Dependence occupies a contested and irreducibly complex position within the depth-psychology corpus. At one pole stands Winnicott, for whom dependence is not pathology but ontological necessity: the infant begins in absolute dependence upon the maternal environment, and healthy development consists not in eliminating this condition but in traversing it — from absolute dependence through relative dependence toward graduated autonomy. The facilitating environment is constitutively dependent upon this dependency. At another pole, Kurtz’s reading of Alcoholics Anonymous theology reveals dependence as simultaneously the alcoholic’s wound and the site of potential salvation: the denial of legitimate dependence upon spiritual reality issues ironically in absolute dependence upon alcohol, and recovery demands a redirected, accepted dependence rather than its abolition. Brown and Berger extend this diagnostic axis into characterological terrain, distinguishing healthy attachment bonds from ‘unhealthy dependence’ — the substitution of substance or other-validated self-esteem for genuine relational need. Fromm and Horney map the neurotic dimensions: symbiotic attachment to a ‘magic helper,’ the self-abdicating dependency of the compliant type. Signell rehabilitates dependency in relational life, arguing against patriarchal denigration of emotional interdependence. Pharmacological literature employs the term in its clinical-nosological sense — physical and psychological drug dependence as distinct yet interacting vectors. The unifying tension across the corpus is whether dependence names a deficit to be overcome or a structural feature of human existence to be rightly ordered.
Human dependence, A. A. proposes, is not to be denied. The problem of the alcoholic lies not in the fact of dependence, but in its distortion.
Kurtz articulates the Alcoholics Anonymous position that dependence is an irreducible feature of human existence whose proper object — ultimate spiritual reality rather than alcohol — determines whether it is salvific or destructive.
, Not God A History of Alcoholics Anonymous, 2010thesis
The alienation that resulted from the alcoholic’s denial of dependence upon spiritual reality led to a more demeaning dependence upon the material substance alcohol and the unreality that it provided.
Kurtz shows that the denial of legitimate finite dependence initiates a vicious circle culminating in absolute, enslaving dependence upon alcohol — the central irony of the alcoholic condition.
, Not God A History of Alcoholics Anonymous, 2010thesis
Thus begins the road to unhealthy dependence, also called addiction. Your dependence on your drugs, your overeating or undereating, your smoking, or your gambling served you well in the beginning.
Brown argues that addiction represents dependence gone awry — the substitution of a substance or behavior for legitimate relational need, initially adaptive but ultimately self-destructive.
, A Place Called Self: Women, Sobriety, and Radical Transformation, 2004thesis
The environment is essential and gradually becomes less essential, so that one could speak of double dependence, changing into simple dependence.
Winnicott frames developmental maturation as a graduated movement through stages of dependence — from ‘double dependence’ on environment and maturational process alike toward relative independence — making dependence the structuring axis of healthy early development.
, The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment, 1965thesis
The acceptance that both control and dependence are limited, and the sense that wholeness as human flowed from this dual acceptance of limitation, were so centrally important to Alcoholics Anonymous.
Kurtz identifies the dual acceptance of limited control and limited dependence as the foundational anthropological insight underwriting the entire A.A. program.
, Not God A History of Alcoholics Anonymous, 2010thesis
When we are emotionally dependent, how we feel about ourselves is contingent on circumstances and how we are treated by others.
Berger, drawing on Gestalt psychology, defines emotional dependence as the condition in which self-regulation is surrendered to environmental support, contrasting it with the self-support required for emotional maturity.
, 12 Smart Things to Do When the Booze and Drugs Are Gone: Choosing Emotional Sobriety through Self-Awareness and Right Action, 2010thesis
We do this because we are emotionally dependent on them for our self-esteem. Emotional dependency is a symptom of emotional immaturity.
Berger identifies emotional dependency as the developmental substrate of relational dysfunction, manifesting as coercive demands for validation from partners.
, 12 Smart Things to Do When the Booze and Drugs Are Gone: Choosing Emotional Sobriety through Self-Awareness and Right Action, 2010supporting
it is possible to be physically dependent on a drug without being psychologically dependent… the drugs most likely to be abused and most likely to dominate an individual’s life are those that produce both physical and psychological dependence.
Flores delineates the pharmacological distinction between physical and psychological dependence, arguing that their convergence accounts for the most clinically intractable patterns of substance abuse.
, Group Psychotherapy with Addicted Populations An, 1997thesis
Being ‘dependent’—depending emotionally on someone—is not a bad thing in itself, patriarchal values to the contrary. It is just a great risk.
Signell challenges the cultural devaluation of dependency, recasting emotional dependence within relationship as a necessary risk intrinsic to genuine intimacy rather than a sign of weakness.
, Wisdom of the Heart: Working with Womens Dreams, 1991supporting
The reasons why a person is bound to a magic helper are, in principle, the same that we have found at the root of the symbiotic drives: an inability to stand alone and to fully express his own individual potentialities.
Fromm locates neurotic dependence — including transference — in the same symbiotic roots as sado-masochistic character structure, tracing both to the individual’s terror of full selfhood.
, Escape from Freedom, 1941supporting
the special pitfall for the alcoholic of the contradictory two-pronged quest for both ‘dependence’ and ‘independence.’
Kurtz identifies Wilson’s insight that the alcoholic is caught in an irresolvable oscillation between craving dependence and asserting independence, a structural contradiction at the core of the alcoholic character.
, Not God A History of Alcoholics Anonymous, 2010supporting
the second column asks you to identify the unhealthy dependency that was underlying your emotional reaction.
Berger offers a practical method for surfacing unconscious emotional dependencies by mapping the hidden dependency claims embedded in reactive emotional states.
, 12 Smart Things to Do When the Booze and Drugs Are Gone: Choosing Emotional Sobriety through Self-Awareness and Right Action, 2010supporting
Because the honesty is shared, and because it expresses a vulnerability that is mutual, the dependence involved in this relationship is inherently and essentially limited.
Kurtz argues that the mutual and acknowledged vulnerability of A.A. fellowship produces a form of dependence that is structurally self-limiting, guarding against the immature dependency critics attribute to the program.
, Not God A History of Alcoholics Anonymous, 2010supporting
acceptance of dependence in transference by, 42 … and dependence relating to ‘true self’, 151 … and evaluation of ‘double dependence’, 138 … and provision of conditions for dependence, 134
Winnicott’s index entries reveal that dependence — in its double form, in transference, and in relation to the true self — is a recurrent, technically precise organizing concept throughout his clinical and theoretical writing.
, The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment, 1965supporting
I am not aware that Rickman dealt with the importance of dependence.
Winnicott’s remark notes the relative neglect of dependence in earlier psychoanalytic literature, implicitly framing his own theoretical contribution as a corrective elaboration of this undertheorized concept.
, The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment, 1965aside
The Expert Committee on Drugs of the World Health Organization (WHO) coined the term drug dependence
Flores traces the nosological history by which ‘addiction’ was replaced by the WHO’s more neutral term ‘drug dependence,’ a shift reflecting pharmacological efforts to disentangle the concept from its moralistic connotations.
, Group Psychotherapy with Addicted Populations An, 1997supporting
Codependency was a grassroots movement that grabbed its name as it ran headlong down a path that had been opened by the ACOA movement.
Dayton situates codependency — the interpersonal dimension of unhealthy dependence — within its sociocultural emergence as a named disorder, linking it to neuropsychological research on developmental trauma.
, Emotional Sobriety: From Relationship Trauma to Resilience and Lasting Fulfillment, 2007aside