Update on Codependence

A additional note on the previous post.

Do check out the links at the end. One thing they show is that codependence theory started out sensibly as the realization among the family members of alcoholics that their behavior "enabled" the alcoholic.

We all likewise see how our behavior enabled our abusers until we caught on.

The problem with this idea came with pseudoscience. You get a bunch of theorizers sitting in their ivory towers, speculating (hypothesizing) to come up with something new and different to say on the subject. Why? For attention, of course. Publication. Getting "known" as an "authority" on the subject.

Which places a premium on saying something attention-grabbing.

But they do no research. This so-called "scientific literature" is highly theoretical and speculative = basically just essays on the subject. Essays - not experiments and valid statistical data.

At best they refer to "clinical studies." (See what's wrong with that here. And the drug companies love clinical studies! You can get virtually any drug approved with them.) But mostly their idea of "scientific research" is to quote the mere speculative essays of others doing the same thing!

Where, pray tell, is the "scientific research" in that? Quoting the mere theorizing of others is supplying no valid EVIDENCE. That ain't scientific research, because it ain't scientific data. Unfortunately, most people don't realize this. They wrongly consider these sources reliable JUST BECAUSE THEY CONTAIN FOOTNOTES, even when those footnotes refer to no valid "evidence." Smoke and mirrors.

This burlesque plus the eternal desire to blame the victim have bastardized an originally sound idea and made a monster of it, as every new voice that comes along tries to stretch illogic to an even greater extreme than his or her predecessors did. Pop psychology at its greedy worst.

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