Emotional Dependency (Dépendance Affective)
Breaking Free from the Compulsive Need for Others
By Gildas Garrec · 210 pages · 2025
About this book
Explore emotional dependency (dépendance affective), fear of losing a partner and personal boundaries. Discover the book’s approach and read a free sample.
Do you often confuse love with needing someone? Can't stand being alone, accept the unacceptable to avoid losing your partner, or completely lose yourself in your relationships? This clinical guide explores emotional dependency — that excessive need for the other person's reassurance and presence to feel safe — across 8 chapters tracing its roots in anxious childhood attachment all the way to a path toward emotional autonomy. Grounded in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), John Bowlby's attachment theory and Jeffrey Young's schema therapy, it also draws on recent neurobiological research on relational addiction to destigmatize what isn't weakness but a learned survival strategy — and therefore a reversible one. Each chapter combines clinical case studies with concrete practical exercises to help you identify your own dependency cycle, face the fear of abandonment, and build a balanced relationship where love stays a free choice, never a prison. Also intended for helping professionals looking to enrich their clinical practice.
Table of contents
- 1Defining emotional dependency
- 2Clinical characteristics
- 3Different clinical presentations
- 4The spectrum of emotional dependency
- 5Healthy attachment versus dependency: the distinguishing criteria
- 6The neurobiological mechanisms of emotional dependency
- 7The cultural and social dimension
- 8Prevalence and epidemiological data
- 9Lesser-known forms of emotional dependency
- 10The continuum between love and addiction: a scientific debate
- 11The role of the psychological immune system
- 12Emotional dependency and comorbidities
- 13Understanding codependency
- 14Codependent patterns
- 15The rescuer trap
- 16The origins of codependency
- 17Codependency and gender
- 18The neurobiology of codependency
- 19The physical impact of codependency
- 20Codependency in relationships with narcissistic personalities
- 21Escaping codependency: the first steps
- 22Attachment theory: the fundamentals
- 23Anxious attachment as the breeding ground for emotional dependency
- 24Origins in childhood
- 25Internal working models
- 26The intergenerational transmission of attachment
- 27Neuroplasticity: the brain can change
- 28Attachment in adulthood: Hazan and Shaver's research
- 29The role of implicit memory
- 30When anxious attachment meets trauma
- 31Recognizing your attachment style
- 32The phases of the cycle
- 33Intermittent reinforcement: the fuel of the cycle
- 34The repetition compulsion: why we always fall back into the same pattern
- 35The social and economic cost of emotional dependency
- 36The factors maintaining the cycle
- 37The biochemistry of the cycle: understanding emotional withdrawal
- 38The trauma bond
- 39The role of social media in accelerating the cycle
- 40The abandonment schema according to Jeffrey Young
- 41The self-fulfilling prophecy
- 42The fear of abandonment in children of divorce
- 43Real abandonment versus perceived abandonment
- 44Manifestations of the fear of abandonment
- 45The neuroscientific roots of the fear of abandonment
- 46The fear of abandonment and the five core wounds
- 47Compensation strategies: how the fear of abandonment disguises itself
- 48Healing the abandonment wound: therapeutic pathways
- 49Enmeshment: an impossible boundary
- 50The loss of self: a four-stage process
- 51Identity diffusion
- 52The consequences of enmeshment on mental health
- 53Enmeshment and the soulmate myth
- 54Parental enmeshment: when the parent dissolves into the child
- 55Personal boundaries: definition and construction
- 56Early warning signs of enmeshment
- 57Chosen solitude versus imposed solitude
- 58Building self-validation
- 59Self-soothing: becoming your own secure base
- 60CBT techniques for autonomy
- 61Reparenting: becoming the parent you never had
- 62Spirituality and the existential dimension
- 63The body as ally: the somatic approach to autonomy
- 64The pitfalls of reclaiming autonomy
- 65The role of those around us in the healing process
- 66Healthy interdependence versus dependency
- 67Maintaining individuality in the couple
- 68The pillars of a balanced relationship
- 69Vulnerability as strength: the lessons of Brene Brown
- 70Nonviolent Communication in the couple
- 71When both partners are on the journey
- 72Love after healing: testimonies of transformation
- 73What we have learned together
- 74The paradox of healing
- 75Self-love: the forgotten foundation
- 76The journey continues
- 77A message of hope
- 78A final word
- 79Scientific articles
- 80Reference works
- 81Other books in the collection
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