Codependency Conspiracy: How to Break the Recovery Habit and Take Charge ofYour Life

This explosive program redefines addiction, codependency, and self-help. Using the author's clinical experiences, it shows how self-help methods can actually promote dependency, and offers options as well as positive, proven strategies for finding helpful therapies.

Katz and Liu, coauthors of False Love and Other Romantic Illusions ( LJ 9/15/88) and The Success Trap (Ticknor & Fields, 1990), paint a damning picture of the self-help movement and its leaders. Stating that codependency "is not a disease but, at best, an idea and, at worst, a scam," the authors contend that 12-Step programs and codependency recovery groups promote lifelong dependency and victim behavior at the expense of self-discipline in solving life's problems. However, the authors' research seems limited to Katz's own experiences as a therapist. Katz and Liu offer an alternative, detailed, ten-step plan for identifying and attacking problems. While they fail to acknowledge that many people derive positive benefits from the 12-Step program, their book is the only one this reviewer has seen that provides an alternative view. Consider for large self-help collections.
-Linda S. Greene, Chicago P.L.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.