Emotional Dependency | Arun Mansukhani | TEDxMalagueta

This talk is from a TEDx event, organized independently of the TED conferences. More information at: http://ted.com/tedx

Is it always negative to be emotionally dependent? In this surprising and amusing talk in which we will all feel identified, Arun teaches us to detect the personalities with whom we can establish a healthy relationship of codependence. Arun is a clinical psychologist (PsyD). Master in Clinical Psychology. Master in Sexology. University Expert in Clinical Hypnosis. EuroPsy Specialist in Psychology and Psychotherapy. Member of the board of directors of the Spanish Federation of Sex Societies (FESS). President of the Committee on International Adoptions of the COP-AO. Advisor to ORAS-CONHU (United Nations Population Fund).

Well, emotional dependence is very
much frowned upon in today's society.

No one wants to be emotionally dependent,

because when we think of
emotional dependence

the first thing that comes to mind
is a person that's...

I don't know... clingy, people who don't
want to be alone,

people that don't end relationships
even if they are bad.

And this in our society
is exactly the opposite, right?

In the man and woman society
that were made by themselves

that's bad news; we want
people that are autonomous

self-sufficient, independent.

However, we forget that we are
the most social species on the planet.

And this is exactly the same as saying

that we are the most dependent species
that there is on the planet.

All of our development has been social.

I know many of you
will be saying, well...

it's normal for the kids
to be dependent

but the adults we have to
be independent

that is what psychologists have
thought up until recently.

We thought that development
was to go

from absolute dependency
in infancy

to absolute independence
in adulthood.

But, we now know that people
ultimately don't become independent

Actually, what we know,

is that if there were an absolutely
independent adult,

that would be a social and emotional
disease. It would be a problem.

Whether because of the
solitude of that person,

or whether because of the lack of empathy
that this problems carry.

Actually, we're not making any progress
from dependence to independence.

What happens is that we change
our type of dependence.

When we are little we have what we call
a vertical dependence.

Ok? I don't know if you see me up there

In which there is a person that cares
and a person that is being cared.

A person that provides, and
another that recieves.

That is what happens
with children and parents.

Throughout our life
the dependency doesn't disappear

but rather we go on changing its capacity

up to the point of having the
ability to depend horizontally,

on each other; where one takes care
and the other one is being cared,

but also the one being cared
takes care and both give.

This would be the dependency ratio
ideal between adults: interdependence.

Now you know that there are many adults
who don't get there. You know, right?

Some are your partners, and
well they should have reached this point.

There are people who have difficulties
with this transition.

There are parents that are
very good parents with dependent babies

but when these children
become adolescents,

and they start to seek autonomy,
this is a conflict.

And then there are adults who,
in their intimate relationships,

don't look for these type of relationships
but continue to look for these.

They keep searching for someone
to care for them or provide for them.

Or are there others that are
looking for someone to look after

or for someone who they can save.

Or, sometimes, someone they
can dominate, ok?

And these are not healthy relationships.

The good dependency relationships between
adults are these: the horizontal ones.

What does it take to have
horizontal relationships between adults?

Two things.

That's what I like, to be simple.

Autonomy and intimacy.

And now the next question:

How can we have autonomy and intimacy?

The first variable is
emotional regulation.

Emotional regulation is all
that I have,

to influence my state of mind
and my emotions.

As human beings we basically have
two main types of emotional regulation:

Self-regulation and co-regulation.

Self-regulation is all that which
I do by myself,

in order to influence my state of mind:
going out to play sports, meditating,

relaxing...
all of this is self-regulation

co-regulation is what I do
with another person or with other people

to make me feel better.
I get bad news,

and I call someone and talking with
this person makes me feel better.

This is co-regulation.

These are the two main ways.

We see that there are people that
are very good at self-regulating

but really bad at co-regulating.
What happens to these people?

When they feel bad or when
they experience a dispute,

they tend to isolate themselves,
they go because they need to self-regulate

before again making contact with others.

And we also see that there are people
who are the opposite.

That they are very good at co-regulating,
but very bad at self-regulating.

What happens? When there is
a conflict or they feel bad,

they need to find someone else,
they look for people.

Let us imagine that these
two become a couple

You don't have to imagine too much.
They're very frequent.

In which there is an "self-regulator"
and a "co" and they have a conflict,

what's going to happen?

The "self-regulator" will try to run
and the "co" will go behind him, right?

What happens?
There will be no co-regulation.

They will "co-deregulate" each other.

This variable, the co-regulation or the
co-deregulation, it is the central element

that distinguishes couples that work
the good ones that malfunction.

That's a problem because people
as long as it co-deregulates

goes further and further, it doesn't
come closer, it's getting worse.

And people, when they co-deregulate
don't solve the conflicts.

So what you simply do? Leave them, right?

And what makes a relationship grow
is the ability to resolve conflicts.

The conflicts aren't the problem.

The problem is how
we solve those conflicts, ok?

So notice that, this element
apparently insignificant is essential.

