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Codependency in a relationship is when each person involved is mentally, emotionally, physically, and/or spiritually reliant on the other. A codependent relationship can exist between romantic partners, but also with family members and friends.

It’s important for us to be able to depend on our friends and loved ones, but past a certain point, it can lead to dysfunctional relationship patterns.

This type of dependence is common in relationships where one of the parties has an addiction, such as to alcohol or other substances. In fact, it is within the field of chemical dependency that the term codependency was born.

“The term was originally coined in the 1950s, in the context of Alcoholics Anonymous” explains Dr. Renee Exelbert, a licensed psychologist and author based in New York, “to support partners of individuals who abused substances, and who were entwined in the toxic lives of those they cared for.”

Codependency is not a clinical diagnosis or formally categorized personality disorder on its own. Generally speaking, it incorporates aspects of attachment style patterns developed in early childhood. Codependency can also overlap with other personality disorders, including dependent personality disorder.

Causes of Codependency

What is the root cause of codependency? “Foundationally, it is due to poor concept of self and poor boundaries,” says Dr. Mark Mayfield, a licensed professional counselor (LPC), “including an inability to have an opinion or say no.”

Research suggests that there may be biological, psychological, and social elements that contribute to codependency:

• Biological: The prefrontal cortex part of a codependent person’s brain may fail to suppress empathic responses. This would create an overabundance of empathy, making it easier to become codependent.
• Psychological: People who are codependent may be psychologically predisposed to care for others. They might also be affected psychologically by negative life experiences, such as growing up with parents who fought a lot or if they are a victim of neglect or emotional abuse.
• Social: Codependency may result from changes in how society views women’s roles or the increased exposure of substance abuse within family units.

Codependency can come in all shapes and sizes, with varying severity levels. It can also develop in all sorts of relationships, says Dr. Mayfield. It can exist in parent-child, partner-partner, spouse-spouse, and even coworker-boss relations.

Signs of Codependency

Codependency refers to an imbalanced relationship pattern. In this pattern, one person assumes responsibility for meeting another person’s needs to the exclusion of acknowledging their own needs or feelings. 

Codependent relationships are thus constructed around an inequity of power that promotes the needs of the taker. This leaves the giver to keep on giving, often at the sacrifice of themselves. 

Drs. Mayfield and Exelbert share that there are several signs of codependency. If you experience any of the following, you might be the giver in a codependent relationship:

• Having a sense of “walking on eggshells” to avoid conflict with the other person
• Feeling the need to check in with the other person and/or ask permission to do daily tasks
• Often being the one who apologizes—even if you have done nothing wrong
• Feeling sorry for the other person, even when they hurt you
• Regularly trying to change or rescue troubled, addicted, or under-functioning people whose problems go beyond one person’s ability to fix
• Doing anything for the other person, even if it makes you feel uncomfortable
• Putting the other person on a pedestal, despite the fact that they don’t merit this position
• A need for other people to like you in order to feel good about yourself
• Struggling to find any time for yourself, especially if your free time consistently goes to the other person
• Feeling as if you’ve lost a sense of yourself within the relationship

Why Codependency Is Unhealthy

While everyone has loved ones and feels responsible for them, it can be unhealthy when your identity is contingent upon someone else. “Codependency does not refer to all caring behavior or feelings,” says Dr. Exelbert, “but only those that are excessive to an unhealthy degree. Responsibility for relationships with others needs to coexist with responsibility to self.”

Dr. Exelbert goes on to say, “This dynamic has also been referred to as a ‘relationship addiction’ because people with codependency often form relationships that are one-sided, emotionally destructive, and/or abusive.”

In this sense, the inherent issue with codependency is that the giver loses their true sense of self since they’re pouring so much into the taker. Even if the giver doesn’t feel this way immediately—they likely enjoy giving their love and being relied upon—it can develop to unhealthy degrees as the relationship progresses.

