 We demystify what goes on behind the therapy room door. Join us on this voyage of discovery and co-creative conversations. This is The Therapy Show behind closed doors podcast with Bob Cook and Jackie Jones. Welcome back to the next episode of The Therapy Show behind closed doors with the wonderful Mr Bob Cook and myself Jackie Jones and this is episode 118 and what we're going to be talking I know 118 Bob. We were just talking off air about where does the time go? I've no idea. We've had over 35 and a half thousand downloads of our podcast so far. Oh my God that's fantastic. That's just unspotified that's not counting the YouTube channel I've no idea how many there are on there but we're doing really well. That's good isn't it? I'm very impressed I think we're doing brilliant. Fantastic well done to you. And to you. Stop congratulating I'm liking that. So maybe this is a good thing with the topic of today's podcast because we're going to be looking at co-dependency in the therapy process. Wow what a subject area and you know I didn't realise we got to that many podcasts and I also hadn't realised we've done so many people listen to us so thank you very much to the visitors and the people who keep listening to us. Absolutely. Very moving. Okay co-dependency a really big subject area this is. So I suspect most of the listeners understand what co-dependency is so I'll talk a bit about what it is in a minute. It's also called another word in transaction analysis world Eric Byrne and etc and that's symbiosis. Symbiosis is a biological term you know for what means really when two organisms act as one. So symbiosis is the term really for co-dependency you know what we just said co-dependency in other words and co-dependency many people talk about being in co-dependent relationships or addicted to co-dependent relationships and in essence they're unhealthy. Yes in essence yeah I mean some co-dependent relationships if you like carry on in that sort of template because both people in the co-dependent relationship have co-dependent scripts and they sort of rub along in those interlocking scripts but in essence it's unhealthy and it's unhealthy because if you're in a co-dependent relationship or a symbiotic relationship in TA terms the adult goes out of the window. Yeah. Would you say would you sort of put it that way? Absolutely yeah it's like the parent of one and the child of the other is interlinked and vice versa it's kind of yeah it's not a healthy adult-to-adult I'm okay you're okay relationship. No it's a it's a an unhealthy one in essence and do you see many people in your practice come with co-dependent issues? I think so I think to be fair we all have co-dependent issues to a certain extent yeah. Yeah I think I do I suppose I meant when they're entrenched so for example when somebody is coming from the child eager state a large degree of the time so they pass ownership of you ownership over to the person who is in the parent eager state in terms of self-definition, empowerment, action-oriented processes they pass over if you like to the person in the parent position their self-agency or their ability of self-agency in an autonomous way to the parent and so it's the parent that self who defines the identity of the other person. Yeah in an entrenched way you are correct I think there's traits of where we may interchanging or even being a coded dependency relationship but I'm already talking about when they the patterns are entrenched so that the adult goes missing. I'm not sure about entrenched I'd have to think about that but definitely in the couples one will play the parent role and one will play the child's role but I think it shifts it's not entrenched in that one relationship if that makes sense. Not fixed. Yeah yeah yeah. Okay so the more fixed the codependency template is the more fixed the symbiosis is the more I understand leads to an unhealthy position. Yeah. Will you agree with that? Yeah so when you're talking about codependency are you talking about codependency between the therapist and the client or the client coming with codependency outside of the therapy room? I want to make that clear I'm talking about where the client comes to see the therapist and their contracts may well be about moving away from a codependent position of their partner or codependency you know that's the frame I'm talking about. Okay. We can get on in a minute we can get in a minute in the podcast to how codependency with the therapist might happen so we can move there in a minute I'm talking about when the client comes into the room. Yeah. I feel I'm in a codependent relationship and I'd like to move away from it so I've got a more sense of agency or autonomy. Yeah. Now that scenario in my professional career was quite common. Yes yeah I'm with you now yeah yeah with it with maybe an overbearing parent or something like that or you know where a parent doesn't want the child to grow up and be independent and leave home and all that sort of stuff yeah. Absolutely and usually usually with that sort of personal profile you just talked about there they usually come from that place in a script process in other words it's the position they've taken psychologically with their significant caretakers and when they move from the relationship their significant caretakers they unconsciously and actually perhaps bit consciously but we'll say unconsciously out of awareness if you like that word they seek the replication of that codependent process that was the hallmark of the script with the initial caretakers yeah so the repeating patterns in relationships yeah yeah yeah yeah and yeah and we'll go I know we're going to get on to the third bit of the moment but usually they then seek to play the same process out yeah we'll get there in a minute so yes they're repeating patterns as you've just said and they come usually when those patterns for every reason are becoming uncomfortable or too intense or too um yeah too unplayable in their lives they come to therapy yeah so the discomfort of the codependency has become so intense that they then come to therapy yeah because if they're playing in a codependent relationship and I'm presuming that the person in the codependent relationship that is getting all their needs met isn't going to be the one that comes to