That man is a social animal was already said by Aristotle in his work "La Politica", where he added that he cannot live in isolation and without social contact. The individual is a unique being, but it is because he differs from others, because he lives and develops in a society that is the one that gives him his identity, completes him and recognizes him at the same time.
But the ideal or healthy thing is to reach adulthood as an independent, autonomous individual with the ability to function and face life with their own resources..
We are born as completely helpless and dependent beings and, through care, contact, modeling, learning, "trial and error", we grow, acquiring our own skills that allow us to gain autonomy and sufficiency in our environment. Without a doubt, childhood and adolescence will serve as scenarios to put our capacities into practice, adjust our behaviors and, ultimately, shape our identity as people..
Thus, it must be assumed that in adulthood we will be independent individuals, with the ability to make our own decisions, freely and without being affected by external influence. And we say that it "has to be assumed" because the reality is very different and well into adulthood there are many people who, far from functioning autonomously, show a clear, and sometimes limiting, dependence on others.
However, at this point it is important to clarify, as pointed out Anna Garcia Badill, that depending on others in adulthood is not a bad thing, emotional dependence itself is not a pathology and is something normal in human beings, but as long as we talk about a healthy dependence.
The problem, or the call for attention, we will have when the need to have a relationship becomes something imperative, something forced and urgent, so these people, if they end one (regardless of who decides the break ), they will immediately seek to start another and thus restore the state that, for them, is normal. In these cases we are not talking about pathologies or personality disorders, but it is true that, under that need to have a partner, there may be some type of trauma or lack, usually originating during childhood, which, in an attempt to compensate, it translates into emotional dependence in adulthood.
From the affective and behavioral components we would define the Emotional dependence as a "Persistent pattern of unsatisfied emotional needs that are maladaptively covered by other people". Jorge Castelló (2010).
Chaining one relationship after another, of greater or lesser duration and of better or worse affective quality, only importing the fact of having a partner and coming to feel restlessness, insecurity, and even discomfort During the intermediate period in which he is alone, it is an increasingly common behavior in a society in which we are imposed on how to be, how to think and almost establishes how our life should be, what we are supposed to do and what to do. expects us to, theoretically, fit perfectly.
But beyond "what will they say", it must be clear that dependence always has to do with avoid some negative emotion (Mansukhani 2016), which in this case could be motivated by a low self-esteem, insecurity or fear of being alone and the feeling of helplessness that comes with. In this sense, what will really generate dependence is the avoidance of that negative emotion, so that what we are dependent on, in this case, having a partner, will generate the recreation of a calming or regulating internal state, avoiding, at the less temporarily, the negative state. In this way, the behavior of always seeking a relationship with a partner (dependency) will regulate and compensate for the anguish of feeling alone and, with it, not loved (negative internal emotion to avoid).
Emotional dependence is studied from different approaches, the most prominent being those carried out from the Attachment theory and those who associate it with parental overprotection, regardless of culture.
The protectionism approach says that parental authoritarianism is linked to the generation of dependencies in children, adolescents and adults. If parental relationships do not promote situations in which to offer and develop independent and autonomous behaviors in the child, overprotecting and avoiding any act of construction of his being by himself, limiting those opportunities to verify his abilities by himself and making him believe who cannot, does not know or should not (especially in adolescence), the individual will have a high probability of engendering an emotional dependence on others. That is, the child will be prevented from developing autonomously and learning by "trial and error" during this critical period (Bornstein, 1992; Schore, 1994; Castello, 2000; Goleman, 2006; Bornstein, 2011).
On the other hand, from the Attachment theory it is explained that all emotional capacities that are put into play in affective interpersonal relationships, especially in couple relationships, develop and learn, we are not born with them, and their acquisition occurs through relationships with our caregivers, during bonding with these attachment figures.
According to John Bowlby, without these emotional capacities, the possibility of establishing healthy, balanced and satisfying affective relationships can be seriously diminished. Likewise, and as a consequence, depending on how the affective bond was created, this will be the type of attachment style that the child will develop in childhood, which will later evolve to adult attachment style, which will be put into play in couple relationships.
Couple relationships, like attachment relationships, are relationships in which attachment patterns acquired and forged in childhood are activated. Thus, the continuity between infantile attachment and attachment in couple relationships would come from desire to maintain physical proximity with the partner, to avoid negative feelings, achieve your own comfort and have the necessary security (provided by having that person by your side) in times of stress. It should be clarified that the criteria for a relationship to be considered one of attachment are long-term ties, characterized by the intense desire to maintain the closeness of a partner who is not interchangeable with any other. (Olga Barroso Braojos, Digital Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy).
However, taking into account all the above, we must emphasize that not everything is lost and that we cannot hide behind the recurring idea that “I am like this”, because as José Luis Gonzalo Marrodán affirms, “it is possible to influence attachment schemes in a way that they can heal, either by modifying them in their nature, or by generating new alternative schemes in a kind of secondary resilience ”. At this point, we would join the idea that both Gonzalo Marrodán and Cozolino himself promote: attachment is plastic.
Ultimately, and fortunately, psychotherapy is revealed as an experience capable of influencing altered attachment schemes, both in children and in adults, managing to promote this plasticity to readapt affective bonds, which will ultimately result directly in the self-esteem, security and ability to be more autonomous and self-sufficient in our society (Louis Cozolino. Neuroscience of psychotherapy. Healing de social brain.).
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