San Francisco, Marin, & East Bay Therapists

The Therapy Network includes a diverse group of psychologists, therapists and clinical social workers. Our aim is to help you find a therapist that is qualified and appropriate for your needs and resources. Therapy Network serves San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Albany, Corte Madera, Kentfield, the City of Sonoma and Walnut Creek and the rest of the Bay Area.

Found 13 therapists who work with Codependency/ACA

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Codependency/Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA) Issues

Codependency is sometimes called "relationship addiction." Codependent relationships are lopsided: One partner has an addiction problem; the other tries to cover for the addicted partner or act as caretaker, which enables the addiction to continue. In some codependent relationships, one partner may physically or emotionally abuse the other. Both feel locked into a relationship that satisfies neither. This pattern is typical of people who grew up in dysfunctional families, and is particularly common for Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACAs).

If one or both of your parents were alcoholics, you may have assumed the caretaking role as a child. Adult children of alcoholics, raised by unpredictable, emotionally unavailable parents, often survive by assuming a role such as caretaker or perfect child.

As an adult, you may share many of the same issues as your enabling parent: difficulty seeing things through, problems handling criticism, always seeking the approval of others, feeling insecure and unsure of yourself. Intimacy and control issues may be core problems. ACAs typically have not learned to trust, feel, or talk about their inner experience. They may feel desperately alone, hoping someone will reach into their self-protected world and draw them back into life.

Therapy can help you separate what happened in the past from your life right now. As you develop a trusting relationship with a therapist, you learn what it means to trust yourself and others, to gain new self-understanding, and to begin to enter into life and relationships more fully.

Therapy for adult children of alcoholics can help separate what happened in the past from life right now and it can assist in learning how to trust yourself and others.

To learn more about codependency and adult children of alcoholics (ACA) issues, please scroll down