Codependency

Occasionally referred to as “relationship addiction”, codependency describes behaviors, thoughts and feelings that go beyond normal caretaking and people pleasing. While often thought of as a problem in romantic relationships, codependency can occur in many types of associations including friendship, family or work. Codependents often have low self-esteem and are disproportionately preoccupied with other people’s needs while placing a low priority on their own. People who are codependent sometimes have a strong fear of being alone or abandoned and a controlling desire to be needed. While they usually have the best of intentions, codependents take on the unhealthy and self-sacrificing role of a martyr. Codependent relationships can keep people from living their best lives. Codependency symptoms can worsen if left untreated, so it’s important to seek the help of a mental health professional.

Local experts in Codependency

C.J. Sanders (she/her)

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

OR #T2235

Have you lost yourself in your relationship? One of the most difficult struggles modern humans have in connecting is how to maintain their sense of “me” in a “we”. Most people’s instinct is to pull away from the relationship to find themselves again but we can do it in a way that promotes growth in each individual as well as the relationship.

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Caitlin "Caity" Lynch (They/She)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC, NCC

Many people grow up in situations where having needs and expressing them in a healthy way is a challenge. Sometimes families and romantic partners fall into unhealthy habits that they swore they would not repeat. I'll approach your healing from codependency with compassion for how it served you previously, and a hopeful lens for practical steps you can take to regain healthy relational boundaries.

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Marina Nelson, MC (she/her/hers)

Licensed Professional Counselor

Oregon LPC, Washington LMHC

I have extensive training in codependency and have facilitated family groups for people with family members in recovery as well as provided services to individuals on this topic.

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Benita Munson (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC

Are you co-dependent in your relationship? I can help you to identify the warning signs of a one-sided, emotionally destructive and/or abusive relationship. Together we can rebuild your identity and self worth, weaving in self compassion and exploration of your family of origin, as well as necessary boundary work.

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Brad Creel (he/him)

Licensed Professional Counselor

I have both attended and facilitated three separate long-term codependent groups and meetings. I focus on male codependency and it's relationship to addictive behavior.

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Julie Osburne (she/they)

Professional Counselor Associate

M.A.

I think of codependency as the ways in which we unconsciously make agreements with others in which both parties get their needs met in indirect (and sometimes harmful) ways. Working through codependency involves getting in touch with our true motivations, realizing where we have charged others with our care, and taking ownership of our own feelings and needs. My approach is influenced by my studies in Nonviolent Communication and the 12-step philosophy.

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Leif Moa-Anderson (He/him)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC, LMHC

There is a theory that all psychologic issues stem from attachment wounds and that everyone one has attachment wounds. Now, I'm not sure if that is really true, but we at least all have a first heartbreak. I have helped with deep attachment issues such as, Reactive Attachment Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, and chronic codependence. Your attachment wounds may not be that severe, but they are may still be negatively affecting your relationships in ways you don't realize.

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"Paisley" Jen Burrell (she/her)

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

LMFT, LPC

Codependency affects couples' relationships by creating imbalanced dynamics where one partner excessively relies on the other for emotional support and identity. This can lead to controlling behaviors, resentment, and a lack of personal growth. It often results in poor communication, unresolved conflicts, and emotional exhaustion. Over time, codependency erodes mutual respect and intimacy, hindering the development of a healthy, balanced partnership and individual well-being.

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Evan Stuart (he/him)

Student Counselor

Restoration Therapy provides a framework to strengthen your patterns in relationships with others. Looking at historical attachment patterns, and reframing them with intentional mindfulness tools can lead to the growth of a stronger, wiser self in your relationships with others. Co-dependency can be shifted to attracting relationships that serve you.

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Peter Gold (he/him)

Professional Counselor

PhD, LPC, LMHC

We are all dependent on others, but like most things, when that dependence becomes excessive problems arise. I help people return to themselves in a new way so that they begin to trust and rely on themselves in ways that perhaps they've never known. The journey from dependence to independence to interdependence is often a very rich and rewarding one.

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jacinda phillips (she/her)

Somatic Practitioner

CET, LMT

In Core Energetics Therapy we look at something like codependency as a way of "merging" with someone else in order to maintain connection. In doing so, we sacrifice our autonomy, including our own needs, in order to take care of somebody else and secure the attachment.

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Emily Rose (She/her)

Hypnotherapist

CHRT, CRM, CH, TLT, NLPC

Codependency often leads to losing yourself in the needs of others, leaving you feeling unseen & disconnected from your own desires. In this space, we will identify the beliefs & patterns that keep you in cycles of self-sacrifice, helping you reclaim your boundaries, voice, & sense of self-worth. Together, we’ll nurture your ability to cultivate balanced, nourishing relationships grounded in mutual respect.

