Manufacturing codependency: Self-help as discursive formation
Title:
Manufacturing codependency: Self-help as discursive formation
Author:
Gemin, Joseph
Appeared in:
Critical studies in media communication
Paging:
Volume 14 (1997) nr. 3 pages 249-266
Year:
1997-09
Contents:
In spite of criticisms of its basic premises, the exponential increase in the discourse of codependency represents a remarkably resilient social movement. This essay argues that its resilience may be attributable not to its success in helping people overcome something called “codependence,” but to the manner in which its “discursive formation” co-opts discourses, even those critical of its basic premises, so as to continually reproduce the idea of, and desire for, the “codependent” identity. This essay examines the operations of this discursive formation focusing, in particular, on how it deploys a moral topography, one that codes experiential ambivalence negatively, creating afear of others in the process.
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