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Home , Codependency

Theories of Neurosis By Kate Eccles

Toxic Helping: Codependency as a form of Neurotic Conflict

“The symptoms of neurosis are not simply the effects of long-past causes, whether ‘infantile sexuality’ or the infantile urge to power; they are also attempts at a new synthesis of life-unsuccessful attempts, let it be added in the same breath, but attempts nevertheless, with a core of value and meaning. They are seeds that fail to sprout owing to the inclement conditions of and inner and outer nature.”

CG Jung Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. Collected Works 7, 1953

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In , neurosis is a term used to describe a nonpsychotic mental illness stemming from an unresolved emotional conflict. In neurosis, an impulse that has been blocked seeks expression in a disguised form, with the result that neurotic persons experience emotional distress and unconscious conflict in the form of physical or mental illnesses such as acute or chronic , , obsessive-compulsive disorders, phobias, or personality disorders.

The term ‘neurosis’ was first coined in 1769 by Scottish doctor William Cullen, to refer to symptoms that could not be explained by physiology (knee jerks, gag reflexes, dermatographia etc). With the rise of the psychoanalytic movement, Freud adopted the term as an explanation for the expression of repressed sexual impulses. Adler went on to reframe it more as a disguised and distorted ‘will to power’. Later, theorized that neurosis stemmed from a faulty way of looking at the world resulting from the expression of compulsive needs transmitted to a child from his or her early environment.

Jung’s theory of neurosis takes into account all these theories, but also takes things a step farther. Jung, unlike many other psychoanalysts, based his theory of neurosis on the premise of a self-regulating psyche which tries to manage opposing tensions between the ego and the unconscious, and he believed that in many cases the neurosis also had a creative or teleological function stemming in part from the loss of a fulfilling sense of meaning and purpose, and from the lack of connection to a living religious belief.

While most psychoanalytic treatment focuses on trying to work with the patient to bring the repressed or unconscious content into conscious awareness, Jung’s treatment brought in the attempt to build a stronger dialogue between conscious and unconscious through the examination of symbolic contents from the unconscious in the form of dreams, resonant myths, fairy tales, and creative fantasies. In this way, Jung envisioned neurosis not so much as a mental dysfunction, but as a life-guiding gift from the unconscious pointing the individual toward health and foreshadowing necessary developmental tasks.

In his book on the psychoanalytic theory of neurosis, Fenichel describes the dynamic thus: That underneath the organized periphery of the ego lies a core of dynamic forces, which strive for discharge. These dynamic forces (often repressed impulses) consistently seek outlets. The ego, in its role mediating between the organism and the environment, works to provide protection against perceived hostile influences from the outer world. This protection (or sometimes gratification seeking) occurs consciously in accord with collective beliefs, individual past experiences, or conditioning. In the unconscious background, however, impulses which may be objectionable to the conscious ego attitude continue to seek expression. “In this seeking activity, the ego tends to produce “derivatives”, that is, to displace its cathexes onto associatively connected ideas that are less objectionable to the conscious ego … There are unconscious “dispositions” toward these qualities, unconscious “longings for affects”, strivings toward development of affects that are held in check by opposing forces, while the individual

2 does not know that he has such readiness toward rage or sexual excitement or guilt feeling or whatever it may be.” (p. 17) One place we might find such derivatives is in the syndrome of codependency. Codependents are those ‘selfless’ individuals who lavish caretaking on people who typically are so needy, selfish, addicted or ill, they are unable to reciprocate or have mutual relationships. The term “codependency” is not in the DSM and is borrowed from the language of drug and alcohol . Although a vague term with many definitions, I understand it as a person who cannot act from their innate self, but seeks based on feelings of inadequacy that one hopes will be repaired by a partner. The codependent cannot be the individual they really are, but must fulfill a role their partner has for them, which is to provide unbending love and security. The trouble is that there is never enough giving. The codependent is constantly tested, and must work harder and harder to please the other person in order to ensure they will be loved. Therefore, a codependent submerges their needs for those of the other person, accepting destructive, dysfunctional and often cruel behavior because they fear that, if the addict or narcissist with whom they are involved is made accountable or if they are confronted, they will recover, get their needs met elsewhere, or leave.