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Gary Alexander (he/him)

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

MFT, CADC III, NCC

Codependency can be defined as the tendency to put others needs before your own; accommodating to others to such a degree that you tend to discount or ignore your own feelings, desires and basic needs. In codependency our self-esteem depends largely on how well we please, take care of and/or solve problems for someone else (or many others). In a sense, then only really know yourself through your role with others. Moving towards greater balance between self and others is possible!

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Julia Chapman (she/her)

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

LMFT T1622

I have completed trainings by the Meadows developed by Pia Mellody. I work with clients to build self-esteem and confidence by learning to set boundaries in relationships, ask for what they want, gain acceptance and understanding of themselves, and build satisfying relationships.

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Tracey Hoffman (she/her)

Clinical Psychologist

Psy.D

Studied relationships and systems

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Anthony Marchant

Licensed Professional Counselor

Extensive experience working with relationship dynamics and training in communication skills.

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Christina Dunning (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC

In childhood, we often learn that there are parts of us that are acceptable and parts we must keep hidden. We do this because it is necessary for our survival to maintain our relationships with our caregivers. When our caregivers are not able to meet our needs, we can learn to exile them, and to instead tend to the needs of others. In our work together, we can begin to grow awareness of these patterns, to meet them with curiosity and compassion, and to learn new ways of relating to ourselves.

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Jennifer Stratton (She/Her/Hers)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC

Codependency at a basic level is a deeply personal misunderstanding of needs and boundaries with misguided attempts to connect, to receive love and to feel valued. Learning to understand oneself and one's needs can be a rich experience. Learning to develop a compassionate, loving core of self is a priority in this work. My training in Mindful Self Compassion has been a solid foundation of training for this type of work.

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Carewell Portland Carewell Portland/Julie Berman (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC

Trouble drawing boundaries? Can't say no? It's time to put the self first and your relationships will change. Where did you learn that you are not important?

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Melinda Norman (She/Her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

Codependency has many roots which often stem from childhood abandonment or lack of development. We can work together on healing these traumas and creating new behavioral patterns which allow you to live independently of others.

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Kaijah Bjorklund (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

Nationally Certified Counselor

Unhealthy and repeated patterns are a continual source of suffering if you don't understand how you entered into the cycle. I support clients in understanding the roots of unhealthy relationships with my training in Emotionally Focused Therapy and identify how to meet their true needs in relationships. You are capable of creating new patterns of loving and relating with others. If you were never taught how to have a healthy relationship how would you know how? You can learn.

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Stuart Malkin (he/him/they)

Licensed Professional Counselor

MS, LPC

I work with clients to help them see how they contribute to co-dependent relationships, where they learned it, and support them to help break the cycle.

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Meghan O'Connor (they/them/she/her)

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

MA, MFT

Codependency is simple by definition - It's a pattern of chronic appeasement and dislocation from Self. It's a strategy of relating to others that is typically the result of developmental and socialized trauma. This pattern creates symptoms - resentment, dissatisfaction, deadness, depression, overwhelm, bitterness, anxiety, and even self-harm. We can create relief from the preoccupation and obsession with others, and find ourselves again, or perhaps, for the first time.

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Fae Tippie (they/them)

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

OR LMFT # T2221, CA LMFT #130759

I can help you learn how to stay anchored and connected to yourself and your own authentic needs and desires. From that place, we can figure out the healthy boundaries for your life and relationships that, as Prentice Hemphill says, "are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously". We will help you carve out a space to know yourself, so you can interact with others from freedom and peace, and control the only thing there is to control- your choices and your agency and your life.

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Pearl Waldorf

Licensed Professional Counselor

Setting clear boundaries as adults has everything to do with how we were reflected and tended to as little ones. It's easy to mix ourselves up with others, if we were not valued for simply being our unique selves. We can't learn our own yeses and nos in a vacuum. What's exciting, is we can learn differentiation as an adult, with the guidance of a skilled attachment therapist.

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Bethany Ingram (she/her)

Licensed Clinical Social Worker

LCSW

Codependency typically looks like hyper-vigilance towards the emotional states of others, fear of disappointing others, difficulty setting boundaries, and tending towards "people pleasing" or "rescuing/fixing" others. I enjoy helping people learn to listen to and trust themselves, focus on their own emotions and perspectives, and set necessary boundaries for themselves and in their relationships.

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David Hayden (He/Him)

Licensed Professional Counselor

Getting what we want from relationships is not always an easy task. When we are coming from a place of codependency, we may be engaging in a pattern that doesn't allow us to address, or even feel the boundaries we may desire in a relationship. Or we may be in a pattern where we do know what we want, but we feel unable to express it. By working directly with your central nervous system, while offering a safe and compassionate space, we will work together to identify what your needs are.

