Enmeshment trauma develops in childhood when a parent relies on a child for emotional support and creates a bond that is experienced as an emotional burden. The child learns to prioritize the parent’s emotional needs above their own, a pattern that follows them into significant relationships that comes after.
Debra Kaplan has worked extensively with enmeshment and its consequences for over 25 years. She recognizes enmeshment as a core driver to many of the presenting issues she treats including sex addiction, love addiction, intimacy avoidance, and compulsive relationship patterns.
Signs of enmeshment
- Patterns of codependency or people-pleasing in adult relationships
- Difficulty setting boundaries with a parent without guilt or anxiety
- Guilt about practicing self-care especially with the involved parent (an unrealistic sense of obligation to that parent)
- Difficulties related to sexual identity or gender
- Feelings of inadequacy in adult romantic relationships
- Love/hate relationship with offending parent
- Patterns of triangulation (indirect communication) in work, family or romantic relationships
- Inappropriate conflicts about allegiances between parent and partner resulting in siding with parent against partner
- Difficulty in maintaining relationships due to idealization and devaluation of others
- Inappropriate expectation placed on partners
- Compulsive behaviors that involve sex, money, work, substances, alcohol, and food
- Issues related to sex addiction/sex avoidance or love addiction/love avoidance
- Intimacy avoidance or fear of being consumed in close relationships
- Conflict between loyalty to a parent and commitment to a partner
How therapy helps
Therapy for enmeshment involves identifying the family of origin dynamics that created the pattern, understanding how those dynamics show up in current relationships, and developing the capacity to set boundaries and practice self-care without the crushing guilt that enmeshment instills. This work draws on EMDR, experiential therapy, inner child work, and family of origin approaches.
Healing from enmeshment does not require cutting off from a parent or ending a relationship. It involves individuating from the enmeshed parent dynamic, establishing autonomy and emotional independence and nurturing a new relationship with self; one that is no longer organized around another’s emotional needs.
Telehealth available in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Ohio, and Utah. In-person sessions in Tucson, AZ.