The infamous dynamic can best be observed firsthand in Al-Anon family groups, where competent and high-potential people can be found in droves sharing remarkably consistent stories about their lives being consumed by the unpredictable, often destructive behaviors of pathological narcissists, borderlines, alcoholics or drug addicts. Often, it is in these meetings that the codependent first begins to understand that they themselves have a disease of addiction in which they are toxically and compulsively bonded to the addict or narcissist in their lives. In the worst cases, people will care for people for decades who they don’t even really like. They give and give, while the other becomes progressively more and more dependent and stunted, hardly able to participate in managing their own day to day lives. In other cases, the codependent’s world gradually narrows to being concerned only with the needs, wants and feelings of the person they are involved with – a kind of obsessive ‘love’ that absorbs every waking moment and has the quality of intoxication or a kind of ‘possession’.

For example, they may spend all day wondering if their partner is drinking, how much they are drinking, or if they are having sexual thoughts about someone else. They may spend an inordinate amount of time ‘covering up’ for their spouse’s neglect of work or important tasks, doing routine life management things for the partner, hyper-vigilantly monitoring the partner’s every move. They may neglect their own friends to “be there” for the acting out partner who is, typically, not present for them and wreaking havoc with their lives. They may sit in a restaurant alone brooding and waiting for the partner who promised to show up and didn’t, rather than cutting their losses and going out with another friend, because thinking about their partner’s disappointing behavior is still more gratifying to them than doing something for themselves.

Why would someone with so much capacity for caring, who is clearly capable of managing two, not one, lives, allow their whole reality and potential to be consumed by someone who seems to offer nothing in return?

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Because the truth is that the Codependent is actually just as ill and needy as the addict or narcissist. Codependents have cathected their own chronic need for care into the more socially acceptable behavior of caretaking for others. It is a defense against their own fear and vulnerability and a way to control their environment and secure a ‘family’ who will never leave them. Codependents lavish care on needy, troubled others as a conversion of their own desperate unmet needs. As the disease progresses, they literally become more and more addicted to the person they are ‘helping’. Just as the alcoholic’s personality and potential become more and more replaced by the addiction to booze, and as the narcissist’s life begins to unravel as they alienate more and more people through attacks of narcissistic rage and predatory/entitled behaviors, the codependent similarly becomes eaten up by addiction, as they themselves become more and more addicted to the ‘helping’ fix.

Paradoxically, the codependent is doing anything but helping the addict or narcissist in their lives. In fact, their ‘helping’ is often a form of toxic which prevents the partner from facing the consequences of their own disease and life choices. As a result, the codependent is actually contributing to the progression of another’s illness and failure, while at the same time their own disease progresses in the background. If unaddressed, codependency continues to eat away at the personality, and eventually the codependent becomes a mere shell of themselves, helplessly floundering through life trying to comply and cope with the increasingly dysfunctional chaos created by an active alcoholic, drug addict, or narcissist whose own ability to function continues to deteriorate but who never ‘hits bottom’ and faces their disease because the codependent is functioning for them in the day to day management of life.

Typically, the (exhausted) codependent sees themselves as a selfless victim – a martyr – who has sacrificed much for the thankless addict and/or narcissist in their life. The constant refrain from those outside the relationship is: “how can that bad person treat him/her this way after all they have done?” But if the codependent does manage to leave the relationship, but still hasn’t addressed their own illness, those in their environment will often be surprised at how quickly another needy, addicted or narcissistic partner or boss is found – often worse and more troubled than the one before.

One of the truths that often emerges during therapy with codependents is that – looking back through the life cycle – the codependent has a history of selecting troubled people, those without jobs, addicts, narcissists and users who are not really available to have equal, mutually supportive and satisfying relationships with them - and their relationship patterns are remarkably consistent over time.

That is because the codependent is not ‘trapped’, but rather suffers from a serious relationship disorder that forms in childhood and progresses over time. It is a true neurosis in the sense that – rather than robbing the codependent of their capacity to get their needs met and have a happy life – the dysfunctional partnership in fact is meeting a very important unconscious and unrecognized need in the codependent themselves. This is the need to be loved, which shows up in the form of a derivative – the need to be needed. The serious emotional neglect in childhood has fallen into the unconscious and acts as a dynamic wounded centre underneath

4 conscious awareness. Marion Woodman has described this wounded centre as a wolf who hunts and hunts all day to feed the pack, but howls and howls in lonely anguish at night.