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Erin Carney Moline

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC

I enjoy working with clients to find healthy boundaries and a sense of self that is loving and connected. Healing codependency brings us home to ourselves, and gives us the gift of healthy community and relationships. My approach to codependency is informed by my antiracism work and understanding of white supremacy culture and its violence, both internally and externally.

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Colleen Burke-Sivers, LPC (She/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

Your kindness and generosity are positive traits, but they often get out of control to the point that no one ever seems to be considerate of you. Codependency becomes a problem when your needs are never getting met in relationships, friendships, or even with acquaintances. I will help you look at the roots of your codependent behaviors and find new ways of relating in the world.

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Christine Finucane (She/her/hers)

Licensed Clinical Social Worker

LCSW, SUDP, LICSW, SEP

Codependency has become a catchall term and has somewhat lost its meaning. It often involves caretaking of others, often family members, and this pattern often originates in childhood. Control is another issue often present for those in codependent relationships. I work with people to identify their own needs and desires, to establish healthy boundaries in their relationships which can then allow freedom to attend to their unmet needs and desires and ultimately to healing and freedom.

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Jon Fox

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC

If you tend to regularly sacrifice your own needs in a relationship to meet your partners and feel resentful about this, you may be using a codependent strategy in your life. Over time, this can lead to depression, anger, anxiety, lack of self-esteem and sense of who you are. Your needs are important too. I like helping individuals and couples create more balanced and rewarding relationships.

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Emma Stern (she/her/hers)

Licensed Professional Counselor

C7542

Codependency is very misunderstood in pop culture. Codependents are generally folks who grew up around challenging or dysfunctional relational dynamics and needed to prioritize others above themselves or walk on eggshells to avoid abuse or turbulence. This dynamic can lead to self-sacrifice, challenges around control and being controlled, people pleasing, and lack of boundaries. Codependency is common for folks who grew up around addiction or any form of abuse (especially narcissistic abuse).

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Jackie Turner (she, her)

Marriage and Family Therapist Associate

MA, Marriage & Family Therapist Associate

Are you healing from family-of-origin or relational wounds that have led you to suppress your true self to please others? Do you put others ahead of you, to the detriment of your own needs? Are you struggling to figure out who you are, what you want, and how to live an authentic life that is still full of love and connection? In therapy, we'll work to untangle the old stories keeping us stuck, and work toward transcending them.

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Jenna Washburn (she / her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

MA: Mental Health Counseling - Specialization in Addictions

As a recovered codependent, I understand the struggles of codependency. And I also truly believe in our power to heal from it. Codependency can sometimes be hard to spot and a person can quickly fall into a codependent relationship without realizing. I offer a counseling program called Focused Therapy that helps to address issues of codependency along with skill-building techniques to cultivate awareness and eventually bring about healthy connection with others.

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Sarah Blaszczak, M.A, LMFT (She, her, hers)

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

LMFT T1554

So many marginalized populations and folks who grow up with abuse or addiction in their households adapt by living life from the outside in-adjusting to what they have been told implicitly and explicitly to be for other people in order to access love and resource. This also happens to be a symptom of codependency, a normal reaction to abnormal circumstances. I can help you reorient to yourself.

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Celine Redfield

Licensed Marriage Family Therapist

MA, LMFT, Certified Havening Practitioner, EFT Master, Practitioner

If you have difficulty with control issues, wanting things to be a certain way and needing to be perfect, you may struggle with codependency. I have worked and helped many clients to find freedom from this pattern. I helped them to feel more fulfilled in their lives by learning to concentrate on themselves instead of others.

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Kimberly Dudley (she/her)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LMHC, LPC, NCC

Codependency is most easily identified in this way: one person carrying the majority of the weight and responsibility of the relationship in order to meet a deep need of approval and acceptance. It often leaves people feeling overwhelmed and undervalued.

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Deborah Ranker (she/her)

Licensed Clinical Social Worker

LCSW

Being a deeply caring and empathetic person can make it difficult to figure out how to maintain healthy boundaries in relationships and often leads to burnout and resentment. I enjoy helping people with high amounts of empathy figure out how to build confidence in themselves, maintain compassion for others, and develop the life-serving boundaries and skills needed to have thriving relationships.

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Jeff Guenther (he/him)

Licensed Professional Counselor

LPC

Studying codependent relationships and personalities has always been the most interesting part of psychology to me. How people become attached in relationships and when it tips into an unhealthy or toxic attachment is what I specialize in. Much of my expertise come from studying relationships in graduate school where I obtained a masters in marriage and family therapy.

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Catherine Gobel (she/her)

Licensed Clinical Social Worker

LCSW

I am trained in boundary setting and will help you work to understand what your needs are in a relationship and how to honor them while maintaining connection.

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