therapy it's going to be the other party to that that comes to therapy well interestingly that it's a really interesting statement yeah that's a very interesting statement Jackie I would say in my experience yes in the sense that it's often the person who feels defined who feels a one down position yeah who feels undermined who feels that they're always in that child position in transaction analysis yes so I think you're correct however having said that I'm agreeing with you people often come often they are I think it's true will come to therapy when they feel that they're in or may they're in a relationship where they feel that partner never takes agency of any responsibility yeah feel that they have to do all the work they have to take all the responsibility they have to do everything and that the other person is passing that on to them yeah yeah so you've got two sides of it yes I do think your eyes by the way what you've just said is that I think more people will tend to come when they're in the child position and feel defined put down in a one but then you do get people Bob just hang on just hang on to that thought I mean it's somebody's at my door I think it's a parcel a parcel oh she's disappeared now do I go and parent adult and child here I think I'll stay with my adults but she has disappeared I don't think I've got any abandonment fears yet okay she's back oh good my it's all right I'll chop that bit out when we're doing it don't worry I was talking they're probably found it quite interesting I was talking about my constant object is back I will carry on then yeah so yes I that's a very valid point that yeah we probably will see the other one as well if the other person is not taking ownership of certain things in the relationship and one person is having to do everything yeah yeah oh well you know I've come here because my partner is so infantile I'm having to do everything in the relationship you know I have to do this this this this this and if I start to um ask her to take or him to take take responsibilities uh they they aren't capable to do that so I'm doing 90% of the work I need to change this and look at where those patterns come from yeah now that's the other side yes yeah yeah which to be fair I have probably seen both of those in the therapy room I'd be astonished if you hadn't yeah and in couples therapy particularly yes yeah now as I've said and I've said a moment ago that the person who moves into the child position in transaction analysis terms will be repeating their script I'm playing it out and also the person that monopolizes the parent position are usually well always 100% I don't like 100% but they're playing out their script which they've learned in their childhood of origin so they often might be people who've taken care of their parents yeah but they there's a term called parentification it's an American term where the child has to grow up fast because they end up parenting an inadequate significant care taken yeah so they end up um taking this parent position and the cost of that of course is that their child needs their normal child needs don't get met because they've had to take care of the parent yeah and unfortunately they often carry that process into relationships they seek later and the person who I've just described on the other side will look out this unconsciously look out for that type of person to fill with to fulfill their own script so you've got a symbiotic bond yes yeah because it's familiar to them they know how it works it's not it's kind of like ends negatively it's never ends well but it's familiar so they know the process they know how it feels and they know how to be in that symbiotic relationship yes that's absolutely advise them a sense of identity yeah sense of who they are a sense of predictability a sense of continuity yeah but the problem comes is as they go on in life they're discomfort till the discomfort of not being able to be an adult if you like not being able to from the child's side take a sense of ownership about agency spawn and responsibility if you want to put it that way or a sense of you know fulfilling their self definition needs get acute they want to move from that place and from the parent position all the things I've just said I think it becomes more acute and they realise perhaps these patterns we're talking about here and they want to get an adult to adult relationship which is far more healthy yeah so in the therapy room what sort of things can we do one of the things I'm thinking is boundary setting a bit more just you know for us as therapists if you know the person that comes in is trying to repeat that pattern of behaviour with us and and set us up to play the game so to speak that we need to be quite firm in our boundaries of I'm okay you're okay and not taking responsibility for the client or you know disempowering them or that sort of stuff absolutely when they start to play that out with you 100% agree with that one of the things I can explain this one of the things I always used to do when people came from either either side of the symbiosis would probably after I've got the contract and as I've got the relationship quite strong is do some educative therapy yeah and teach them about codependency or symbiosis like I'm doing here yeah so that both sides if it's couples therapy I would always do this but in individual therapy I would teach them some transaction analysis because I think it's a really good model to explain how the child and parent eager states are interlocked together absolutely and I would then help on either side of the symbiosis then I wouldn't be aware of the origins of the early symbiosis yeah understand how they've got to where they are today and what needs to happen for a different outcome yeah that's with them we'll get on to me in a minute I mean get on to the therapist in a minute yeah with people that's usually the path I take that I take yeah yeah because ultimately for either side really it's about strengthening the adult ego state and getting us in that more than the parent and the child ego state yeah and the trick is how do you get there yeah that's what we're talking about flowing steady wins the race I'm a developmental therapist I always have been that means working with guess aggressively in the past that means