Are You Holding Others Hostage? Try Self Awareness and Closer Observation....

[noncompliant2]

The hostage-captor relationship model presents a bleak picture. Hostages do not want ot be with their captors. They fear for their lives. They may identify with their captors and take on some of their behaviors (just as co-dependents take on the behavior of the alcoholic), but that, too is a survival ploy and has nothing to do with intimacy or caring. The roles may shift back and forth, with each person sometimes playing hostage and sometimes playing captor, but the dynamic stays the same.

[noncompliant2]

We can see ways in which our family relationships, our buisness relationships and our teacher-sudent relationship are often of the hostage captor type. In each case the "hostage" doesn't really want to be there. Because the hostages can't get what they need from that realtionship, they must look outside it. Unfortunately, until there is some recovery, any other relationship the hostage enters into is strictly limited and cannot begin to meet the hostage's personal or human needs.

[noncompliant2]

Most have heard the phrase "Alcoholics don't have relationships: Alcoholics have hostages". This relationship model is in keeping with the nonliving orientation of the Addictive System and is precisely the sort of relationship that system encourages. Look around you and judge for yourself but, I believe society has become an addict.