Emotional dependencies are defined as relational problems reflected in addictive behaviors in interpersonal relationships. These behaviors are based on a role asymmetry and a dependent attitude towards the partner. They show a recurrent pattern of unmet emotional needs that are attempted to be covered in a maladaptive way with other people (Castelló, 2000). Sirvent (2008) highlights both a loss of volitional capacity and autonomy in this type of bond.
The lack of self-esteem that reinforces the fear of being abandoned or left alone immediately triggers typical emotional dependency behaviors. It’s not about having more or less education, more or less purchasing power, more or less friends; we are all susceptible to falling into a dependent relationship if we don’t pay attention to some signs.
The key, according to Silvia Congost (2016), lies in the “first time.” When something we don’t like or don’t agree with happens for the first time, that is the moment to set a firm limit, to say no. If we don’t, it will become increasingly difficult, and we will enter a cycle that can be very hard to break free from. If we don’t refuse what doesn’t align with our values, it will happen a second time, and a third, and a fourth, etc. And there will be no limit to stop us (Congost, 2016).
When we talk about “loving too much,” we are not talking about real love, because as Congost describes in her book When Loving Too Much Is Depending, loving too much does not exist, and when we name it as such, what happens is that we are allowing things (in the name of love) that in no case should we tolerate. Loving without limits and above ourselves implies a distorted love, a misunderstood love, a harmful and toxic love that instead of strengthening us and helping us grow, only destroys us (Congost, 2016).
At a therapeutic level, when you are a psychologist with training in couple therapy, it is important to detect if the patient who comes to your consultation with a couple issue shows the following indicators:
– Fear of breakup: when we have emotional dependency, we feel absolutely incapable of breaking up with the other person and being without him/her. The simple idea of being alone paralyzes us because we don’t see ourselves capable of continuing life without that person. The partner is an “indispensable” and “essential” support for the emotionally dependent person (Congost, 2016)
– Social isolation: when there is emotional dependency, everything revolves around the other person, and in this way, we gradually abandon friends, activities, and people we enjoyed until then. This is very dangerous because if the relationship ends, we will be completely alone and will have no support networks (Congost, 2016).
– Non-acceptance of the other: when there is emotional dependency, we always feel that the other person should change some characteristic that is basic for us, so that we can be happy by their side. We demand that they change or be as we want them to be, because if they don’t, we are not well. However, we are capable of “forgiving” their mistakes again and again, and although we are in continuous arguments and reconciliations, we prefer to be unhappy with the partner than to end the relationship and be alone (Congost, 2016).
– Lack of understanding from others: people around us hardly understand us, as they don’t comprehend why, if we are so unhappy, we don’t leave the other person. It is an absurd and irrational relationship, even though the person experiencing it feels it is the most important and valuable thing in their life (Congost, 2016).
If the patient meets the previously indicated indicators, as psychotherapists, we are facing a case of emotional dependency. For this, therapeutic intervention should focus on three fundamental axes of the person’s functioning that you will learn about with ISEP’s Master’s in Couple Therapy:
At an emotional level
– A primary objective of the intervention is for the patient to develop an internal emotional supply, that is; not to satisfy affective needs solely through external sources, but to work with the person’s inner self so that they are capable of seeing that they can give themselves affection and satisfy their own needs.
– The management of negative emotionality such as loneliness, failure, or rejection will be paramount to begin consolidating a more adaptive emotional functioning. Recovering the sense of control over one’s own affective states. Generating emotional responsibility.
– Increase the generation of positive emotions towards one’s own self; such as understanding, acceptance, or empathy. Achieve adequate levels of self-esteem and reduce levels of negative emotionality towards the self.
At a cognitive level
– Detect possible distorted beliefs about one’s self-concept or relational patterns.
– Self-deception presents as cognitive distortion, with idealizations and excessive fantasizing at the beginning of the relationship, generating emotional over-involvement, adaptive emotional manipulation, denial mechanisms, and evasive coping strategies.
– For Ellis (cited by Muñoz, 2002), the feeling of dissatisfaction in dependent relationships has to do with unrealistic expectations about relationships or the characteristics a partner should have.
– Work at this level through cognitive restructuring is a fundamental pillar in addressing this problem.
At an interpersonal level
– Implement changes in relationship patterns, encouraging the patient to relate in other environments beyond the couple.
– Social skills training, focused especially on assertive communication patterns.
– Functioning of the couple relationship understood not as a symbiosis, but as a complementarity.