Adolescence, co-dependence, and parental attachment: correlations and considerations

Abstract

Co-dependence is a concept related to emotional and behavioral difficulties of rela-tives of individuals addicted to psychoactive substances; however, it involves other contexts not directly associated to dependency. Thirtyadolescents, children of depen-dent parents, from a city of São Paulo, participated in the study. This study used the Spann-Fischer and EMBU scales, as well as Pearson’s correlation coefficient. From the results, a significant correlation was found between the co-dependence degree and the types of parental attachment, especially overprotection and rejection. This leads to the comprehension of co-dependence as a multivariate phenomenon that may also be associated with the type of attachment established with parents or caregivers.