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Enmeshment is a concept in psychology and psychotherapy introduced by Salvador Minuchin (1921–2017) to describe families where personal boundaries are diffused, sub-systems undifferentiated, and over-concern for others leads to a loss of autonomous development.[1] According to this hypothesis, by being enmeshed in parental needs, trapped in a discrepant role function,[2] a child may lose their capacity for self-direction;[3] their own distinctiveness, under the weight of "psychic incest";[4] and, if family pressures increase, may end up becoming the identified patient or family scapegoat.[5]
Enmeshment was also used by John Bradshaw to describe a state of cross-generational bonding within a family, whereby a child (normally of the opposite sex) becomes a surrogate spouse for their mother or father.[6]
The term is sometimes applied to engulfing codependent relationships,[7] where an unhealthy symbiosis is in existence.[8]
Others suggest that for the toxically enmeshed child, the adult's carried feelings may be the only ones they know, outweighing and eclipsing their own.[9]
^H. & L. Goldenberg, Family Therapy: An Overview (2008) pp. 244, 467.
^Virginia Satir, Peoplemaking (1983) p. 167
^R. C. Schwartz, Internal Family Systems Therapy (1997) p. 162
^Robert Bly, Iron John (1991) pp. 170, 185–7.
^Goldenberg, p. 239
^John Bradshaw, Reclaiming Virtue (2009) p. 390
^Bradshaw, p. 272
^R. Abell, Own Your Own Life (1977) pp. 119–22
^Terence Real, I Don't Want to Talk About It (1997) pp. 206, 360.
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