Another issue with codependency is that it becomes difficult for the giver to remove themselves from the relationship since they might feel the other person relies on them so much, even if they know in their gut it is the right thing to do. Conversely, the taker will feel so reliant on the giver that they can have difficulty leaving a toxic relationship as well.

How to Overcome Codependency

The first step in overcoming codependent tendencies is to focus on self-awareness. This can be done on your own, of course. But Dr. Mayfield also stresses the importance of therapy to help you really unravel your codependent tendencies.

“Many who struggle with codependency don’t seek help until their life begins to fall apart,” says Dr. Mayfield. “My advice is to be proactive and seek help.”

Once you’re on that journey, try your best to do the following:

• Become the president of your own fan club. “Learn to speak lovingly and positively to yourself,” says. Dr. Exelbert, “and resist the impulse to self-criticize.”
• Take small steps toward some separation in the relationship. Seek activities outside of the relationship and invest in new friendships. Focus on figuring out the things that make you who you are, then expand upon them.  
• Actively turn your attention inward when tempted to think or worry about someone else. This takes practice, so be kind to yourself along the way.
• “Stand up for yourself if someone criticizes, undermines, or tries to control you,” says Dr. Exelbert. By working on building your self-esteem, you’ll find more strength in yourself.
• Don’t be afraid to say “no” to someone when you don’t really want to do something.
• Consider trying a support group or group psychotherapy if one-on-one therapy doesn’t appeal to you, suggests Dr. Exelbert.

There’s even an organization called Codependents Anonymous (CoDa) that addresses “needing to be needed” and past relationship dynamics.

Psychological perspectives are different ways of thinking about and explaining human behavior. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to studying and understanding the human mind and behavior. That’s why psychologists utilize a variety of perspectives when studying how people think, feel, and behave. Exploring different perspectives gives us a fuller, richer way to look at psychology—and solve problems that people might be experiencing.

For example, have you ever wondered why you flinch when you hear a loud noise? Someone with a behaviorist perspective might say it’s a learned reaction, while someone with a biological perspective would focus on how your brain processes and responds to sound. Looking at the problem from different perspectives gives us insight into the various factors that can play a role.

Major Psychological Perspectives

The early years of psychology were dominated by a succession of these different schools of thought. If you have taken a psychology course, you might remember learning about structuralism, functionalism, psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and humanism—all of which are different schools of psychological thought.

As psychology has grown, the number and variety of topics psychologists investigate have also expanded. Since the early 1960s, the field of psychology has flourished. It continues to grow rapidly, as has the depth and breadth of subjects studied by psychologists.

Some of the most prominent psychological perspectives include:

• The psychodynamic perspective focuses on unconscious influences
• The behavioral perspective looks at learning via associations and reinforcement
• The cognitive perspective focuses on how we think and process information
• The biological perspective is concerned with the brain and genetic influences
• The cross-cultural perspective emphasizes how culture affects behavior and thought
• The evolutionary perspective examines the role of natural selection and inheritance
• The humanistic perspective focuses on growth and self-fulfillment

Purpose of Psychological Perspectives

Why are there so many different perspectives in psychology? It is important to remember that every topic in psychology can be looked at in many ways. For example, let’s consider the subject of aggression.

• A professional who emphasizes a biological perspective would look at how the brain and nervous system impact aggressive behavior.
• A professional who stresses a behavioral perspective would look at how environmental variables reinforce aggressive actions.
• A professional who utilizes a cross-cultural approach might consider how cultural and social influences contribute to aggressive or violent behavior.

Here are seven of the major perspectives in modern psychology.

1. The Psychodynamic Perspective

The psychodynamic perspective originated with the work of Sigmund Freud. This view of psychology and human behavior emphasizes the role of the unconscious mind, early childhood experiences, and interpersonal relationships to explain human behavior, as well as to treat mental illnesses.

Much thanks to Freud’s work and influence, psychoanalysis became one of the earliest major forces within psychology. Freud conceived of the mind as being composed of three key elements: the id, the ego, and the superego.

