Only 3 spots left - Secure yours today. Join me on November 9th, for a brand new round of group therapy dedicated to Narcissistic Abuse Recovery. This 4-session workshop is for you if you are stuck in a relationship with a narcissist or your narcissist has gone and you are still struggling with the aftermath. My goal is to support emotional healing, identity restoration, and the development of healthy relational tools in a group setting, with others going through the same thing. Each session is 90 minutes and includes psycho-education, reflection, somatic practice, and take-home exercises.
The term codependency, while not accepted by all in the medical or psychology field, has pointed us towards something real for many people. The people who lose themselves, try to fix, rescue and manage others will resonate with the word. However, the term sounds very clinical and feels more like a diagnosis than a pattern of behaviour (which it is). Once you have a diagnosis, you start believing that’s who you are. It’s a label that you carry with you.
Maybe it’s time to rename it. To give it a more positive name that gets away from the clinical diagnosis. I’ve seen it described as a “self-love deficiency” by one prominent writer, but surely this also points to a lack. While it may be technically true, it’s the impression it gives.
A couple of names I like are “overcare” or “excess empathy”. These are terms that describe what happens in terms of behaviour without the pathology. They remind us that the drive behind codependency was once love at some point. All the protecting, helping, anticipating, and attempts to control were all survival strategies to protect you from the chaos and neglect. In this process, the Self was forgotten and banished.
Renaming it gives any work undertaken hope. Instead of “curing” codependency (I firmly believe there is nothing to be cured), we can talk about “rebalancing care” and promoting individuality. That means keeping empathy but adding healthy boundaries. It means seeing love as a choice, not as essential or a transaction. In my experience, when people stop calling themselves codependent, they also stop acting like it.
Language and what we tell ourselves is important, in therapy as well as in our private moments. Our nervous system listens to the words and phrases we use. Use the term “I am codependent”; our psyche sees it as a permanent flaw and will come up with the reasons why you are. Saying something like “I’ve learnt to overcare” leaves room for learning something new. The first keeps you stuck in a pathological “stuckness”.
Just changing the name doesn’t allow you to erase the work needed, it just opens the mind for the work. Healing from “overcare” or “excess empathy” isn’t about not caring. It’s knowing where to put that care. When you stop identifying with the label, you start identifying with your ability to change.
You’re not a codependent person. You’re someone who once cared too much in the wrong direction and its about learning how to care again, this time including yourself.
Journaling Prompts:
-
- How does the word codependency make you feel about yourself?
- What might you call your pattern instead? Something that captures both your care and your exhaustion?
- How would your daily choices change if you saw this as balance, not defect?
Therapist Takeaway:
When clients call themselves codependent, the label often fuses identity with shame. Renaming it—over-care or excess empathy, helps separate the person from the pattern. It reframes behavior as once adaptive, now outdated. The shift softens self-judgment and invites curiosity. Sometimes the simplest intervention is this: change the word, and the story begins to change too.
