I'm baffled by the fallout from this post. Initial and subsequent readings tell me that it's an interesting question (not necessarily related to one's own therapy) about a phenomenon that has been written up a great deal in the literature on relationships (including FOO, and the therapeutic relationship). "Enmeshment" with one's therapist has actually come up on this forum a couple of times.

[I think this started with a misunderstanding and then kind of spiraled, but we're good now, right? ]

Nonetheless, even though I've heard/read about this issue, I couldn't come up with a good answer, so I did some research, so I'll start with that -these are excerpts from various articles on enmeshment:


enmeshment: overly unclear, diffuse boundaries- dependence;

In human relationships, this term means two or more people who don't have clear identities and boundaries (limits) that separate one person from the other. Thus an enmeshed person can't distinguish the difference between my needs, feelings, opinions, and priorities and yours.

"We're enmeshed when we use an individual for our identity, sense of value, worth, well-being, safety, purpose, and security. Instead of two people present, we become one identity. More simply, enmeshment is present when our sense of wholeness comes from another person.

We hear enmeshment phrases everyday such as, "I'd die without you," "You're my everything," "Without you, I'm nothing," "I need you," or "You make me whole." Many of us find our identity and self-worth by becoming the mate, parent, or friend of a successful and/or prestigious individual, or we find the need to fix and caretake individuals to give us a sense of purpose.

Boundaries

Boundaries: Tools of Respect
By Phillip S. Mitchell , M.A., MFT (CA), MAC

One of the commonalities of codependent behaviors is the lack of healthy personal boundaries. With various types of dysfunction within our families of origin, there was often a lack of respect shown in personal interactions, including various forms of abuse: physical, sexual, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Implicit in any form of abuse is the message to the victims that they are abusable, worthless, and certainly unworthy of having personal boundaries. This scenario is equally at the roots of shame.

Examples of a lack of boundaries include but are not limited to:

§ A poor sense or disregard of personal space—not sensing or knowing how physically close you should be in relation to another.

§ Sharing too much personal information with someone you don’t know well.

§ Falling in love with a new acquaintance.

§ Obsessive thinking about another person.

§ Actions on the first sexual impulse.

§ Being sexual for your partner and not yourself.

§ Disregarding you personal values in order to please others.

§ Ignoring another person's display of poor boundaries or invasion of your boundaries.

§ Accepting food, gifts, touch or sex that you don’t want.

§ Excessive giving or taking.

§ Letting others describe you or your reality.

§ Expecting others to anticipate and fulfill your needs.

§ Manipulative behaviors, abusive behaviors etc.

One of the effects of a lack of boundaries is the impaired ability to discern the difference in identity between self and another. This may express as enmeshment with another, where you may adopt thoughts and feelings of another person and any semblance of boundaries is blurred, if not altogether lost. In extreme forms, this may be referred to as symbiosis, to borrow a term from biology. It is difficult to develop a healthy relationship with enmeshment present.

Codependent people, for example, perhaps in the roles of Caretaker, Fixer, or People-Pleaser, may appear to be highly focused on another person and very sensitive to that person’s needs, yet they are in many ways unaware of the other’s truer needs or essence. This is because codependents are involved in projecting their imagined beliefs about that person onto him or her, based upon their own unresolved fear from past experiences. This is usually a fear of non-acceptance, rejection, or abandonment.