Healthy Dependency: Leaning on Others Without Losing Yourself

From the psychologist who coined the phrase "healthy dependency"—the first and only book that outlines its four key steps and helps readers understand and use these principles to achieve balance in love, in friendships, with family, and at work.

The research is clear: Too much dependency in our relationships can be a bad thing, but too little dependency is just as bad. Healthy dependency—that flexible middle ground between rigid independence and unhealthy overdependence—is the ability to balance intimacy and autonomy, lean on others while maintaining a strong sense of self, and feel good (not guilty) about asking for help when you need it.

The authors' studies confirm that healthy dependency brings a wealth of positive effects including:

• increased satisfaction in love relationships
• greater likelihood of academic and career success
• better family communication and improved parenting skills
• enhanced physical and psychological health

This unique book, meticulously organized and laced throughout with case studies, anecdotes, relationship-style questionnaires, and research findings, draws from the authors' more than 20 years of research and clinical experience. A valuable guide to achieving healthy relationships between men and women of all ages, it will help readers identify where they are on the relationship continuum, and understand the skills they will need to address in order to strengthen their personal, professional, and family relationships.

Using real-life examples, case studies, anecdotes, and survey research, Bornstein and Languirand (a husband-wife psychology team) present a model for relationships, explaining both the rationale informing the model and the skills necessary to implement it. They advocate a middle course between detachment and over-dependency, emphasizing the possibility for both self- confidence and trust. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Publishers Weekly

Yes, Virginia, dependency can be healthy-at least according to Bornstein, a professor of psychology at Gettysburg College who specializes in dependency issues, and his wife Languirand, a private therapist. The couple, both of whom are multi-published contributors to books and articles for professional and lay readers, extol "depending on people without becoming dependent on them." They explore this subject in great depth, from an assessment of the causes and ramifications of dependency disorders to an examination of healthy dependency in professional and personal relationships. Bornstein and Languirand articulate four key skills, including "relationship flexibility" and "connection-based thinking," which they say are necessary to attain a balanced blend of intimacy, autonomy, trust and self-confidence. The authors' textbook approach (replete with case studies, charts, graphs, statistics and quizzes, not to mention some redundancies) is sincere, thorough and learned, but at times overly pedantic. Still, in a world in which time, energies and emotions are fragmented and an increasing dependence on technology can isolate and detach people from each another, this book offers good advice on maintaining the right connections. (Jan.) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.