This ‘complex’ has the outer dynamic that American specialist Ross Rosenberg has dubbed “The Human Magnet Syndrome”. The codependent feels mysteriously “pulled” to meet others’ needs, comply with their wishes, “support” or “help” those who are adults and therefore should be caring for themselves. Often, when offered the chance to be with a healthy individual, the codependent will say “but it’s just not exciting, the magic isn’t there!” Somehow, the ‘pull’ toward meeting the ‘bottomless pit’ needs of an addict or a narcissist is so strong, the codependent quickly becomes entangled in the web of another person’s chaotic life, even when they consciously know how destructive a relationship with this person might be. At first, there is a dramatic “rescue” (She is so lonely, she desperately needs a family; she’s down on her luck she can’t get a job and I can give her a place to stay; he drinks but it is because his ex wife wounded him and I am a healer.) Then, things go downhill as the partner demands more and more, and the codependent-addict (or narcissist) dyad congeals into the classic mutually destructive pattern.

As Fenichel points out: “In all neurotic symptoms something happens which the patient experiences as strange and unintelligible. This something may be involuntary movements, other changes of various bodily functions and various sensations, as in hysteria; or an overwhelming and unjustified emotion or mood, as in anxiety spells or depressions; or queer impulses or thoughts, as in compulsions and obsessions. All symptoms give the impression of a something that seems to break in upon the personality from an unknown source – a something that disturbs the continuity of the personality and that is outside the realm of the conscious will. But there are also neurotic phenomena of another kind. In “neurotic characters” the personality does not appear to be uniform or disturbed only by one or other interrupting event, but openly so torn or deformed and often involved in the illness that one cannot say at what point the personality ends and the symptom begins. But different as ‘symptom neuroses’ and ‘character neuroses’ seem to be, both have this in common: the normal and rational way of handling the demands of the external world as well as the impulses from within is substituted by some irrational phenomenon which seems strange and cannot be voluntarily controlled.”(p. 18)

Lonely at the core, the codependent will tell you that their lives are controlled by the actions of a reckless addict or selfish narcissist who is curtailing their freedom, ruining their life, and robbing them of their power. In fact, the codependent’s excessive caretaking is just as destructive, and like the controlling addict is rooted in fear, loneliness, and a will to power - an unconscious way of controlling their environment by making others dependent and needy. Consciously, the codependent believes they are selflessly giving and sacrificing, while in reality their behavior is in fact an unrealized attempt to find care themselves by giving and giving and ensuring others will never leave them.

Interestingly, the stunted coping strategies of both members of this toxic dyad have roots in the same soil. Both the codependent and the narcissist/addict grew up in a world in which they did

5 not receive healthy mirroring from a parent and had to develop a false “perfect” or “pleasing” self. The codependent, in particular, was a child who was conditioned not to ask for care. Often, their parents were too busy with work or problems of their own, with , or with the needs of other children. Sometimes there is a sibling or family member with severe health issues that took up all the time and attention in the family and made it awkward for the codependent to ask for their own care needs to be met. Hence, the co-dependent became ‘parentified’ and super-capable when they were still a child themselves, sometimes becoming the parent to the parent, or the ‘golden child’/’super-achiever’ or ‘charming clown’ who could make everybody happy and manage flawlessly with almost no assistance from the adults in their life. The codependent learned early that the best way to attract positive attention, and the few crumbs of care they need, is to offer help to others, to please, and to fix.

The tragedy of the codependent is that the people in their environment were too wrapped up in their own neuroses to be able to really conceive of him or her as an individual. Rather than being able to love the child, their interactions with him or her were determined by their own needs, predicaments and responses. As Karen Horney has said, the child then experiences insecure attachment to the parents and deals with the considerable anxiety which ensues by creating an idealized image of themselves as omnipotent and capable. The into which they are forced becomes reframed as “goodness”, and “saintliness”; their suppressed natural becomes “strength”, and “heroism”; loneliness becomes “self-sufficiency” and “independence”. A similar dynamic is in play in the development of the narcissist, and sometimes the addict, with whom they are entangled and who also likely grew up in an environment of insecure attachment. Like the codependent, the narcissist/addict also identified with an idealized self- image, except he/she will make manipulative claims on others based on the prestige they feel entitled to because of “specialness”. Pain, pushed into the unconscious, acts as a complex. The narcissist or addict copes by cultivating pride and denying the obvious vulnerability that comes with pride that lacks a foundation. The codependent moves to the opposite pole: becoming self-effacing and compulsively compliant, suppressing needs and obtaining care and security through people-pleasing, caretaking behaviors which in turn give them a different, but just as manipulative, form of ‘prestige’ and ‘specialness’. Both are addicts, both narcissists, both codependents, but they cope with their predicaments by gravitating to opposite poles, hence their ‘magnetic’ attraction. The narcissist is addicted to ; the alcoholic to substances; the codependent to relationships. One compensates for childhood lack through and seeking proof of love through demanding selfless giving from the other. The other compensates through ‘needing to be needed’, seeking proof that they are loved because the other cannot survive and manage life without them – they are for the other. Both are ‘danced’ by the primal of the children they once were. Both are addicts in the sense that they hunger for and seek that which is harmful to them. For the addict, think Red Shoes. For the codependent, think the silver hands of the handless maiden. For both, think staring into the pool, enamored with his own