working with the developmental unmet needs that means going back to the etiology of the symbiosis yeah and that means looking at the symbiosis which has been played out between the original parent or caretaker figure with the younger self yeah so when we go back there if we look at the child part of the symbiosis then we will start to see that usually they have a parent ego state a significant caretaker mother or father which plays the role of defining them not allowing them maybe to grow up yeah a sense of a parent that it may be overwhelming or overbearing or any of those poses that we've done many about many times in podcasts so we've got the defining overbearing overwhelming parent and the the child or the you know the younger self I will say child in this case could be teenager or whatever isn't able to not only have their own relation on these meds but they often get stuck at this particular developmental time in history and they have gone through the necessary processes because the permissions haven't been given from the parent to actually grow up if you like yeah so they they seek out same type of relationship and in a way they get frozen in time yeah yeah so you need to go back to that time to help them empower themselves help them understand the process and often usually re-decide to take back the power from the defining overwhelming out yeah which there's so many different parts to that it sounds quite simple when you're you saying it like that you know to me this is what we do but that there's a lot of things involved in that there's lots of layers of stuff there's loads of layers and stuff yeah one of them and probably the most important I think is that therapist is thinking developmentally because if they're not thinking developmentally they won't even go back in time to the younger self they will be thinking about behavioral or cognitive resolution in the present yeah which is a completely different type of therapy yeah I'm talking about the therapist that thinks developmentally so it looks back at the original relationship and sees how it's enacted out in their present life so first step is for the therapist to think developmentally a second bit I think is to help the clients actually and you often do this by two-chair technique by the way um or role play the listeners to make a new decision in the role play with the fantasy parent yeah that's something that yeah absolutely that's something that I don't do in therapies two-chair work I've not I've not gone down that road so it's a very good technique and we've done a podcast on that I think we have yeah a long long time ago yeah so it's a very good technique several reasons one that the therapist can see the relation early relational dialogue between the parent and the child but it's also a good technique for the client to start the two practice through role play if you like empowering themselves in relation to their early parent yeah so I think it's a very useful technique because from that position with the protection of the therapist they can actually start role playing new decisions which hopefully down the line through the therapist's protection can help them integrate those new decisions and choose different relationships in the present or at least make a new decision to be different in the relationships they choose or are in in the present yeah yeah because the first thing is being aware of the relationship patterns that we've got and then choosing whether we want to do something about it and that's where the stickiness is okay what do I do about it now how can I change know that I'm aware that this is what I do so here's Jackie here's the email I find this is challenging enquiring it's not meant to be okay but I will be interested in your answer if you don't go back developmentally and you don't get them dialoguing with the parent so they can empower themselves and be different you said you don't do this what would you do instead a lot of educational stuff okay I'm interested tell me a little bit more for the podcasters who are listening because I'm a developmental therapist and that's the way I do things and I know there's another world of people who do in different ways and I'm sure the podcast people listening to this might be interested in other ways of doing this so as I am by the way so I'd be interested I would look at you know talking about and doing work around what a healthy relationship is I would do work around the kind of um ages and stages and when we start what ages we start to individuate and separate out and I would also look at you know attachment the way that we attach to people maybe some stuff around fear of abandonment what happens if you change is there a fear that you're going to be on your own I think there's lots of that sort of stuff that I would work with how interesting so would you say and you might say no that's not taste Bob that's fine by the way would you say that the work is fairly cognitive from the position you're talking yeah I would yeah so you know more cognitive ah and there's nothing wrong with that by the way I think for people listening and maybe even a health warning if you go developmentally there's much more I think of an emotional content in the work yeah yeah and I think that's probably why I go down the cognitive route yeah maybe it's it's something I am aware of as a psychotherapist that you know to me I'm definitely a thinker and a doer as opposed to being in touch with my own feelings and emotions and stuff it's an ongoing thing with me right so so that's important because I'm suggesting a way of working which is developmental and getting in touch with the unmet needs that the child had to give up yeah in the symbiotic process so it's often a lot of emotion, nullity in the work and also from the other position from the the person who had to take the parent position and say parentification was the model I used earlier on in other words had to take care of the parent really on for lots of reasons maybe the parents was child work maybe they were inadequate maybe there was a lot of neglect or whatever way we're talking about it maybe they were in a very big family where they had to you know take the parent well very early in life but the cost in all those scenarios is quite often they grow up person grows up very