Initially,” the term co-dependent’ was used to describe men living with, or in a relationship with an addicted person” (Lampis et al., 2017). Modern understandings of co-dependence now refer to”a particular relationship dependence characterized by preoccupation and intense dependence–emotional, social and at times physical–on another person”.
The idea of codependency is still frequently applied to families with substance abuse problems but is now utilized to refer to other scenarios as well. The main consequence of codependency is that”[c]odependents, busy taking care of the others, forget to take care of themselves, resulting in a disruption of identity development” (Knudson & Terrell, 2012).
This debate was ineffective and the DSM-III-R (the next revision) didn’t include codependency for a personality disorder. The DSM-5, the most recent edition of this manual, still only describes DPD, not codependency.
Codependency does not only overlap with DPD but also with BPD, which is one reason some study has ignored the concept of codependency making up its personality disorder. 1 study found, though, that although codependent people do discuss some overlap with DPD and BPD symptoms, also, there are individuals who display codependency without demonstrating symptoms of DPD and BPD (Knapek et al., 2017).
Codependency could be distinguished from DPD because codependent men and women are reliant on a specific person(s), whereas individuals with DPD are dependent on other people generally. Codependency can be distinguished from BPD because while BPD includes uncertainty in social relationships, it doesn’t necessarily involve dependence on other men and women.
That said, research shows that while codependency does overlap with other personality disorders, it does appear to constitute a distinct psychological construct. The best way to learn about codependency is to examine some of the indicators of codependency
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