• The id is the part of the psyche that includes all the primal and unconscious desires.
• The ego is the aspect of the psyche that must deal with the demands of the real world.
• The superego is the last part of the psyche to develop and is tasked with managing all of our internalized morals, standards, and ideals.

2. The Behavioral Perspective

Where the Freudian approach was all about early experiences and unconscious urges, the behaviorists were much more invested in understanding how environmental forces affect our actions.

Behavioral psychology focuses on learned behaviors. It was founded on the work of psychologists such as Edward Thorndike and John B. Watson. Behaviorism dominated psychology in the early twentieth century but began to lose its hold during the 1950s.

Today, the behavioral perspective is still concerned with how behaviors are learned and reinforced. Behavioral principles are often applied in mental health settings, where therapists and counselors use these techniques to explain and treat a variety of illnesses. Techniques that are rooted in behavioral principles include exposure therapy, aversion therapy, flooding, systematic desensitization, behavior modeling, and token economies.

3. The Cognitive Perspective

During the 1960s, a new perspective known as cognitive psychology emerged. This area of psychology focuses on mental processes like memory, thinking, problem-solving, language, and decision-making. The cognitive perspective, influenced by psychologists such as Jean Piaget and Albert Bandura, has grown tremendously in recent decades.

Cognitive psychologists often use an information-processing model (comparing the human mind to a computer) to conceptualize how information is acquired, processed, stored, and utilized. For example, a psychologist taking the cognitive perspective might be interested in how you retrieve memories, analyze information, and form answers when you take a tough school exam.

This approach also lays the groundwork for cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), a therapeutic approach that strives to identify and then change negative thinking patterns that contribute to psychological problems.

4. The Biological Perspective

The study of physiology played a major role in the development of psychology as a separate science. Today, the perspective is known as biological psychology (also called biopsychology or physiological psychology). The point of view emphasizes the physical and biological bases of behavior.

Biopsychologists look at the brain, but they are also interested in other body systems including the nervous, immune, and endocrine systems. The role that genetics plays in behavior and psychological problems is also a huge area of interest.

Over the last few decades, the perspective has grown significantly with advances in our ability to explore and understand the human brain and nervous system.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) scans give researchers tools to observe the brain under a variety of conditions. Scientists can now look at the effects of brain damage, drugs, and disease in ways that were not possible in the past. It’s led to new insights (and treatments) for problems since we are now better able to understand the biological aspects of mental illness.

5. The Cross-Cultural Perspective

Cross-cultural psychology is a fairly new perspective that has grown significantly in the last twenty years. Psychologists and researchers in this school of thought look at human behavior across different cultures.

The differences in social behaviors between individualistic and collectivistic cultures are one good example of how this perspective can offer fresh insights. For example, researchers have studied how social behaviors differ in individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Individualistic cultures place emphasis on independence and self-reliance, while collectivist cultures stress social harmony and cohesiveness.

6. The Evolutionary Perspective

Evolutionary psychology focuses on the study of how the theory of evolution can explain physiological processes. Psychologists who take this perspective apply the basic principles of evolution (like natural selection) to psychological phenomena.

This perspective suggests that psychological traits like fear, aggression, and social bonding have developed because they offer some survival advantage. For example, our tendency to form close relationships may have evolved because cooperating and being close to others increased the chances of finding food, shelter, and other crucial resources for survival.

7. The Humanistic Perspective

In the 1950s, a school of thought known as humanistic psychology arrived. It was greatly influenced by the work of prominent humanists such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow.

The humanistic perspective emphasizes the role of motivation in thought and behavior. Concepts such as self-actualization are essential. Psychologists with a humanist perspective focus on what drives humans to grow, change, and develop their personal potential.

This field focuses on the things that can improve quality of life, happiness, and subjective well-being. For example, this perspective helps us understand how practices like gratitude and compassion strengthen resilience and reduce stress.