- Melody Beattie (published ‘Co-dependent no more‘, 1986) and Robin Norwood (published ‘Women Who Love Too Much‘, 1985) popularized the term co-dependency in their self-help books, borrowing a concept from Alcohol and addiction research and applying it to romantic relationships. This popularization led to an influx of publications, almost obscuring the original meaning of the term and it’s application to describe relationships with alcohol.
Category: Uncategorized
Co-Dependency – an abused term
Researchers of Love and Attachment Theory
Attachment Theory Researchers
Mary Ainsworth,
Psychologist, b. 1913John Bowlby
Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst, b. 1907Dr. Allan Schore, Neuroscientist, b. 1943 Mary Main
Psychologist, b. 1943Love Researchers
Dr. John Gottman Dr. Sue Johnson Sexuality and Attachment
Themes
- the subordination of the sexual system to attachment processes under relationship-threatening circumstances.
- the role of sex as a promoter of emotional bonds.
- attachment orientations help explain variations in the way in people construe their sexual interactions
Ideas
- Research has generally indicated that smooth functioning of the attachment system facilitates relaxed engagement in sexual activities and encourages the channelling of sexual desires into a committed intimate relationship, even as early as adolescence. In contrast, negative attachment experiences in childhood and the consolidation of insecure patterns of attachment are likely to impair the functioning of the sexual system in close relationships during this period and later on. In- deed, if a person feels chronically insecure about being loved, whether this is reflected in relational worries or in being uncomfortable with intimacy, it is unlikely that this person’s sexual system will function without interference. The nature of interference, however, is different between anxious and avoidant adolescents. 1
- We found that sexual deactivation had detrimental effects on relationship satisfaction. Unsurprisingly, partners’ attachment-related avoidance perpetuated the sexual deactivation effects over time.
Reference
- Attachment and Sexual Mating. In Handbook of attachment.
Polyamory
Polyamory refers to multiple, committed, love-based relationships with the consent of all the partners.
Modern History of Polyamory in Western Culture
It is worth exploring the history of Polyamory and popularization of polyamory. In this it’s possible to see that the recent growth and popularity of non-monogamy is a reflection of late capitalist values, marking declines in intimacy, weakening of solid bonds and the commercialization of feelings. While confluent love is possible and can be successful, it takes exceptional emotional labor, regulation and concerted effort on the parts of agreed parties. Like all relational arrangements, there are “codes”, scripts, agreements and cultural factors that influence such dynamics. These are worth exploring and not being taken at face value.
Compersion
John Peltz “Bro Jud” Presmont The word ‘Compersion’ and ‘Polyfidelity’ comes from the Kerista community, a utopian community started in New York following a mystic vision in 1956 by John Peltz “Bro Jud” Presmont. Throughout much of its history, Kerista was centered on the ideals of polyfidelity. The commune developed an entire vocabulary around alternative lifestyles. Kerista accumulated a codified social contract over its history with which all members were expected to agree and comply, at all times.
- Total rationality at all times
- Search for truth through the elimination of contradictions
- No jealousy, no anger, no rivalry, no profanity, no flippancy, no masturbation
- Renounce “Negative Intrigue”
Kerista.commune – The Historical Record
Artwork & conversations of Kerista Commune members
Jealousy is managed, supressed or channelled into compersion in polyamorous relationships: “The most striking aspect of polyamory’s ‘hard work ‘ concerns the management of jealousy. In academic and self-help literature on polyamory, jealousy has received ample attention. The literature assumes that jealousy is a heteronormative emotional socialization which is based on ideas of possession and betrayal. People experiencing these emotions are encouraged to instead learn to experience joy for the partner’s love of another (compersion). ” (Deri, 2015; Mint, P, 2010; Veaux et al., 2014).
Social movements around gender and sexuality (actions, discourse and cultural imaginaries) do not unfold independently from economic processes, market forces, state or class politics). With regard to the study of polyamory, economic questions are virtually unexplored territory (Klesse, 2014).
