trauma bonding Archives

A chain link shatters dramatically with sparks and glass fragments flying outward

The Codependent Fantasy: If I Love Them Properly, They Will Change

This article explores the codependent fantasy that enough love, patience, and understanding will change another person. It examines how hope, self-abandonment, and early relational conditioning keep people attached to harmful relationships, and why recovery begins with seeing reality clearly rather than trying to rescue someone who will not change.

A sparrow breaks free from a chain as the sun sets over a mountainous coastline.

Therapy Shorts 88: Why Leaving a Narcissist Can Feel Like Betrayal

This article explains why leaving a narcissistic relationship can feel like betrayal for codependent people. It explores guilt, loyalty, trauma bonding, hope, emotional responsibility, and the fear of abandoning someone difficult, while showing how leaving can be an act of self-protection rather than cruelty.

Therapy Shorts 84: Why You Keep Falling For The Wrong People

Why are codependents drawn to emotionally unavailable and inconsistent partners? This article explores how childhood conditioning, low self-worth and nervous system activation shape attraction, causing healthy love to feel unfamiliar. Learn why codependents mistake drama for connection and how recovery begins by judging behaviour, not chemistry.

Therapy Shorts 72: Stop Calling It Chemistry: When “Urgent” Is Just Your Nervous System

Codependency often turns urgency into “chemistry.” This article explains how the nervous system confuses inconsistency with attraction, why reassurance-seeking becomes compulsive, and how to slow the loop with practical delay rules, body regulation, and behaviour-based assessment so connection feels safe, steady, and real.

Read more about the article Group Therapy for Codependency Recovery starts again on 29 March 2026 (via Zoom), with free access to Dr Jenner’s Codependency Self-Help Programme (value $390 USD).

Group Therapy for Codependency Recovery starts again on 29 March 2026 (via Zoom), with free access to Dr Jenner’s Codependency Self-Help Programme (value $390 USD).

Join our group therapy for codependency recovery starting 29 March 2026. Gain skills to build healthier relationships and personal autonomy.

If You Keep Choosing Distant Partners, It’s Not Romance, It’s Repetition

Discover why attraction is often predictable and shaped by attachment, biology, and culture, helping you break unhealthy relationship patterns.

Therapy Shorts 63: If you have a Self-Centred Person in your life, don’t take this advice

Learn how to navigate a relationship with a narcissist and prioritize your mental health. Discover ways to exit toxic dynamics for good.

Therapy Shorts 62: Understanding Codependency: The Push-Pull Dynamic Explained

Discover the dynamics of codependent relationships, their origins, and how to break free from unhealthy patterns and embrace real love.

In-Depth Guide: Why You Love the Way You Do — The Psychology of Attachment

Understanding how childhood shapes adult relationships is key to healing attachment wounds, breaking unhealthy patterns, and building secure, fulfilling connections.

Therapy Shorts 49: The Truth No-One Wants To Hear

Welcome to Therapy Shorts: small moments of reflection to help you steady yourself in a world that never stops moving. I’m Dr Nicholas Jenner, and in each of these brief episodes, we’ll take a simple idea and look at how it actually plays out in real life… in your relationships, your choices, and the way you speak to yourself.