Melody Beattie

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Melody Beattie , actually Melody Lynn Vaillancourt (born May 26, 1948 in St. Paul , Minnesota ) is an American writer who is mainly used by the book The Addiction (original title: Codependent No More , 1987) and its influence became known within the twelve-step movement . Her self-help book sold over eight million copies and coined the term codependent .

Life

Melody Beattie is of French descent. Her father, a firefighter, left her mother when Beattie was three years old. She was raised alone by her mother, who worked as a telephone operator. She was kidnapped by a stranger at the age of four, but was released the same day. In her youth she was sexually abused by a neighbor, the mother ignored this and denied her own experiences of abuse. Melody writes that her mother “was a classic codependent. When she had a migraine, she would not take aspirin because she refused medication. She believed in suffering. "

Beattie started drinking at twelve and quickly became addicted to alcohol. At 18 she was addicted to drugs.

Even so, she graduated from high school with top marks, while working as an editor for the school newspaper and as a paralegal. She married Steven Thurik on November 23, 1970. However, their drug addiction led to the end of the marriage after three years and the loss of custody of their son, John Steven Thurik.

After that, she made money as a stripper and took liquid cocaine. She joined the Minnesota Mafia, a group of drug addicts who raided pharmacies. After several arrests, a judge ordered either five years in prison or therapy in 1973. Once at the clinic, however, she continued to use drugs.

She describes a “spiritual experience” on the clinic lawn under the influence of cannabis as follows: “The world was bathed in a purple light, everything was connected, like in a painting by Monet. It wasn't a hallucination, it was ... a spiritual awakening. ... Before that, I had the feeling that I was entitled to drugs. I finally realized: If I only invest half the energy in doing the right thing that I have used up until now to do the wrong thing, I can achieve anything. "

This turning point helped her take control of her life again. She stayed in the clinic for several months, went through rehab, and went dry.

She worked in the counseling of drug addicts and their relatives. On December 19, 1976, she married David Anthony Beattie, a well-known and respected dry alcoholic and drug counselor, with whom she has two children, Nicole (* 1977) and Shane (* 1979). She wrote books and articles on drug addiction and withdrawal. When she found out that her husband was not dry and continued to secretly drink alcohol, she sought help from Al-Anon groups and researched the causes and cures for codependency. She began to separate and divorced in 1986: "When I let him go, I slowly realized that I cannot control another person's life path."

Her husband's alcohol addiction left Beattie in a difficult financial position. She decided to write a book about codependency, but initially couldn't find a publisher. The Hazelden Foundation, which runs several rehab clinics, eventually gave her an advance of $ 500. She lived on welfare with her children for four months and wrote The Addiction to Be Needed , which made her a great commercial success.

In 1991 she lost her son Shane in a skiing accident. The grief caused depression in her and her daughter, which they managed to overcome. Beattie also processed these experiences in her books.

plant

Similar to William Griffith Wilson and Alcoholics Anonymous in the 1930s , Beattie processes content from psychoanalytic theory (especially object relationship theory and the work of Heinz Kohut , Wilfrid Bion and Otto F. Kernberg ) into easily understandable and usable concepts. In The Addiction to Be Needed, she works on the findings of the psychiatrist Timmen Cermak, author of Diagnosing and Treating Co-Dependence , in popular science .

Your later work, be independent. Beyond the addiction of being needed. (Original title: Beyond Codependency: And Getting Better All the Time ) deals with the causes of codependency and the long-term healing process.

In 1990 The Language of Letting Go: Meditations on Codependency was published , which contains smaller texts on topics such as gratitude or dealing with stress, which are intended to be used for daily meditation.

Many of her books have been translated into German and other languages.

Central statements: rescue, detachment, limits

An important part of Beattie's definition of codependency concerns the act of “saving” someone, that is, solving other people's problems for them. This appears to be a much more helpful act than it actually is, and is a destructive way of helping someone.

Building on the transactional analysis and especially the drama triangle by Stephen Karpman, she finds that codependents go through all three roles and go from rescuer to persecutor and ultimately victim.

Beattie sees “detachment” as a way out. As a codependent one should detach oneself with mind, emotions and body from "unhealthy (and often painful) entanglements with the life and responsibility of others". She calls on people to stop “saving” and explains that “the detachment ... does not refer to the person who is important to us, but to the agony of entanglement”.

Successfully breaking free from harmful entanglements requires setting boundaries. Codependents needed boundaries that "limit what we do to others and what we do for others". Every limit is questioned a few times by others to see if you mean business, especially if "in the past you didn't mean what you said".

Influence on the twelve-step movement

The Addiction to Be Needed and Beyond Codependency takes much of the content from the Al-Anon groups' twelve-step program and translates it into more modern language. Beatties books made sure, especially in the USA, that the dependence on a person (who suffers from an addiction) became a social issue.

