must change to make the relationship work and isn’t that what your abuser has told you all along?
Abuse is a choice and you do not share in the responsibility for your abusers choice. This is why Domestic Violence Support Groups never recommend marriage counseling because your batterer will only use it to manipulate the therapist and put the blame on you. The correct label rather than codependency would be Traumatic Bonding or Stockholm’s Syndrome which are much more accurate terms in the attachment to the relationship with a narcissist.
7 comments:
The victim (codependent)in a relationship is always a 100% responsible for choosing to be with his or her partner. Once they acknowledge their victimization and stay in the relationship they become volunteer martyrs.
Roberta....codswallop, balderdash, poppycock, stuff and nonsense...all silly words which describe perfectly your uninformed view. Grow up and be INFORMED!
'Dr' Roberta is a troll.
@Roberta, I have been moved by your comment to read some of your blog posts and whilst you describe the roots of what you term co-dependency accurately, you appear to have no understanding of the effect of domestic abuse, nor empathy for those damaged by it. How do you leave a sociopath or 'abusive narcissist' - isn't that tautologous, by the way? - when you don't realise that is what they are? Or when the abuse is so covert that you don't perceive what is happening to you? Staying in a relationship isn't an active choice under those circumstances, and to call victims 'volunteer martyrs' is outrageous and offensive.
A psychologist blaming the victims of abuse for their abuse reminds me of the conference of psychologists I attended about 15 years ago as the parent of children with autism, only to hear that condition being blamed on 'refrigerator mothers', a pejorative and ill-informed term I thought had died out in the 1950s. I felt then that they would not have been so quick to blame mothers if they themselves had children with autistic spectrum disorder. This is a very similar situation. Unless you have first-hand experience of the effects of domestic abuse, blaming the victim for their plight is judgemental and invidious.
To pathologize survivors into the shameless category of "volunteer martyr" is an abomination and obviously spouted from the mouth of someone who lacks actual experience living with a batterer/narcissist personality disorder and does not clearly understand the dynamics of an abusive relationship. There are many factors that keep woman in an abusive situation and it’s not just as simple as leaving. Most women at the point of realizing what they are in have been mocked, berated, belittled, and annihilated as a human being; they often see the world from there abuser’s perspective (traumatic bonding) and it’s difficult for them to perceive a way to escape from there abuser; all key components in Stockholm Syndrome. Some of the other factors that keep a woman in the relationship are financial, fear (physical violence), emotions/feelings, children, etc…. It is an atrocity that you spout this kind of dangerous rhetoric. Batterers do not and cannot change, but survivors do.
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