In other words, emotional dependence in relationships between people is the loss of one’s own independence due to the “investment” of emotions in another person.
Read on the topic: The Trap of Dependency in Relationships
How does this relationship model manifest itself? Typically, the dependent subject:
- suffers due to the inability to influence the object of his dependence, or due to his lack of availability;
- feels that the likelihood of getting rid of such addiction is extremely small;
- realizes that the presence of emotional dependence in a relationship has a terrible impact on other aspects of life, etc.
These are just a few illustrative examples. In real life there can be much more. One of the most common models is love addiction. Psychologists note that it can manifest itself not only in relation to a partner with whom the subject maintains a relationship, but also to a partner with whom the connection has long been terminated (but at the same time, the dependent person cannot “let go” of his soulmate). By the way, a little more psychology: love addiction can also be associated with the desire for love itself - the so-called erotomania.
There are many types of such emotional dependencies.
Starting from the emotional attachment of an already matured child to his mother and ending with dependence on a person who has passed on to another world, or on a situation that has developed in the past. But how can you get rid of emotional dependence and start living freely again?
For this purpose, there is a method of therapy, the goal of which is to transition a person from a dependent state to a fully independent state. In the future, it is even possible to achieve a level of interdependence. The last definition is a mutually desired state, which implies the need of one person for the other without a feeling of oppression or limiting boundaries.
Is it genetic?
Many scientists involved in brain problems claim, based on very serious research, that addictions are genetically determined, that is, predetermined. Dick Swaab’s book “We Are Our Brains” writes about this in detail, in an accessible form, and extremely convincingly. Dick Swaab himself worked almost all his life at the Brain Institute in Amsterdam. Yes, unfortunately, we must recognize and accept these statements of scientists and treat addictions as diseases that require serious, long-term and complex treatment.
How to get rid of attachment
It’s easy to leave a person in the past, but sometimes it’s too difficult to throw his image out of your head and stop going over in your thoughts what should have happened, but didn’t happen.
• The first tip on how to get rid of attachment is to switch. True, if you take up a hobby, throw yourself into work, go on a date, or just go out for a walk with the only thought of not thinking about Him or Her, nothing will work out. You need to get distracted first of all emotionally. Try to imagine that you will experience all the precious experiences associated with That person with someone else. And they will be brighter, stronger. And with this attitude, go out for a walk and meet with friends.
• Give yourself faith in the future. When we become too attached to a person, we don't see anyone around us. Letting go of attachments hurts when you are afraid of being alone. Communicate more and feel needed by many, rather than just one object of your affection. Learn to control and create attachments yourself. This is only possible with an understanding of human psychology. Then breaking up a relationship with a person will not be such a problem.
• Help someone who is in a similar situation. Your boyfriend or girlfriend probably also had problematic attachments that they had to get rid of. Maybe you can talk to them and share your experiences. Then you will see your own situation in another person - from the outside, not from the inside. And it will no longer seem so terrible to you.
• Expressing feelings on paper is often recommended. And burn the paper or put it away out of sight. This method will give relief if you publish the text on the Internet or at least let someone read it. Maybe even to the addressee himself. Not in order to get a response, but in order to put an end to it.
What are dependencies and what can they be?
Addictions known to the general population include alcohol, drugs, and nicotine. But in reality there are many more. Let's supplement this list with food addiction, work addiction (hello workaholics!), human addiction (yes, there is such a thing!), and Internet addiction. And remember Dostoevsky’s famous work “The Gambler”! That's right, there is also a gaming addiction (roulette, slot machines, computer games).
Any addiction is bad! It would seem that this is clear to everyone. But how many people are susceptible to addictions! Meanwhile, genetic predetermination is not a death sentence. It is possible to prevent the pathological development of mental states, the psychological phase of addiction. How? Education! But if this phase has already become physical and dependence has arisen at the physiological, biochemical level, it is extremely difficult to cure the patient. Theoretically it is possible, but in reality it is very difficult.
Who attaches special importance to attachments?
The owner of the visual vector needs emotional connections with other people most of all. Frankness and trust in relationships, common interests with friends and walks under the moon at night are the values of the visual vector. A visual person lives for feelings and emotions.
The lives of visual people develop differently: due to trauma and bad experiences, they can forbid themselves to feel, and concentrate all experiences on themselves. And demand attention and love from those around you.
In a healthy attachment, the visual person, on the contrary, shows sympathy and interest in the partner, opens up emotionally and receives a response. If you had to get rid of a healthy attachment, the viewer feels bad, but not fatally. He will come to his senses and create more.
