What does codependence mean?
Codependence refers to an excessive emotional or psychological reliance on another person, most classically a partner struggling with addiction or illness, though the term now extends to any relationship marked by unhealthy mutual dependence. A person exhibiting codependence may organise their life around meeting another's needs, neglect their own wellbeing, and enable harmful behaviour — all while feeling indispensable to the other person. The word entered circulation in the 1970s through support communities for families of alcoholics, and it remains central to twelve-step recovery culture and popular psychology. Its connotations are distinctly negative: unlike interdependence, which describes balanced mutual support between autonomous individuals, codependence implies blurred boundaries, lost identity, and compulsive caretaking. Writers typically pair it with verbs like 'recover from' or nouns like 'patterns' and 'signs'. For anyone discussing relationships, therapy, or personal growth, it names a dynamic that ordinary vocabulary handles poorly, which explains its enduring popularity despite never being a formal clinical diagnosis.
nounExcessive emotional or psychological reliance on a partner, typically one with an illness or addiction; more broadly, a state of mutual dependence in which two people's identities and wellbeing become enmeshed.
- Excessive emotional or psychological reliance on a person who has an illness or addiction, often involving enabling behaviour.
- More generally, a mutually dependent or enmeshed state within any close relationship.
"Therapists often trace a client's codependence back to family patterns learned long before the relationship began."
"Her codependence kept her managing his crises instead of addressing her own needs."
"Support groups help members recognise the codependence they carried into every relationship."
Rarely used in the plural; codependence normally functions as an uncountable noun referring to a general pattern or condition.
"Different therapists may identify different codependences across a client's relationships."
The word was born not from dictionaries but from Alcoholics Anonymous circles in the 1970s, which first needed a name for the spouses and families whose lives had come to orbit someone else's addiction.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of codependence
Codependence is formed from the Latin-derived prefix co- ('together') combined with 'dependence', itself from Latin dependere, 'to hang down from' or 'hang upon'. The word emerged in English in the mid-twentieth century — most sources place its rise in the 1970s — within Alcoholics Anonymous-adjacent circles, where it described the condition of spouses and family members whose lives had become organised around an alcoholic's drinking. Its sibling form 'codependency' soon overtook it in frequency, and both terms spread from addiction-recovery contexts into general psychological and self-help usage.
Related word forms
How codependence is actually used
Codependence is chiefly used in psychological and self-help contexts, where it carries negative or at least cautionary connotations of unhealthy reliance. The variant spelling 'codependency' is considerably more common in modern usage, particularly in North America. In everyday speech the word is informal-to-neutral, but in clinical literature it is treated as a descriptive term rather than a formal diagnosis.
Easily confused with codependence
Codependency is the far more common form of the same word, especially in American psychology writing; codependence is an accepted but less frequent variant.
Interdependence describes healthy mutual reliance between equals, whereas codependence implies unhealthy, imbalanced reliance that erodes individual autonomy.