fast and the early childhood needs are missed yeah absolutely under percent agree yeah so if we're going to revisit all that then we're talking about the emotional world of loss yeah emotional world of you know fear of perhaps more abandonment or whatever we're talking about but we are talking about an emotional world and from that place it's about making new decisions again yeah mostly get integrated down the line yeah absolutely and as you're talking about that I'm thinking that one of the things that has definitely played out with some clients and the relationship is that when they are open and honest and emotionally attached to people the fear then that they will be left yes that's it you know it's a bit like if I go in emotionally into this next relationship and it doesn't work out then what happens yeah it's like a protective mechanism sort of thing yeah now I know when you have time but I'd like to go to your second place you were talking about earlier on about the symbiosis with the therapist yeah and that's really important because from either position the parent role or the child role they will attempt to enact out the same symbiosis with you yeah and what your first response I really thought was so important around boundary setting yeah you don't fall into that trap which they will unconsciously set for you yeah yes yeah which as opposed to a certain extent most if not all clients do anyway they're not aware of the traps that they're setting oh yeah I've become so much more aware of that sometimes you see they'll have to do it yeah and I tell you what I mean by have to do it I don't mean from conscious choice I mean from unconscious relational patterns which start way back in the past in relation to their unmet needs and also again unconsciously so they can make you predictable sense of continuity and fits into their symbiotic relational framework yeah oh if they don't succeed with that then they will try again try again and if they still don't succeed in that then therapy might begin yeah you know in different phase of therapy will begin yeah yeah a deeper level yeah yeah because you know I think there's something as well about again you know building that adult ego state but helping or supporting the client to start to trust themselves in relationships that they are enough you know to mean and and that sort of thing making them more resilient to things yeah definitely so you only see people through your door who want to change from either position yes so if they feel that they can continue in a way or act out the same script position to have from their history and that's enough of them you don't see them yeah it's okay in my book they don't have to get to a place of high discomfort from either side but the people you do see will be when the intense codependency or symbiosis is too high if you like but they come through your door yeah yeah because it's not when you know when you're getting into that relationship you might think this is really good you know something but the longer term prospect of that is it's not a healthy relationship it's not you know it's not and I'm okay you're okay it's not equal it's very unbiased very biased whatever the word is the way I see it and as I say it gets to that discomfort level which is too intense they'll come through your door yeah and whether it's about the way you talk in the way the direction will go or whether it's more developmental or which I was talking earlier on either way at the end of the day I think there needs to be some shift in awareness so that then can lead hopefully to a different type of decision making or stroke and different coping mechanisms yeah see when you're talking I definitely need to come and do some more training around two-chair work because I can see how it works but when you were talking about the two-chair work I was also thinking it's an opportunity for each person wherever they are to see things from the other person's point of view as well which I think that's the learning bit to it a lot of the time is to see it from a different perspective or stroke and to see the fixed relationship yeah in other words to see how it really is and that's actually this type of relationship is going to go on forever yes okay yeah so both yeah yeah really interesting Bo I think it's a fascinating subject and I think that it's something I've dealt with a lot when I was a therapist and well still when therapy intensives and I'm sure you do in this whole continuum a lot yeah and as always you know I love transactional analysis for this because there's a diagram and a model for everything oh if you talk about diagrams and I haven't gone into diagrams you've got if you want to go from the ta world you've got things which are called first order symbiosis and second order symbiosis I have purposefully not particularly done it on this podcast because it gets a bit more complex to explain yeah if you want to buy a book there's many books on co-dependency if you want to look at it further in the transaction analysis world you could buy ta today by Ian Stewart and that goes into first order symbiosis second order symbiosis and there's lovely diagrams and like you talked about structures and things like that um but it's a very there's a lots written on co-dependency yeah yeah it's to be fair it must have been around for as long as relationships have well oh yeah how could it not be because you're talking about a relational pattern which was developed in relation to your caretakers that is enacted out in your relationships today yeah so might be different words over the decades years or centuries but that relational pattern from past to present I believe is always evident yeah so Bob until next time where we will be talking about something completely different what's that we're going to be talking about building your own therapy website oh now I think do's and don'ts maybe I think we did one on social media but we're particularly talking about websites well I've certainly got a lot to say about that okay talk until next time Bob thank you oh I look forward to it see you bye you've been listening to the therapy show behind closed doors podcast we hope you enjoyed the show don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review we'll be back next week with another episode