A majority of those practicing polyamory are composed of predominantly white subjects and occupy advanced socio economic position: “Research into polyamory has mostly drawn a rather homogeneous picture of polyamory networks or communities (Klesse 2007; Ritchie and Barker 2007; Wosik-Correa 2010).
Sheff and Hammers’ (2011) review of 36 research studies into polyamory and BDSM shows that most of them present research samples composed of predominantly white subjects holding above-average educational qualifications and occupying advanced socio economic position. Weber also points out that poly households have higher income levels than the general population.
(Klesse, 2014).Why racial homogonity?
People in polyamorous relations have trouble defining their relationships: “As was the case for their definitions of love, the way people in consensual nonmonogamies define their relationships is somewhat blurred. For example, many respondents clearly stated that they found it hard to draw a clear line between love and friendship. (Roodsaz, 2022)
- “I think of love and friendship more as a continuum than a dichotomy”
- “I think I’ve always been… involved in relationships that I call friendships but that look very much like those that I call loves, right?… “
Deri, J. (2015). Love’s refraction: Jealousy and compersion in queer women’s polyamorous relationships. Toronto: University
of Toronto Press.Mint, P. (2010). The power mechanisms of jealousy. In M. Barker & D. Langdridge (Eds.), Understanding non-monogamies
(pp. 201–206). New York: Routledge.Veaux, F., Hardy, J., & Gill, T. (2014). More than two: A practical guide to ethical polyamory. Portland: Thorntree Press.)
Bibliography
Klesse, C. (2014). Poly Economics—Capitalism, Class, and Polyamory. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 27(2), 203–220. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-013-9157-4
Braida, N., Matta, E., & Paccagnella, L. (2023). Loving in Consensual Non-Monogamies: Challenging the Validity of Sternberg’s Triangular Love Scale. Sexuality & Culture, 27(5), 1828–1847. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-023-10092-0
Roodsaz, R. (2022). The “hard work” of polyamory: ethnographic accounts of intimacy and difference in the Netherlands. Journal of Gender Studies, 31(7), 874–887. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2022.2098094
Quotes and passages
The awareness of human separation, without reunion by love–is the source of shame. It is a at the same time the source of guilt and anxiety.
The deepest need of humans, then, is the need to overcome their separateness, to leave the prison of aloneness. The absolute failure to achieve this aim means insanity, because the panic of complete isolation can be overcome only by such a radical withdrawal from the world outside that the feeling of separation disappears-because the world outside, from which one is separated, has disappeared.
The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm. Chapter 2, The Art of Loving. Page 14.
Humans of all ages and cultures are confronted with the solution of one and the same question: the question of how to overcome separateness, how to achieve union, how to transcend one’s own individual life and find at-onement. The question is the same for primitive humans living in caves, for nomadics taking care of flock, for the peasant in Egypt, the Phoenician trader, the Roman soldier, the medieval monk, the Japanese samurai, the modern clerk, and factory hand. The question is the same, for it springs from the same ground: the human situation, the conditions of human existence. The answer varies. The question can be answered by animal worship, by human sacrifice or military conquest, by indulgence in luxury, by ascetic renunciation, by obsessional work, by artistic creation, by the love of God and by the love Man. While there are many answers- the record of which is human history- they are nevertheless not innumerable. On the contrary, as soon as one ignores smaller divergences which belong more to the periphery than to the center, one discovers that there is only a limited number of answers which have been given, and only could have been given by humans in the various cultures in which they have lived. The history of religion and philosophy is the history of these answers, of their diversity as well as of their limitation in numberCaring for our children
If you look at the ethnographic accounts of band-level hunter-gatherer in Africa or Melanesia—though I’m not sure I can say this for South America—what jumps out at you is the indulgence towards children. Child abuse would not have been tolerated. Other group members would have intervened, the perpetrators socially ostracized, possibly even expelled from the group if they harmed a child. It was not acceptable. We don’t have this same sensibility today for a number of reasons. I think we have an epidemic of emotional neglect of children today that has gone completely unrecognized.
