Codependency

Codependency is what happens when the capacity to care for another becomes organized around that person's needs to the exclusion of one's own — a kind of love that has collapsed the self in order to maintain the relationship. The word comes from addiction treatment but describes a pattern that appears far beyond that context, often in people who grew up attuning to a parent's emotional state as a matter of survival. This domain examines what codependency is, how it forms, and how genuine love differs from the anxious caretaking that impersonates it.