Emotional Dependency

In his recovery from drugs and alcohol, Chris Grosso has stumbled, staggered, and started all over again. In an effort to understand why he relapses, and why many of us return to the myriad of other self-defeating behaviors despite our better judgment, he went to best-selling authors, spiritual teachers, psychologists, doctors, and more, and asked them why we tend to repeat mistakes in our lives, even when we know these actions will harm us and the ones we love. In Dead Set on Living, Chris shares these intimate conversations and the practices that have taught him.

Perrine Moran considers the power of popular love songs to trigger emotion and capture what is at the heart of couple dynamics. In songs, music and words – the non-verbal and verbal – combine to create a unit. In couples, two people create a unit that combines togetherness and individuality, a potentially problematic blend. The dilemma of how to be emotionally dependent on another without losing oneself underlies many issues that couples bring to therapy and is the stuff of many love songs. Its management results in different dynamics, which the chapters of this book identify. An ...