Confessions of a Codependent Therapist: How to clean up codependency in your practice

I want to talk about boundaries.

I identify as being codependent.

I learned how to be codependent in part due to the presence of addiction in my family. But codependency is everywhere. You don’t have to have grown up with addiction to have these tendencies. When my friends ask what exactly do I mean when I say I'm codependent and I explain, they usually respond with, “Oh! I do that too. I think I’m codependent!”

Regardless of how you developed these tendencies, they have a pretty common pattern. It looks like:

• “helping” people at the expense of yourself

• being very concerned about what others think of you

• often times imagining the worst with or without hard evidence

• having a hard time saying ‘no’

• feeling tired and resentful

• having a hard time knowing what you want because your perception is so often clouded with what you imagine others want

• extreme fear of disappointing others

• obsessive thinking about others' well-being or what they think of you

• gossip disguised as conversation about how to “help” your loved ones

If you have these tendencies, something like boundaries can feel really tricky. And if you’re a therapist, this can show up as wonky practices and policies that don’t actually support you.

Boundaries are not punishments. Boundaries are for you and about you. Not for or about another person.

I’ll give you an example. We’ll start with a personal one and then tie it back to your business.

I have a family member that occasionally gets very loud and activated. For many years, I didn’t leave when this was happening. Though I would also become quickly activated (it’s hard to stay calm around someone who’s yelling), I stuck around and tried to “help.” Despite my best efforts, my “help” rarely had the desired results and I would become increasingly angry myself. At the end I’d be resentful, tired, no longer sane AND my family member was no better off. It was lose lose.

Why would I stay?

Because I longed to be helpful. I hoped that my actions would result in less suffering instead of more. I worried what my family members would think and say about me if I refused to stick around for the shenanigans.

What I actually wanted? Ummmm… I’m not sure what that means... I want my family member to be okay and stop yelling.

Okay but what did I want other than to control my family member, their emotions, actions, and beliefs?

Yikes! That used to be such a hard question to answer.

Now I’ve learned that I cannot control others’ emotions, beliefs, and behaviors.

And I’ve learned that boundaries are for me. Now when my family member is yelling and activated, I calmly tell them I am going to leave. And then I leave. It doesn’t matter why they’re yelling. What the cause is. Whether or not I’d yell too if I were in their shoes. It doesn’t even mean I think they’re “wrong” for yelling and “should” stop. It simply means, I won’t be around you when you’re yelling. Period.

It used to be so hard. And they’ve even criticized me for leaving. Saying I “should” be able to tolerate what they’re doing. That what they’re doing “isn’t that bad” and that I’m being judgmental because I’m leaving. A codependent’s worst nightmare!

But now I know it’s okay for them to think those things about me. Unlike my previous attempts to “help” by controlling their experience, I now make boundaries that help me have the kind of experience I want to have. They are allowed to think whatever they want to about my choices. My choices are for me. Not against them.

Okay now let’s bring this to your business.

If you’re a person who has a hard time with boundaries and fears that you will be perceived as “mean,” “selfish,” “too strict,” “privileged,” a “sellout,” etc., this will show up in your practices and policies.

It shows up as undercharging. A cancelation policy that isn’t supporting the growth and stability of your business. Being overbooked and tired. Working at times that you really don’t want to be. Not charging enough to save for retirement or go on vacation or pay others well for their goods and services.

For folks who tend toward codependency, any sort of boundary setting tends to feel really extreme and because we’re codependent, we’ve often surrounded ourselves with people who feel entitled to our time, attention, and emotional labor. People who just expect to receive it. So when we start to set boundaries, it makes sense that we’ll suddenly get met with exactly what we’re most fearing. “You don't care! You’re selfish! How could you do this to me! I would never do that!” What tends to happen next is those people either survive the wake up call that they’re no longer entitled to our time, attention, and emotional labor on their terms or they can’t integrate this new reality and leave with their belief that you’re awful intact.

If you are going to heal your codependency and build a business that actually feels really good for you, you have to become willing to feel the sensation of others thinking differently about you than you would like them to.

People who are codependent and are new to making boundaries tend to fear any boundary setting will be perceived as an act of aggression against others. They worry that putting themselves first when making a boundary is a slippery slope to becoming a raging, selfish monster. I joke with a client I've worked with for many years that they are not in danger of this, that if they were antisocial and lacked the ability to empathize, we’d know by now. Nothing, including making boundaries, could make them lose their ability to empathize. This usually shifts their boundary making into perspective and helps them right size it.

Most therapists create practices based on what they see others doing around them, their own codependent tendencies, and ideas about what it means to be “good.”

Most will never become deeply intimate with their own desires, especially the taboo ones, many will continue to be so intimidated by money that they never make a plan for retirement or to pay off their student debt, most will say yes to working at times that pull them away from their families or getting to do fun things with their friends. Many will be a mixture of horrified and envious of therapists who have “sold out” and have “cushy” private practices. All because they want to be “good” therapists and aren’t willing to experience the sensation of others perceiving them differently.

What if you didn’t have to be a “good” therapist anymore?

What if you knew that tapping into your desires wasn’t dangerous or harmful (except to the status quo)? If you gave yourself permission just to imagine what you would do if you were a “bad” therapist, what would that be?

In some ways this is just another version of the question, “What do you want?” But when you give yourself permission not just to desire, but to be “bad,” a whole other level of desire tends to open up.

I want you to give yourself permission to answer this question knowing that you don’t have to do any of the things that your mind comes up with. Think of this as depth work and shadow integration.

Complete this sentence over and over again, “If I were a bad therapist, I would…”

You can change it up a little bit to get at some different aspects, “If I were a greedy therapist, I would…”

“If I were a selfish therapist, I would…”

Notice what shows up and let that be enough for today.