Codependency Conspiracy: How to Break the Recovery Habit and Take Charge ofYour Life

by Stan J. Katz, Aimee Liu

Overview

This explosive program redefines addiction, codependency, and self-help. Using the author's clinical experiences, it shows how self-help methods can actually promote dependency, and offers options as well as positive, proven strategies for finding helpful therapies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780446393775
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	05/01/1992
Pages:	260
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.59(d)

Editorial Reviews

Most self-help programs do more harm than good by promoting dependency, charge Berverly Hills psychologist Katz and coauthor Liu ( The Success Trap ). Bound to elicit protests from the self-help movement, their severe indictment is based on cases cited here ranging from obsessions to drug addiction. Katz and Liu differentiate between two types of remedial programs: organizations that treat all unwanted behavior as a ``disease'' affecting the ``hurt child within'' and that require lifelong adherence to principles relating to a Higher Power; and mutual-support groups limited to helping members cope with specific, short-term problems. The authors' eight-point program, intended to foster reliance on one's own healing powers, stresses dealing with one goal at a time and acknowledging past influences while developing present strengths and resources. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Katz and Liu, coauthors of False Love and Other Romantic Illusions ( LJ 9/15/88) and The Success Trap (Ticknor & Fields, 1990), paint a damning picture of the self-help movement and its leaders. Stating that codependency ``is not a disease but, at best, an idea and, at worst, a scam,'' the authors contend that 12-Step programs and codependency recovery groups promote lifelong dependency and victim behavior at the expense of self-discipline in solving life's problems. However, the authors' research seems limited to Katz's own experiences as a therapist. Katz and Liu offer an alternative, detailed, ten-step plan for identifying and attacking problems. While they fail to acknowledge that many people derive positive benefits from the 12-Step program, their book is the only one this reviewer has seen that provides an alternative view. Consider for large self-help collections.--Linda S. Greene, Chicago P.L.

Library Journal