Along with co-regulation, another variable
very important is relational security.

Which is how safe
I feel when I'm alone

and how safe I feel
when I'm with people.

Then we already know where
autonomy is.

If I'm able to co-regulate myself
and I'm able to be fine alone,

I have autonomy capacity.

If I'm able to co-regulate myself
and I'm able to be fine with others,

I have privacy capacity.

And this is what we need to be able
to maintain healthy adult relationships,

horizontals we said, right?

People able to have autonomy and privacy.

The news I bring you is that
those people, we believe they exist.

We don't know where they are.
We're looking for them, don't worry.

When we find them, we'll tell you.

I call them "the Greens".

They're represented with a green dot.

If by any chance you find a "Green"

immediately get married!

(Laughter)

No domestic partnerships. Get married!
"But he's so ugly." It doesn't matter!

But he's a guy and I'm not gay.
Well, nobody's perfect! Get married!

I don't know if he's good...

Thanks a lot! Thank you!

(Applause)

And best part:
I don't know if he's good in bed.

He actually is! That's the worse.

Because the biggest cause
of sexual dysfunction

is interpersonal anxiety.

And they don't have it!
Those guys and girls don't have it.

I mean, they're good in bed, too.

¡Get married! Don't think about it
and you'll have a happy marriage as

Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy,
you know they did it very well.

But well, since most people don't
we have that high level of regulation

you'll most likely find yourselves
with people with other issues.

For example, more people at this side,
at the co-regulation side, okay?

They are people who are
co-regulated, we said,

who had more problems
for autonomy.

So what's their fear?

Many times they are unconscious
about this fear.

But their basic fear is to be abandoned.

In a real way or emotionally.

Their fear is people
stopping to love them.

They are constantly
forcing people to love them.

How? Being liked,
working for it a lot,

being very effective,
being very efficient.

I guess many of you
can find themselves here.

Forgetting about their own needs,
looking at the needs of others.

They can hardly say no.

They say no two times
but the third one will be a yes.

So you always have to insist three times.

I always say that if you're having a
work team, you must have, at least,

one of this side, we call this side
"dependent-submissive."

You must have at least
one "dependent-submissive",

who is the one doing the tasks
no one else wants to do, ok?

- We have to go to pick up a speaker.
- But it's daughter's birthday.

"We have to go to pick". Three times.
"Ok, I'll go". And leaves the daughter.

So these are very good for work teams.

They're usually done after 4 or 5 years.

Fire them and put someone else in.
No fixing there anymore. Remember that.

Getting a bit serious

these kind of people
are the ones that are in risk

to begin abusive relationships.

Because they can start them
and if they start them it's easier

people won't let them
quit the relationships.

You can also find...

And what should we do with them?
With the Greens I told you to get married.

Have you seen these ones are in yellow?

What should we do?

It depends... If your mate is
a bit caring, that's amazing!

Amazing! They'll treat you really good.
You should go on with them.

They're a bit a pain in the ass;
every month and a half approximately

they tell you you don't love them enough,

feel bad when they made you the super gift

and you didn't remember their birthday...

Those are little things
that you can easily solve.

If they're very dependent,
too much from the obedient side, no.

One thing is you going out
one night with your friends

and receive one text at 1 a.m. saying:

"Have fun with your friends, baby.
I love you", and another one at 3 a.m.

That's ok.
Another thing is receiving 15 texts!

If you do get 15...

If it's your partner and you have kids,
you started loving them...

then you stay with them! But if not
there's plenty of people in the world!

Look around and you'll see. At TED...
A lot of people. You can search.

(Laughter) (Applause)

Thank you!

You can also find a person
from the exact opposite side.

If that's from the dependent side, this is
the contradependent or avoidant side.

If they are afraid of autonomy,
these ones are afraid of intimacy.

If their fear was of being abandoned,
those ones' fear is to be invaded.

Losing their individuality, losing
that autonomy they treasure.

What do they do then?
They get away, drift apart.

Tend to put apart the others,
need a lot more space than the rest.

Not only with the others, but also
they need space with themselves.

They don't know it, but they don't notice
their emotions in a good way, ok?

They think they feel less than the rest.

Either they think the rest of the world
is crazy and we have a lot of emotions.

But they really feel
less emotions than normal.

I'm sorry for the ones
that are discovering this today.

Most of them are physically disconnected.

They're, usually, the ones
who dance very bad.

They work in computer science
with a certain frequency.

(Laughter) So you get to know them...

There are simple ways to recognize them.
You can put yourselves in front of one...

They're so far apart.
of their feelings,

that you can put yourselves
in front of of one and tell him:

"Hey! How do you feel?
Let's talk about your feelings."

And they usually get paralyzed.
They blink about three times and say: huh?

Avoidant. No doubts.

There are evident avoidance manifestos.
You've been with him for three years.

You've never met no one from his family.

He never met your friends.

If you haven't noticed he's avoidant
I don't know what it needs anymore!