Beatties' early work also served as the first basic book for the new, rapidly growing twelve-step group Anonymous Co-Dependents ( English Co-Dependents Anonymous , CoDA). Although CoDA now has its own, official basic book, Beattie's texts are still used as literature in the self-help groups.

criticism

Critics accuse Beattie of creating a moral understanding that takes little account of the rights of others. Her method leads to “gradual emancipation from social control” and “independence from external influences”. As part of a cultural change "from an ethic of self-abandonment to an ethic of self-realization", according to Beattie, detaching from others requires concentration on the self at the same time .

Others complain that women are still seen as responsible for maintaining healthy relationships. Beattie accuses women of sticking to their role as intended by society.

Marriage counselor David Hawkins criticizes Addiction to be used as "a sort of contemporary version of the bungling or exuberance of the nineteenth century, where self-reflection and very general observation of the social environment are enough to draw far-reaching conclusions" and "a thin one though Facade of scientism permeates the work, but it basically consists of riding on principles. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b https://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,971920,00.html Taking Care of Herself - Time, December 1990 (English)
  2. ↑ Melody Beattie: Stop being mean to yourself: a story about finding the true meaning of self-love. Hazelden Publishing, 1998, p. 10, online at: Google Books
  3. ↑ a b c Biography on the official website ( memento of the original from August 12, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / melodybeattie.com
  4. ↑ Melody Beattie Helps Anguished Readers Kick the Dependency Habit - People, August 7, 1989
  5. ↑ Obituary for Steven Thurik ( Memento of the original from January 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / business.highbeam.com
  6. ↑ z. B. Courage to be independent, ways to self-discovery and inner healing, the twelve-step program , Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich, 1994, ISBN 3-453-07863-2 (title of the original edition: Codependents' Guide to the Twelve Steps )
  7. ↑ Melody Beattie: Codependent No More. (Minnesota 1992) p. 85
  8. ^ Beattie, p. 84
  9. ^ Scott Egleston, quoted in Beattie, p. 83
  10. ^ Beattie, p. 62
  11. ^ Beattie, p. 95 and p. 57
  12. ^ Beattie, pp. 217-218
  13. ^ Co-dependent no more celebrates 20th anniversary. In: Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly. January 29, 2007 (English)
  14. ↑ John Steadman Rice: A Disease of One's Own. (1998), pp. 164-165
  15. ^ Rice, p. 162
  16. ↑ Jennifer Drew: Codependency. In Sex and Society, Vol I (2009), p. 136
  17. ^ David Hawkins: Breaking Everyday Addictions (2008), pp. 171 and 173

literature

  • Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself (Hazelden, 1986) ISBN 978-0-89486-402-5 (German: The addiction to be needed)
  • Beyond Codependency: And Getting Better All the Time (Hazelden, 1989) ISBN 978-0-89486-583-1 (German: Be independent. Beyond the addiction to be needed.)
  • Codependent's Guide to the Twelve Steps: How to Find the Right Program for You and Apply each of the Twelve Steps to Your Own Issues (Simon & Schuster, 1990) ISBN 978-0-671-76227-8
  • The Language of Letting Go: Daily Meditations on Codependency (Hazelden, 1990) ISBN 978-0-89486-637-1
  • A Reason To Live (Tyndale House Pub, 1991) ISBN 978-0-8423-0988-2
  • The Lessons of Love: Rediscovering Our Passion for Life When It All Seems Too Hard to Take (Harper Collins, 1994) ISBN 978-0-06-251078-5
  • Journey to the Heart: Daily Meditations On The Path To Freeing Your Soul (Harper Collins, 1996) ISBN 978-0-06-251121-8 (German: Kraft zur Selbstfindung)
  • Stop Being Mean to Yourself: A Story About Finding The True Meaning of Self-Love (Hazelden, 1998) ISBN 978-1-56838-286-9
  • Finding Your Way Home: A Soul Survival Kit (HarperOne, 1998) ISBN 978-0-06-251118-8
  • Playing It by Heart: Taking Care of Yourself No Matter What (Hazelden, 1999) ISBN 978-1-56838-338-5
  • More Language of Letting Go: 366 New Daily Meditations (Hazelden, 2000) ISBN 978-1-56838-558-7 (German: More power to let go - New meditations for inner healing)
  • Choices: Taking Control of Your Life and Making It Matter (HarperOne, 2002) ISBN 978-0-06-008829-3
  • 52 Weeks of Conscious Contact: Meditations for Connecting with God, Self, and Others (Hazelden, 2003) ISBN 978-1-56838-880-9
  • The Language of Letting Go Journal: A Meditation Book and Journal for Daily Reflection (Hazelden, 2003) ISBN 978-1-56838-984-4
  • The Grief Club: The Secret to Getting Through All Kinds of Change (Hazelden, 2006) ISBN 978-1-59285-349-6
  • Gratitude: Inspirations by Melody Beattie (Hazelden, 2007) ISBN 978-1-59285-408-0
  • The New Codependency: Help and Guidance for Today's Generation (Simon & Schuster, 2008) ISBN 978-1-4391-0192-6
  • Make Miracles in Forty Days: Turning What You Have into What You Want (Simon & Schuster, 2010) ISBN 978-1-4391-0215-2

Filmography

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Beattie, Melody
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vaillancourt, Melody Lynn (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Paul , Minnesota