In a dependent attachment, a visual person cannot express his feelings, but instead feeds on those of others. Of course, when the object disappears from sight, you want more emotions. And there is nowhere to take them. It remains to feed on poisoned but sweet experiences from an unfulfilled attachment. It seems that this is suffering from which you want to get rid of, and at the same time sweet torment.
Emotional dependence in relationships. Psychoanalytic view.
I can't live without him (her)! When he (she) is not there, I think only about him (her), all my thoughts, feelings and desires are connected only with him (her)! When I am left alone, everything loses its meaning and becomes gray and joyless, but when he (she) appears, I want to run after him (her) even to the ends of the earth. This is emotional dependence in a relationship. Now let's imagine what it's like for your partner? How does it feel to be everything to you? Water, air, sun, food! How does this make your partner feel? - That's right, irritation, pity, a desire to escape, a feeling of guilt and a painful sense of responsibility for you. It’s hard for you, it’s hard for your partner! The relationship is exhausting for both of you, but leaving is not possible. Questions arise: what to do? How to live further? How to make this relationship more comfortable and stable for both of you? How to save them? How to find contact, mutual understanding and not lose yourself in this relationship? You are tormented by these questions - then you should come to me. You can find the answers to them in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. At the first consultation, we will be able to decide on the format of psychotherapy (individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy, family psychotherapy, or psychotherapy in a client psychoanalytic group - group psychoanalysis), based on your situation.
Case from practice: Emotional dependence by type of fusion.
A young married couple came to see me. The man was 27 years old, the woman 24. Let's call them Oleg and Olga. They were brought to me by my husband’s betrayal, which became known in the family. During the initial psychotherapeutic interview, they said that they had been together for 5 years and until that moment they had lived in perfect harmony, they had everything in common, even common accounts on social networks (one page for two). In the process of family psychotherapy, it turned out that Olga was the initiator of their relationship and, until the moment of betrayal, tried to actively manage the relationship, which in general she was successful. Oleg was burdened by Olga’s dependence and her desire to do absolutely everything together, but gave in to her out of guilt. During individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy, Olga was able to tell her childhood story
A young married couple came to see me. The man was 27 years old, the woman 24. Let's call them Oleg and Olga. They were brought to me by my husband’s betrayal, which became known in the family. During the initial psychotherapeutic interview, they said that they had been together for 5 years and until that moment they had lived in perfect harmony, they had everything in common, even common accounts on social networks (one page for two). In the process of family psychotherapy, it turned out that Olga was the initiator of their relationship and, until the moment of betrayal, tried to actively manage the relationship, which in general she was successful. Oleg was burdened by Olga’s dependence and her desire to do absolutely everything together, but gave in to her out of guilt. During individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy, Olga was able to tell her childhood story, from which the reasons for her addiction became visible. The situation of her childhood was such that her mother was emotionally cold and distant, and her father was kind and accepting, and emotionally replaced her mother. But my father often drank and went to see numerous mistresses. Olga was very afraid of losing her father and was highly dependent on his mood. Mom sent 6-year-old Olya to her drunken father in the garage so that she could persuade him to return home from his mistress, threatening that she might not return without her father. Essentially, Olga was the function of uniting parents in the family, and her self-esteem depended entirely on their relationship. In the process of long-term psychotherapy, getting to know herself, realizing her true desires, Olga was able to find her interests and hobbies, become more free and learn to rely on herself. The main changes in the relationship with Oleg began to occur when Olga was able to realize that the way she built her relationship was the scenery in which she was able to feel “in her mother’s shoes,” connect with her, become the same unhappy and dependent woman as and she. .
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Do you suffer from emotional addiction? Call! 8-926-256-20-78 . Make an appointment from 10.00 to 23.00 daily. Make an appointment with Dmitry Basov in Moscow - ON-Line
The cost of consultation and the address of the appointment are indicated in the section: Contacts If necessary, psychotherapy via Skype is possible.
What is emotional dependence in a relationship?