These are the manifestos
but also there are emotional ones

who are people who,
apparently, are very well related,

but not really intimate.

By a mystery of nature,
that I don't know yet,

anyone could do a doctoral thesis about it

in every family there's
an emotional avoidant brother-in-law.

We don't know why. It's this character
you meet at Christmas meals,

at barbecues... You talk to him and says:
"How are you? Good".

"Hey, how are you? Everything fine,
very, very good". But he doesn't connect.

You may know one of those, right?

Emotional avoidance. It seems that....
But intimacy costs you a lot, doesn't it?

If their self-esteem
depended on the others.

They are less dependent
of other people's opinions.

At a given moment they are
more capable to say yes.

If those who feel
don't get what they give,

they often feel like,
too much demand, right?

Like other people ask a lot of them,
they ask for a lot of bonding.

They also get tired.

They're people... many times
when they are carers

they're very tired carers.

And they also feel guilty

because they feel they
don't deserve all the love they recieve.

Or that they don't want
as much as anyone else.

And the third big block, the one that
doesn't have so much to do with regulation

but with relational security,
is the block we call the dominant block.

If those were submissive dependents,
these are self-dependent.

These are dominants.

If the dependents are afraid
of being abandoned,

the dominant ones aren't afraid
of being abandoned,

it's like they have, again,
unconsciously,

deep down, the conviction

that if people really know them
they're going to leave them.

It's like they're worth so little,

they're convinced
that they're going to be abandoned.

Or, sometimes, the conviction that
have come throughout his life,

is that they can't trust anyone.

That others are going for you
to end up betraying you.

So, when you're like this,
how do you get into a relationship?

From the control.

It's the only way they have. So then
use different forms of control.

How? Aggressive control. Direct domain.

You know you can find a lot of it.

Sometimes indirect control.
Aggressive-passive.

The one you don't seem to be controlling.

"Mom, I'm going for some beers."

"You go, son. Have fun.
Well, don't come home too late...

you know I can't go to bed
until you don't arrive home...

you know I do when I don't sleep,
my blood pressure goes high...

and when this happens,
the doctor who can give me a heart attack.

Be home by 11."

It would be an aggressive passive domain.
That you don't realize.

There are even more subtle ones,
and there are some that we call

the inverse dependence.

What they do is taking care,
but taking care so much

that they make you
become dependent of that care.

They're castration-caregivers.

People who are totally engulfing you.
There's a book by Stephen King, "Misery".

There's a film too that portrays a bit
exaggerated about this kind of pattern.

Well, there you see, there we have
those three big sides, right?

What happens with any
of these blocks?

You can see that none of them keep
horizontal relationships, right?

What happens with these people
when they meet the greens?

They are very few, but we find some.
They hardly ever go into a relationship.

The greens become racist and
they don't understand the others.

But the others don't understand either
to the greens, okay?

What other groups would fit together?

For example, if we have
two caregivers, will they be a couple?

They both try to please.
They both try to take care of each other.

None being able to receive care.
That's not good. That ends it.

Two avoidants? They may say hello
to each other on the street

but I'm not so sure about it.
How are they going to be a couple?

But imagine the exact opposite:

A pleasant-caregiver with an avoidant.
The pleasant-caregiver can't help it

he wants to save the avoidant
from his sadness.

He can't, that helpless being,
who speaks little and ducks his eyes.

Look how well they fit together:
The Coyote and Road Runner, right?

The same goes for the dominant
and the most submissive, right?

It's very difficult fot the dominant
to fit with another dominant.

But dominant with submissive
they fit perfectly well too.

That's why we see
so many couples of that side.

That's where they go into,
not into a conflictive balance

but into a conflictive escalation.

That's why you've seen
the dominant have the red lights

I mean the red light bulbs.

Those are the ones you
mustn't be a couple with.

Well, those will be a bit...
It could work for a while, but...

The ideas was creating a cartoon

an animated cartoon
of the different kind of relationships.

How they're formed
how they're structured.

And how they're holding up.
I'd like to finish with two quotes:

From the English poet, Auden
that says the following:

"We must attach or die."
He's English but seems Mediterranean.

And the one from Sartre:
"Hell is other people."

These two quotes represent the two sides.
And the idea of quoting is that,

between these two poles, between that
kind of suffocating relationships

and living the others like hell,

there's a wide range
of possible healthy relationships.

And these healthy relationships are
very interesting for two reasons:

First of all, because we really
know each other in relation to the rest.

When I'm with the others,
when I have conflicts with others,

In those conflicts, those parts of me
that I don't like to see usually come out.

The second reason why relationships
are interesting, I think, is because

if conflicts are resolved they help
for us to learn how to love people.

They are fallible, they make
mistakes, they are wrong...

Kind of like the rest of us, right?

So you know, now when I'm done,
on the break, when you meet out there,

get involved, as it says,
get involved or whatever you want.

Depend on each other, but,
please, depend in a healthy way.

Thank you very much!

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)