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

Stan J. Katz (Author), Aimee Liu (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1991

Now, for the first time, a prominent psychologist speaks out against the addiction/recovery movement, and teaches readers how to stop seeing themselves as codependent victims and how to start taking charge of their lives. Dr. Katz argues that most codependent programs, rather than promoting recovery, merely promote dependence under the guise of self-help.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Most self-help programs do more harm than good by promoting dependency, charge Berverly Hills psychologist Katz and coauthor Liu ( The Success Trap ). Bound to elicit protests from the self-help movement, their severe indictment is based on cases cited here ranging from obsessions to drug addiction. Katz and Liu differentiate between two types of remedial programs: organizations that treat all unwanted behavior as a "disease" affecting the "hurt child within" and that require lifelong adherence to principles relating to a Higher Power; and mutual-support groups limited to helping members cope with specific, short-term problems. The authors' eight-point program, intended to foster reliance on one's own healing powers, stresses dealing with one goal at a time and acknowledging past influences while developing present strengths and resources.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

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.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 233 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (March 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446515957
• ISBN-13: 978-0446515955
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #558,644 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Common sense that's not so common, May 26, 2003

By 

Rex Reads "freethinker" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Codependency Conspiracy: How to Break the Recovery Habit and Take Charge ofYour Life (Hardcover)

A good straightforward corrective to the gooey, new agey codependency stuff. Great if you want to take responsibility and quit your bad habits and choices without spending the rest of your life on your knees. Remember will power, at last it's coming back in style.Summed up,quit the instant gratification bs., learn some saleable skills, learn to relate to people honestly and responsibly and choose reasonable goals.A good one to read and reread until you (I) get it.

4.0 out of 5 stars The Codependent Codependent, February 4, 2012

By 

Bradley P. Hayton - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Codependency Conspiracy: How to Break the Recovery Habit and Take Charge ofYour Life (Paperback)

Addiction has been big business for years, but as everyone who does therapy with addicts, they make terrible clients. They deny their problem, and don't want therapy. But their wives (since alcoholics are mostly men) love therapy, feel responsible for their husband's alcoholism, and thus make great clients! Thus, the codependent was born. Therapists have a huge financial incentive to characterize everyone as a codependent. Since everyone is addicted to something, then everyone is a codependent to someone.

This is the essence of Katz and Liu's thesis. They believe that the codependency movement promotes real dependency under the guise of recovery. They point out the key distinctions between self-help groups, and what they characterize as "mutual support groups." As opposed to the psychobabble of self-help groups, mutual support groups offer friendship. Like Peele, these authors blame the root of the problem on the disease model of behavior problems, especially when applied to addicts and victims. Unlike Peele, who tends to rely upon research studies regarding treatment effectiveness, these authors examine the logical inconsistencies, absurdities, paradoxes, and deceitfulness of the movement's ideology and techniques. In fact, they claim that the movement itself creates codependence. The authors don't merely criticize the movement, however. Two-thirds of their book outlines a more existential treatment program that concentrates on present behaviors, personal responsibility, and meaning. Their program is a healthy alternative to those who feel uncomfortable about the addiction and codependency models of self-help.

28 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Co-dependent Construct, August 11, 2003

By 

Rick Goodner (Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Codependency Conspiracy: How to Break the Recovery Habit and Take Charge ofYour Life (Hardcover)

I found Dr. Stan J. Katz and Aimee E. Liu's wonderful book The Co-dependency Conspiracy: How to Break the Recovery Habit and Take Charge of Your Life only last week after six hours of satisfied reading I knew that I had found a very well written book on the same subject as the book I have just leashed upon the co-dependency/12 step world.
I was very unhappy to find that The Co-dependency Conspiracy is out of print -Dr. Stan and Ms. Aimee, dust this work off and get it back in print- for it is time for the Co-dependency Cult to be ousted from the temple they have usurped from rational treatment. Then real mental health treatment can care for those who need it.
The Co-dependency Conspiracy, presents addiction issues and the co-dependent construct in real psychological light which shows that neater are victimizing diseases that must be treated for life. In the case of addictions, there is the ability to recover fully and no need to be in some 12-step recovery room for the rest of your life. The 12-steps have been shown, by real science, to be a useless treatment model anyway. In addition, in this exceptional work, it is exposed that co-dependency disorder is a cult like fundamentalist religion not a real disorder. That is why you will never find co-dependency disorder listed in the DSM IV and why I spell it as co-dependency not codependency for it is not only a made-up disorder but a made-up word as well.
As I have said many times before: co-dependent disorder is not a real emotional disorder, never was and never will be. At best, the construct is the foolish ravings of abstemious substance abusers who have fried their brain cells with drugs and/or boiled them in alcohol and are now trying to tell you how to live your life. This is to stop living your life and hand it over to their control.
The unsuspecting public needs to stop being so naive and the best way to open ones eyes to the truth about this manipulating co-dependent cult is to read The Co-dependency Conspiracy: How to Break the Recovery Habit and Take Charge of Your Life. Will many do that? I think not, for some people want to be seen as victims and to give control of their life to others' domination.
Rick Goodner, Author of "Co-dependent... What a Bore and Other Clinical Observations"