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. Raising Darwin’s Consciousness: Sarah Blaffer Hrdy on the Evolutionary Lessons of Motherhood. Scientific American. 2012.Children who do not have the stimulus and the response of a loving primary carer often show many deficiencies. Nothing shows this more horrifyingly than the extreme example of the brain scans of some Romanian orphans who have had no mothering at all. These children’s scans show large gaps where their brains have failed to develop. Work done on examining the brains of less severely deprived small children shows up specific difficulties that come from a failure of brain development in the very early years (See for example Schore, 1994; Siegel, 2001.) These tend to leave such children unable to fully comprehend how others feel. They also tend to overreact to stressful situations and to respond to threatening situations by withdrawing. (Woodward, Joan. Attachment and Human Survival. 2004. p18) Schore, A. N. (1994). Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
Siegel, D. J. (2001). Toward an interpersonal neurobiology of the developing mind: attachment relationships, “mindsight” and neural integration. Infant Mental Health Journal, 22(1-2):67-94.Secure
The secure pattern characterizes the infant who seeks and receives protection, reassurance, and comfort when stressed. Confident exploration is optimized because of the support and availability of the caregiver.”
Handbook of Attachment. Second Edition. p. 601Couples Therapy
- We need to take couples therapy more seriously at a governmental level in terms of funding: “The treatment of couple distress simply has not been a priority of government funding over the last decade. It is perhaps the most important conclusion of this review that, given all we have come to know about the toxicity of relationship distress and the processes that engender such distress, funding priorities should be altered so that more large-scale quality research focused on marital therapy can be conducted.”
- The research shows that couple therapy positively impacts 70% of couples receiving treatment. The effectiveness rates of couple therapy is comparable to the effectiveness rates of individual therapies and vastly superior to control groups not receiving treatment. RESEARCH ON THE TREATMENT OF COUPLE DISTRESS – ProQuest
Internal Working Models
- Internal Working Models change based on new relational experience: “most also agree that IWMs change developmentally based on new relational experiences, a view nicely expressed by Theodore Waters, who stated that IWMs “contain multiple constructs that unfold in a particular developmental sequence, change in latent structure, and undergo extensive generalization and elaboration across development” (Waters, 2021, p. 82).” Taking perspective on attachment theory and research: nine fundamental questions (tandfonline.com)
- There is no clear consensus about what IWMs are and how they operate. Researchers perspectives on what Internal Working Models are is diverse: “To some, IWMs are relationship-specific and hierarchically organized; to others, they reflect a person’s entire relational experience. IWMs are primarily nonconscious to some, but to others they are associated with the development of consciously accessible social-cognitive skills.” Taking perspective on attachment theory and research: nine fundamental questions (tandfonline.com)
- Bowlby on internal working models of the world and internal models of the self and their complementary nature: “In the working model of the world that anyone builds, a key feature is his notion of who his attachment figures are, where they may be found, and how they may be expected to respond. Similarly, in the working model of the self that anyone builds a key feature is his notion of how acceptable or unacceptable he himself is in the eyes of his attachment figures. . . . Confidence that an attachment figure is . . . likely to be responsive can be seen to turn on two variables: (a) whether or not the attachment figure is judged to be the sort of person who in general responds to calls for support and protection; (b) whether or not the self is judged to be the sort of person towards whom . . . the attachment figure is likely to respond in a helpful way. Logically these variables are independent. In practice, they are apt to be confounded. As a result, the model of the attachment figure and the model of the self are likely to develop so as to be complementary and mutually confirming. “(pp. 203–204 Bowlby, J. (1973). Attachment and loss. Vol. 2: Separation: anxiety and anger.)