Welcome to my Beyond Codependence website all about codependency. Keep an open mind as you read through the materials here and also the recommended resources and support materials, should you choose to purchase them.
While I work a great deal with addicts and alcoholics I also work frequently with the parents, partners and friends of those who are still using. Family members experience pain and suffering as they try to help the addict. Shame, guilt, fear, worry, anger, and frustration are common.
Taking risks and behaving in different ways is your way through. Recovering from codependence requires courage and strength to do the opposite to what you ordinarily would do and to refrain from your old habits. Here is a list of practices that will help you recover.
At the centre of many theories of codependence is the idea that abusive or dysfunctional parenting creates a painful sense of shame, inadequacy or superiority in children which if untreated results in an emotional wound that can be carried into adulthood. This parenting style can then also perhaps be repeated on the next generation. When an adult is triggered by any event in their life that was especially linked to them being shamed when they were children, unconscious memories of their original wound arise and they experience shame or grandiosity from their childhood and in turn respond immaturely.
At the core of codependence is also the idea that codependent people carry shame that does not belong to them and that this shame reproduces feelings of worthlessness and dysfunction in an adult. All human beings are fallible meaning they make mistakes. A functional healthy person is able to feel they're healthy sense of shame and move on, a codependent person is weighed down by the shame they carry from the past. Codependent people are struggling with low self-esteem, poor boundaries difficulty with emotional self-regulation and identity struggles.
Codependence is a pattern of painful dependence upon compulsive behaviours and approval of others to find safety, self-worth and identity. Recovery however is possible …
Stu Fenton
Psychotherapist and Drug and Alcohol Addiction Counsellor
When I started out as a psychotherapist nine years ago my work was predominantly working with drug addicts and alcoholics. Over time, having worked with the families and partners of addicts, my work has grown to include codependent family members on a large scale.
Stu has returned from Thailand and working in Victoria now and can see people at the Malvern Public Hospital or in Hawthorn as well as online/Skype meetings and in Ballarat. Stu is offering one hour and half hour Skype sessions and phone call information sessions to support individuals and families experiencing addiction challenges and needing rehab direction and information in Australia.