Codependency therapy works by helping the individual recognize, understand, and accept codependent patterns — including why and how they might've developed. In addition, it focuses on helping the individual to kick these tendencies and build more balanced relationships that allow them to support others without neglecting their own needs.
Codependent counseling can last for a few weeks, months, or longer. It depends on the exact needs of the client as well as the severity of their codependent challenges and other needs or preferences.
Counseling for Codependency in Somerville, MA—Prioritize Your Wellbeing
It is hard to imagine that helping a friend or a family member could actually be hurting them and hurting ourselves, but the truth is that not all help is helpful. Some help is actually enabling, controlling, and codependent.
Thriveworks in Somerville offers counseling for codependency. We have worked with many clients who love an addict or who are caring for a loved one with serious medical issues or who give and give and give. Our therapists and counselors have walked with many people who are codependent and helped them prioritize their own self-care and learn when to say, “yes,” and when to say, “no.”
What Is Codependency?
Codependent people often form relationships with other people who have high needs, especially addicts, people who have serious medical issues, or who participate in irresponsible behavior. The codependent often enters into the relationship to fix the other person. Codependents may try to try to neutralize their loved one’s bad decisions while putting their own physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual, and financial health at risk.
It can be very tricky to know what actions are helpful and which are enabling and codependent. In order to clarify, the following are common characteristics of codependent behavior and may signal that enabling has occurred.
- Difficulty community one’s own needs: Codependent people push down their own feelings, thoughts, and needs. They may have difficulty even admitting their own desires to themselves, much less to others. This behavior is often fueled by a fear of rejection.
- People-pleasing tendencies: Codependent people often accept responsibility for how other people feel. If their loved one is happy or sad or upset or scared or content, codependents will take the blame or the credit. They may work extremely hard to keep their loved ones happy. The reality is, however, that people are responsible for their own feelings, not the feelings of others.
- Caretaking: Often, codependents have melded their identity with caretaking. Who they are (identity) is the same as what they do for their loved ones. When they are unable to help, they often feel deep shame—as if something must be wrong with them for not offering assistance. Codependents may also feel personally rejected when loved ones do not need their help.
- Denial: One of the many reasons codependent people fixate upon other people is that they are in denial about their own physical and mental health problems. Helping other people actually becomes a self-serving way for codependents to distract themselves from their own problems.
Codependency Counseling with Thriveworks in Somerville
As you read through the description of codependency, did you recognize anything about your own behavior? If you did, know that change is possible. If you are ready to work with a counselor on healthier ways of relating, know that Thriveworks Counseling in Somerville has appointments for codependency.
When you contact our office, you may be meeting with your therapist within the same week. Many new clients do. We also work with many insurance companies and accept a variety of insurance plans. Weekend and evening appointments are offered, but you will not be put on a waitlist.
Let’s work together for a stronger you. Call Thriveworks Counseling in Somerville today.