6 reflection. And think of the heartbreaking plight of the codependent Echo who him, but can only sit on the shore repeating the last phrase of whatever words Narcissus has uttered. Freud identified this dyad as the intersection of two attachment styles: The narcissistic type who attaches to what he would like to be or someone who he considers a part of himself. And the anaclictic attachment type in the form of the woman or man who attaches to the person who they feed and protect. Melanie Klein has dubbed this in both cases ‘the depressive position’, marked by a painful need for attachment, mutual mirroring and a wish to “belong together” in a complete “unit”. Codependency is a very serious illness which can lead the sufferer to secondary addictions to substances, shopping, television, overwork or food to cope with feelings. As well, codependents are susceptible to problems like depression and anxiety, and to physical health problems which develop out of stress.

Key Symptoms include (adapted from material on Shalom and other websites): 1. Life is externally-referenced (focused on someone else) 2. Compulsive approval-seeking, giving, and people-pleasing 3. Strategizes constantly to control others and participate in others’ decisions 4. Over-involvement in all aspects of another’s life; incessant ‘doing for’ 5. Intimacy comes from empathizing with others while discounting own feelings 6. Compromising the boundaries of one’s values because the other wants it 7. Accepting unacceptable behavior from others 8. Frozen feelings, numbness 9. Physical manifestations of fear and stress such as heart palpitations, nausea, headaches 10. Depression resulting from repressed anger 11. Valuing self according to others’ opinions. Uses martyr, victim, and savior role to bolster self-esteem 12. Anxiety, related to perceived lack of control of one’s life 13. Racing thoughts and mental preoccupation about the other 14. Problems with ; unable to ask directly for what one wants 15. Unable to question or challenge unacceptable behavior in others

Codependents tend to fall into one of three categories: 1. Savior: over-responsible, indispensable, rescuer of the world, messiah of the church “if I don’t do it, it won’t get done” 2. Romance addict: approval and acceptance of a ‘special’ someone essential to being ok with oneself. Uses caretaking and compliant sexuality to gain approval and acceptance “whatever he says he wants, I’ll do. I’m nobody without this relationship” 3. Caretaker: relates to others through role of giver, helper, supporter, nurturer, etc. “Everyone’s needs are more important than my own” These characteristics make the codependent very vulnerable to narcissistic abuse in adult relationships. Because they were raised in families in which, rather than having parents who

7 mirrored and encouraged the child's developing self, used the child as a little caregiver, the child early on developed 'antennae' that hard-wire them to want to meet other people's needs rather than recognizing their own. They become pathological caretakers unaware that their desperate need to care and provide for others in fact masks their own unconscious need for security and belonging. On the other pole, the narcissistic person or addict tends to seek out a more capable and empathic partner in order to gain admiration, enable them to be in about their illness, and defend against their own feelings of inadequacy. This admiration from a successful or competent other is called narcissistic supply. Over many months, the narcissistic partner creates a dynamic abuser and victim relationship through a cycle of abuse resulting in traumatic emotional bonding that makes it hard if not impossible for their partner to leave.

The narcissists' (or addicts’) relationships are characterized by a period of intense involvement and idealization of their partner, followed by devaluation. At the beginning, the partner is only shown the ideal self of the narcissist/addict, which includes pseudo-, kindness, and charm - "the soul mate". Once the partner has committed to the relationship, the true characteristics will begin to emerge. The initial narcissistic abuse begins with ‘testing’ the partner through disappearing for periods of time, belittling comments, adultery, sabotage, theft and, at times, physical abuse.

At the core of the narcissist and often the addict is a combination of entitlement and low self- esteem. The feelings of inadequacy are projected onto the codependent. If the narcissistic person is feeling unattractive they will belittle their romantic partner's appearance. If the narcissist makes an error, this error becomes the partner's fault. Narcissists also engage in insidious, manipulative abuse by giving subtle hints and comments that result in the victim questioning their own behavior, value and thoughts. This is termed gaslighting. Any slight criticism of the narcissist, whether actual or perceived, often triggers narcissistic rage which can take the form of screaming tirades or quiet sabotage (setting traps, hiding belongings, spreading rumors, belittling the partner behind their back, sexual promiscuity, etc.). Once the narcissistic supply is obtained elsewhere, the selfless codependent who has been so loyal to the narcissist can quickly be discarded, and this ‘cruelty’ can be shocking to the codependent.

