7 Books About Codependency to Help You Better Understand the Condition

My codependency traits used to feel like this, too. When I’d turn down a friend’s invitation to meet up, I’d feel guilty. I’d think they’d get angry. I know I shouldn’t be, so I wanted to find out why. I wanted to know why I felt that way.

In the book, the author prefaces with a “Bill of Assertive Rights,” which includes self-assurance phrases like “you have the right to judge your own behavior, thoughts, and emotions, and to take the responsibility for their initiation and consequences upon yours” and “you have the right to make mistakes — and be responsible for them.” Mostly, the book grounds itself in a process called systematic assertive therapy, which, according to the author, is “how to cope with life’s problems and conflicts and the people who present them to us.” Most of the book’s content are based from his and his colleagues’ experiences. He hopes that this book will shed light on the coping process of people with this condition.

The book is full of lessons that, since codependency may involve emotional abuse, includes ways on how people manipulate us, how to cope up with that and be assertive, learn how to say no, and more. It’s very enlightening.

Jiddu Krishnamurti was a prominent guru from India. He was known for his wisdom in different aspects of life, especially love and relationships.

Though On Relationship is not strictly a book about codependency, the concept of self-love and managing relationships are its central themes. In the book, Krishnamurti has written essays from 1940 to 1982 in different parts of the world. “I think most of us know what it is to be lonely. We know that state when all relationship has been cut off, when there is no sense of the future or of the past, a complete sense of isolation,” he writes of loneliness in one entry. “And the instinctive reaction is to turn away from it,” he addresses readers and then provides some advice afterward.

In another entry, he seems to write about attachment: “In what we call love there is dependence, the sense of attachment that comes from loneliness, insufficiency in oneself, not being able to stand alone, therefore leaning on somebody, depending on somebody.”

This book is a delight to read; Krishnamurti’s essays are very insightful and inspiring.

The book focuses on an aspect of being codependent: boundaries. It explains what boundaries are, their importance, why we don’t have them, what they look like, etc. It also offers advice on how to enforce these boundaries to relationships, whether that’s family, friends, romance, work, and social media.

“This book will break down the many aspects of having healthy boundaries and offer insights into how we can honor the boundaries set by others,” writes the author-therapist in the preface. She draws on her experience of not having boundaries, making her life “overwhelming” and “chaotic.” She hopes that by reading this book, readers who experience similar dilemma can give themselves confidence and courage to create healthy boundaries in their own lives.

Somehow, I can relate to this, since I think that my mom can be codependent with me. Though I’m already an adult and live on my own, she always asks me where I am and what I do. This is typical in Asian families, but I still wanted to understand this behavior.

In this book, the author recounts her experience of pleasing her family members, doing whatever they want. She says that she was codependent from two victims of codependency. Through interviews with other families who experienced the same thing, the author also lists the various types of codependency that runs among families: a controlling parent, an overprotective parent, a demanding parent, and a critical parent among others. Exercises to make them aware of these behaviors are also included.

Though the book is written with parents in mind — and with the objective of helping them and their child — there are sections that are addressed to the child as well. Recovery, after all, is a two-way street.