Codependency is an umbrella term used to describe a broad spectrum of emotional, mental and behavioral, subconscious, and automatic trauma responses developed in early childhood as an adaptation to chronic, inescapable stress. While over-functioning as a small child, to avoid rejection, the child's nervous system learns to scan their environment for potential threats. This scanning is called hypervigilance, and it also exiles the inner child into an abyss.
Children of toxic, dysfunctional parents, families, and circumstances are denied the compassionate adult, whose role is to mentor, teach, and guide a child in a way that nurtures a positive sense of self. The very basics of healthy human interraction are not modeled.
A child who has learned they must scan their environment must:
- Use their conscious waking hours scanning their parents' facial expressions, moods, and tones--while this is occurring, a child is learning how to morph and adapt, rather than explore the inner self, their inner child, their inner landscape
- Abandoning the self, including their innate needs, wants, emotions, and right to be authentic, to avoid further emotional neglect, abuse, bullying, or rejection—while this survival response was useful during childhood, the adult child eventually learns that they often don't know what they want or need. This can be a frustrating experience in therapy and relationships.
If you are codependent, you may have felt frustrated in therapy when asked, "What do you need" What do you want?" Codependents do not know what they need.
They Struggle to Trust Their Inner World Codependency is built on self-abandonment.
Many codependents grew up in environments where their emotions were dismissed, mocked, punished, or ignored. Carl Jung would say their inner child—what he called the "Divine Child"—was exiled.
So when asked:
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"What do you feel?"
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"What do you want?"
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"What do you need?"
…they genuinely do not know.
This creates enormous frustration in therapy, because the inner world feels foreign, inaccessible, or even dangerous. The codependent has learned to trust external authority over inner intuition.
Reconnecting with the inner self requires time, patience, and the slow dismantling of shame.
Therapy asks them to return to a Self they have never been allowed to meet.
The journey back home must be slow, steady, and compassionate; otherwise, therapy can sometimes cause more harm than good and lead to a codependent person trying to please the therapist, thereby reenacting a facet of their adaptation survival response.
Begin Your Healing Journey:
Lisa introduces her signature 12 Week Breakthrough Method—a trauma-informed, neuroscience-based coaching program created specifically for adult children of narcissistic, neglectful, or emotionally immature caregivers.
Inside the program, you'll be guided through:
- Brain retraining techniques rooted in neuroscience
- Inner child healing and self-concept reorganization
- Neuroscience Backed Journaling prompts and assessments to increase self-awareness
- Tools to stop subconscious self-abandonment and start living from your true self
- Embrace shadow work from a higher state of consciousness to experience integration
This method has helped thousands heal from complex trauma and break toxic generational patterns, with tools to rewire limiting beliefs and build authentic self-worth.
👉 Learn more: here
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32 mins