The codependent finds themselves increasingly in the role of the responsible head of the household in an abusive relationship – with all of the responsibility but apparently none of the power. It is sometimes referred to as “sado-masochistic relating.” People remain in the relationship because they fear abandonment. The codependent lives under the unconscious concept that “it is better to be abused than to be alone” – and yet, they completely fail to realize that their own caretaking is in fact a form of abuse, as they increasingly seek to maintain equilibrium by obsessing about and controlling the more obviously overtly abusive partner.

I believe that psychoanalysis offers the most promising help to the codependent seeking to recover and find serenity and real love in their lives. As Fenichel states (p. 569) “in sharp contrast to all other types of , psychoanalysis attempts the real undoing of the

8 pathogenic defenses. This is the only means of freeing the patient of the bad consequences of his pathogenic conflicts for good, and of placing again at his disposal the energies that hitherto have been bound in this conflict. Thus psychoanalysis is the only causal therapy of neuroses. Its aim is achieved by making the patient’s ego face what it had previously warded off. The transference is not immediately used for therapeutic aims but is rather analyzed; that is, its true nature is demonstrated to the patient. What previously had been excluded from the personality finds this connection again and attains belated maturation.”

Unlike short-term therapies such as Cognitive Behavioral or other symptom-modification models, the long duration of psychoanalysis is warranted here: Rather than merely attempting to help the codependent to manage their anxiety or change their thought-processes, psychoanalysis attempts the full re-education of the ego to tolerate less and less distorted derivatives, until the pathogenic defense is undone. For Jungians, the opportunity is not just the re-education of the ego, but a re-connecting to the life-giving, creative waters of the unconscious. Dr. Robert Johnson has said (p. 10) “Jung observed that most of the neurosis, the feeling of fragmentation, the vacuum of meaning, in modern lives, results from this isolation of the ego-mind from the unconscious. As conscious beings we all go about with a vague sense that we have lost a part of ourselves, that something that once belonged to us is missing … Our isolation from the unconscious is synonymous with our isolation from our souls, from the life of the spirit… And it can only force its Way back into our lives through neurosis, inner conflicts, and psychological symptoms that demand our attention.” The pathogenic beliefs and patterns of the codependent point to the potential for them to redirect their considerable talents and energies, to find mutual love, and to reach new potential in their lives. If the obsession about the other can become channeled into building their own lives and creative projects, a new stability and can be possible. In turn, this new creativity may serve to attract healthy, creative individuals capable of seeing and appreciating them for their unique gifts. Without the need to “buy” love with compliance and compulsive giving, their creative energies can be freed from the parental complexes - to love and be loved without toxic entanglement and find support for new creative endeavors.

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“If you’re running away from a bull, consult the legs – then, start looking for a hiding place. Then the instincts and the ego are in accord. If you are a philosopher you think you must first find out whether it is right to run away from a bull, then your ego blocks the instinctual urge. It has become autonomous and anti-instinctive and then becomes a destructive nuisance, such as we see in every neurotic individual. A neurosis could even be defined as an ego formation no longer in harmony with the whole personality, whereas when the ego functions in accordance with the larger totality, it reinforces itself and improves the innate cleverness of the basic instinctive arrangement.” Marie-Louise Von Franz The Interpretation of Fairy Tales (p. 61)

References

Codependency website: http://shalomplace.com/res/essymcodep.html September 1, 2015 Edinger, Edward. The Creation of Consciousness: Jung’s Myth for Modern Man. Toronto: Inner City Books. 1984

Fenichel, Otto. The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis. New York: Routledge. 1946.

Frey Rohn, Liliane. From Freud to Jung: A comparative study of the psychology of the unconscious. New York: CG Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology. 1974

Jacoby, Mario. Individuation and : The Psychology of Self in Jung and Kohut. London: Routledge. 1985.

Johnson, Robert A. Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth. San Francisco, Harper Collins. 1989.

Jung, CG. Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. The Collected Works of CG Jung, Vol. 7. Bollingen: Princeton University Press, 1972.

Jung, CG. Civilization in Transition. Collected Works 10. London: Routledge, 1964.

Von Franz, Marie-Louise. The Interpretation of Fairy Tales. Dallas, Spring Publications. 1978

Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 July 2004. Web August 29 2015. “Jung’s Theory of Neurosis.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jung%27s_theory_of_neurosis

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