Just Another ‘Disease’ to Soothe Powerlessness : Psychology: Conditioned by socially imposed low self-esteem, women are falling for a new guilt trip: ‘co-dependency’ on a partner’s addiction.

Every few years a wave of best-selling books sweeps over the land, purporting to explain to women the origins of their unhappiness. The symptoms these books attempt to treat are the same: low self-esteem, passivity, depression, an “exaggerated” sense of responsibility to others, an inability to break out of bad relationships.

In the 1970s, the problem was women’s “fear of success.” In 1981, it was the “Cinderella Complex--a hidden fear of independence.” In 1985, it was the fact that women “love too much.” Now we’re told that women’s problem is the “disease” of “co-dependency”--they are addicted to abusers, addicted to bad relationships, addicted to people with addictions. They are “enablers,” the partners whose concern for their alcoholic or drug-abusing spouses allows the addiction to continue.

Co-dependency is a national phenomenon and big business. Thousands, perhaps millions, of women are buying books and joining recovery groups. They are identifying themselves at social gatherings and support groups as being “in recovery” from co-dependency. Clearly, a nerve has been struck.

Oddly enough for a “disease” that afflicts so many individuals, no one really agrees on what co-dependency is. “There are almost as many definitions of co-dependency as there are experiences that represent it,” says Melody Beattie, author of one of the best-selling books on the subject. Her own definition of a co-dependent person is “one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.” (This definition excludes only a few saints and hermits.) “Some therapists,” Beattie acknowledges, “have proclaimed: ‘Co-dependency is anything, and everyone is co-dependent.’ ”

This is a curious kind of disease. What physician would write a book on diabetes, saying, “Diabetes is anything, and everyone is diabetic”? But co-dependency writers are not fazed by such quibbles; and a woman who expresses skepticism is being defensive, further evidence that she is co-dependent.

Just as they share the “disease” view of addiction, co-dependency books propose a common solution: the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step method, based on a “spiritual awakening” in which the sufferer hands over his or her addiction to a “higher power” to cure. Like all friendly sermons that emphasize the healing power of love, this advice makes sense at the time, but an hour later a person is hungry for substance, and she may be forgiven for wondering why the advice doesn’t translate into practical action. Then, when the programs don’t work over the long haul (numerous studies have found that the majority of participants in “higher power” programs eventually relapse), the participants blame themselves and look for newer solutions. But the basic problem will continue, because women’s low self-esteem is a result of their low esteem in our society.

I do not wish to disparage any program or belief that allows a person to take charge of his or her life, conquer self-defeating drug addictions and break a cycle of abuse. And the co-dependency language does reflect an important truth about family dynamics: that every member of the group affects every other member. But I am concerned that co-dependency’s emphasis on inner feelings and “higher powers” obscures the real-life concerns that keep women entangled in bad relationships.

Psychologist Michael Strube of Washington University recently published a review of years of research investigating why women leave abusive relationships--and why they stay (as up to 50% do). Overall, Strube found, “these studies paint a picture of women who lack the economic means to leave an abusive relationship, are willing to tolerate abuse so long as it does not become too severe or involve the children and who appear to be very committed to making their relationships last”--that is, women who have been in their relationships a long time, or who are opposed to divorce for religious reasons. Such women are also trapped in a network of friends and family who pressure them to stay in the marriage and look disapprovingly on their efforts to leave.

Co-dependency theories therefore promulgate a misplaced attribution of responsibility: Co-dependents learn that they are as much to blame for their spouses’ problems as their spouses are, because they are the “enablers.” The partners themselves, however, are not considered responsible for their abusive, rotten or violent behavior, since, as one co-dependency writer says, they have a “progressive disease” and “can’t help themselves.”

Once again, whatever’s wrong is women’s fault--sick, diseased women at that. Until women begin to look outward to the roles, obligations and financial realities that keep them stuck instead of always looking inward to their own faults and failings, their low self-esteem is bound to continue. And so will comforting theories that blame women’s problems on sickness rather than powerlessness.