Barry and Janae Weinhold

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The Flight From Intimacy: Healing Counter-dependency

The Flight From Intimacy describes counter-dependent behaviors as being caused by unhealed trauma during the toddler stage of development. People flee intimacy as a way of protecting themselves from the effects of their unidentified and unprocessed developmental trauma in early childhood. This book contains exercises to help you identify your counter-dependent behaviors, connect them to what happened to you as a child and find ways to heal these traumas. This problem can be easily fixed once you know how it got broken.

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Description

Counter-dependency causes a “flight from intimacy” in your adult relationships. It is not a disease. It is a set of protective adult behaviors caused by unseen and unhealed developmental traumas that happened between the ages of nine and 36 months—the toddler or “terrible twos” stage of development. Your can change these behaviors by healing the underlying traumas that are causing them. Healing counter-dependent behaviors as an adult starts with connecting the dots between what happened to you as a child and what is happening in your adult relationships. These behaviors typically involve avoidance of intimacy in your adult relationships by creating rigid boundaries, pushing others away, appearing overly independent, and by acting strong, blaming others and keeping very busy.

The Flight From Intimacy describes counter-dependent behaviors as being caused by unhealed trauma during the toddler stage of development. People flee intimacy as a way of protecting themselves from the effects of their unidentified and unprocessed developmental trauma in early childhood. This book contains exercises to help you identify your counter-dependent behaviors, connect them to what happened to you as a child and find ways to heal these traumas. This problem can be easily fixed once you know how it got broken.

Children with these kinds of relational wounds grow up to be adults who defend against feeling any feelings connected to the early traumas they suffered. Their attitude to any conflicts that arise in their life usually is, “I’m right/good and you’re wrong/bad.” Those with this internal split find it very difficult to trust others, to share their emotions and to be intimate. They push people away in order to protect themselves from experiencing the pain of being judged, shamed, or criticized like they felt when they were a child.

From Publishers Weekly

In 1987, Melody Beattie introduced codependence to the masses with her bestseller Codependent No More. The Weinholds, husband-and-wife psychologists and cofounders of the Carolina Institute for Conflict Resolution & Creative Leadership, weighed in with 1999’s Breaking Free of the Co-Dependency Trap (recently republished by NWL); here, they look at counter-dependence, the little-discussed, hard-to-pin-down yin to co-dependency’s yang. Counter-dependency is characterized by controlling and self-centered behavior: where co-dependents cling to others, counter-dependents push them away; where co-dependents have low self esteem, counter-dependents have “falsely inflated self-esteem”; co-dependents are people-pleasers, whereas counter-dependents are people controllers. The results are “loneliness, alienation and a sense of ‘quiet desperation.'” The Weinholds do a clear and thorough job discussing and dissecting counter-dependency as a key factor behind failed relationships, and also make a case for its role in high profile church scandals, post-traumatic stress disorder in returning soldiers and even the collapse of the housing market. Packed with information taken from the Weinholds’ 23 years of research and counseling, this isn’t a light read, but case studies, charts and exercises, along with practical tips, keep things moving. While the notion that unresolved childhood issues continue to play out in adult relationships is nothing new, the Weinholds’ insight and emphasis on self-sufficiency should help readers break free from dysfunctional behavioral patterns.
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Review

“We need this book to fill a gap in our understanding of co-dependency. The Weinholds are experts in this field. I recommend their work as having the highest integrity. This is a crucial addition to the literature on co-dependency.”— John Bradshaw, from the foreword

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