Now this problem is very common in modern society. In my practice, I very often hear the phrase “I can’t live without him” from both men and women. Strong jealousy, constant complaints against a partner, the desire to be together 24 hours a day are a manifestation of emotional dependence. The downside of dependent relationships is loneliness, when, tired of pain, a person decides to avoid emotionally close relationships and becomes distant. Such loneliness is quite painful and takes a lot of mental strength, as well as emotionally dependent relationships. Emotional dependence usually develops in early childhood. The first and most significant relationship for a newborn child is the relationship with the mother. How they develop depends on emotional well-being and the ability to build relationships in the future. If in the first years of life the mother was emotionally cold and distant towards the child, he develops deficiency - an insatiable need for maternal love and acceptance. In such a situation, the child is desperately trying to get an emotional response from the “inaccessible object.” Often, in response to attempts to attract the mother’s attention and evoke warmth in her soul, the child receives aggression and irritation. This strong reaction, even if negative, is much better for him than indifference. In the 50s of the 20th century, an experiment was conducted with mice in the USA. One group of mice was hand-fed and petted, the second group was fed through a machine and poked with knitting needles, and the third group of mice was in sensory deprivation: no one approached them and there were no external stimuli around. All three groups of mice had the same food. So, the results of the experiment showed that the first group developed successfully, gained weight well and was friendly. The second group, which was poked with knitting needles, also developed and gained weight, but was extremely aggressive. The third group developed poorly, the mice did not gain weight, were in a lethargic and depressed state, and some individuals even died. In human relationships everything is much more complicated. If in an experiment with mice we are talking only about attention and care, then in human relationships everything is different. Here, first of all, we are not talking about formal care and guardianship, but about the fact that for the formation of a child’s personality, the leading role is played by the factor of unconscious attitude. For example, a mother can be very caring and provide the highest level of care for her infant. But if she does not feel an emotional connection with him, being in postpartum depression or emotional deficiency and dependence on another object (a parental figure, the first significant relationship or a husband who rejects her), this violates the emotional contact. Unconsciously, the child reacts extremely sharply to such a situation and tries in every possible way to get for himself the warmth and emotional acceptance that he so needs. Unlike an adult, a child does not have the opportunity to leave contact with his mother and begin to receive satisfaction from another object, because he is completely dependent on her. An adult does not have such dependence; any healthy adult can survive on his own, but the habit of tolerating and feeling dependence remains. This habit is well confirmed by an experiment with rats, the essence of which is as follows: the enclosure where the rats live was divided in half by an orange strip through which an electric current was passed. Trying to get to the other half of the enclosure, the rats received an electric shock. After some time they stopped approaching the border. After this strip of current was removed, the rats still continued to walk only in their half of the enclosure, despite the fact that there was food on the other half. In animal psychology this is called “learned helplessness.” In the early relationship between mother and child, a pattern of behavior is formed when a person chooses an equally emotionally distant and inaccessible object to satisfy his needs. And then the children's drama, in which the child feels that he will not survive without a maternal object, is repeated with the same force, but in a different setting. As a psychologist, I am often asked the following question: if we are talking about relationships with mothers in early childhood, then why do women develop emotionally dependent relationships with men? Firstly, each of us, regardless of the brightness of the external expression of belonging to our gender, has both male and female qualities in our psychological portrait. Perhaps some qualities of the object on which the woman depends have something in common with the maternal figure. But it also happens differently when the maternal object is displaced onto the paternal figure. This may occur because the father is more emotionally gentle and responsive to the child's needs than the mother. Then the woman tries to get from the man whom she chooses as an object of dependence what she should have received from her mother, but due to circumstances she received it from her father. Speaking of all this, the question arises: why do people suffering from emotional dependence choose for themselves the partner who refuses to satisfy their needs? As a result of long-term psychotherapy with emotionally dependent people, after a few months they lose their illusions and come to the realization that if the object of their addiction were devoted to them like a dog and ran after them, they would quickly lose all interest in him. Essentially, they admit that it is their partner’s coldness and emotional unavailability that attracts them. In addition to choosing an object of dependence, addicted people have a mechanism called projective identification. Its essence is that a person projects certain qualities onto his communication partner and, with his expectations, forces him to be such. For example, a woman calls a man indifferent and callous and reacts to any of his manifestations as if he were really indifferent and insensitive, without noticing his positive manifestations. And a man, being in such a relationship, after some time begins to really feel like this and behave accordingly. Like, you got what you waited for! The question arises: why does this happen and what to do about it? The reason for the tendency to emotional dependence is the personality structure that is formed in early childhood and represents a “sticky libido” and a weak “I”. As for psychotherapy for emotionally dependent individuals, rational psychotherapy aimed at understanding the causes does not have much effect. In case of emotional dependence, long-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy is most likely indicated, the main objectives of which will be: 1) strengthening the “I”, i.e. psychological maturation, strengthening the ability to cope with life’s difficulties through the search for internal resources;
2) restoration of internal communication with the inaccessible maternal object. As a result of successful psychotherapy, a person begins to feel his own integrity, self-confidence, the ability to cope with loneliness and the ability to build more mature relationships in which he can show and receive love.
The cost of consultation and the address of the appointment are indicated in the section: Contacts If necessary, psychotherapy via Skype is possible.
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