Guest guest Posted June 18, 1998 Report Share Posted June 18, 1998 HI Joe On Fri, 19 Jun 1998 02:18:01 Joe Berenbaum wrote: > At 18:20 18/06/98 +0100, you wrote: > >Altho Lefever, director of the PROMIS rehab here in > >the UK considers the term of no value he did not make any > >effort to stop his counsellors using it when I was there. > > It is a bit surprising that the term " co-dependency " be banned, along with > Coda, while all the other dignostic a dn treatment nonsense that don't > actually make any more sense were kept intact. Well the term *wasnt* banned, but i think thats only because Lefever didnt know ppl were using it. when i told him, he said " I cant make ppl stop using a word " - but he made them stop doing lots of other things - you couldnt smoke, one guy got in trouble for putting on weight (he was told he'd switched from drink to food) and you couldnt go to CODA or refer others to it to name but four. Lefever himself told me that the rules of employment were Bible-thick. theres a good reason why Lefever doesnt endorse codependency. he reckons there are two types of addict - " primary " - the classic alkie, druggie, whatever, and the co-addict or " compulsive helper as Lefever calls them - the Al-Anon type, who is now often called " codependent " . Lefever reckons this distinction is very importnat - he reckons theyre two quite different kind of addict, and ought to go to different fellowships. going to the *wrong* fellowship may make you worse as you plug in to the other kind of addict. it's possible to have both kinds of addiction, but its rare, and if you do you have to go to two separate fellowships for them. He founded both " Addictions Anonymous " and " Helpers Anonymous " to fit those two fellowhip roles, and funnels his patients into them the same way the rehabs ordinarily funnel their patients into the older fellowships. I dont know abt the latter, but the former has now crossed the pond and is in the US where it functions a bit like NA, but Gamblers and Bulimics etc can go to it. only sig others who are not themselves primary addicts arent wanted. He has two beefs with CoDA. One is, that CoDA makes no such distinction of addict type; tho clearly initially aimed at his " helping " kind, it encourages anyone to show up who wants to, including " primary " addicts. Primary addictions are seen as just resulting from the person's codependency. hence, lefever reckons CoDa can make ppl sicker rather than better - certainly he thinks they wont get better. The second is that CoDA portrays addiction of all kinds as mostly resulting from abuse in childhood. Lefever's wedded to the disease model and genetic etiology, and he encourages his patients to think that their " disease " was something they were born with and would have developed anyway. what his unconscious motives for that might be I'll leave up to you to speculate on - but he has good reason. I've asked him to join addict-l to put his position - no reply. > > >I was amazed to see the term " codependency " appear in a > >psychological paper that listed Lefever as a co-author. Perhaps I shouldnt have been... after all, i'd seen his own counsellors using the word all the time. funnily enough, that paper blew his theories out of the water. A factor analysis of the addiction problems in his patients (including yours truly, btw) clearly showed that addictive problems did *not* divide along the fault line he had drawn for them. instead, they showed a " Hedonistic " and a " Nurturant " pattern that to some extent looked like his ideas but many addictions fell on the wrong side of the line. there was also an amazingly strong gender factor that was ludicrously played down imho. he told me this finding himself - but it didnt gel with him what it meant. as far as i know he still holds his original theories and supports those two new fellowships, even tho his own patient data doesnt support looking at addiction that way. > > > >I did my final year BSc Psychology research project on > >Codependency - copies are available to anyone interested. > > , I'd like that if I can have a copy. You already have my address- or > I'll give it to you again if need be. I can even pay postage if you want. Are you able to accept it electronically? MSWORD format? I can let you have it that way if you wish. saves on postage. P. ---------------------- Pumpkin Eater " Facts are stubborn things " -- Judge Zobel, from Alain Rene Lesage [no, I didnt know who he was either] PERSONALITY-DISORDERS LIST: http://rdz.acor.org/athenaeum/lists.phtml?personality-disorders _____________________ ---- Read this list on the Web at http://www.FindMail.com/list/12-step-free/ To unsubscribe, email to 12-step-free-unsubscribe@... To subscribe, email to 12-step-free-subscribe@... -- Start a FREE E-Mail List at http://makelist.com ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 21, 1999 Report Share Posted January 21, 1999 Am I not getting all my e-mail? I have received only 7 posts in the last 2 days. Judie ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 21, 1999 Report Share Posted January 21, 1999 Am I not getting all my e-mail? I have received only 7 posts in the last 2 days. Judie Judie, For some reason, we have all become comatose. Wait til there's another full moon. Henders ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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