By John Bradshaw

Note: This article was originally published in the Spring 2004 edition of Cutting Edge, the online newsletter of The Meadows.

One of the most insidious effects of child neglect and abuse is their impact on the “character” foundation.

Addiction, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and the codependency that fuels it can be understood as rooted in a complex of “character defects.” We now have good evidence of a chemical imbalance predisposes certain persons to addiction. Since its inception, AA has pointed to a chemical imbalance in alcoholics. 

Current research points to missing strands of DNA in the neurotransmitter dopamine. But missing DNA strands of dopamine do not mean that a person will necessarily become codependent or develop an addiction.

I don’t believe that addiction and codependency are diseases in the medical sense of the word. They are certain diseases in the psychological mind. They wreak havoc in a person’s life and lead to moral and spiritual bankruptcy. Moral bankruptcy is my focus in this article.

Not all character defects stem from the effects of abuse and neglect. In the world of human freedom, anyone can choose to act in an immoral way. My concern in this article is to understand neglect and child abuse characteristics and their role in the formation of character defects.

What Is Codependency?

Codependency is a disease of the developing self that is fully manifested in adult relationships. With moral character, the primary symptoms of codependency are:

• A lack of a solid sense of self-identity, which is rooted in toxic shame 
• A shame-based identity that manifests itself in polarized extremes, either as a character-disordered “more-than-human” (inhuman) personality exhibiting grandiosity, perfectionism, and blame or a neurotic “less-than-human” (dehumanized) character indicating a sense of worthlessness 
• Distorted ego boundaries, both external and internal, set up walled perimeters, and the neurotic personality tends to have weak and broken boundaries
• Emotional illiteracy is characterized by extremes of severe emotional numbness or the inability to regulate the intensity of one’s feelings
• Difficulty recognizing what one wants and needs

A person can be stuck in either polarized extreme or may switch back and forth, as in the more-than-human anorexic eating disorder transferred to the less-than-human bulimic eating disorder. Pia Mellody has suggested that these polarizations are the product of two types of abuse: falsely empowering and disempowering abuse. Both types are rooted in toxic (i.e., carried) shame.

Character Defects of Codependency 

These behavioral symptoms make up the essential “character defects” of codependency, which I refer to as “disabled will” in my book, Bradshaw: On the Family. Codependents don’t choose well and seldom make ethical choices. Virtue has to do with selecting the appropriate mean between two extremes. Codependents and addicts choose in all-or-nothing ways, black or white.

Moral action is concerned with choosing well in the ever-changing singular circumstances that make up our lives. Necessary to a robust ethical character is a specific virtue called prudence — the refined ability to “know how” to choose well in the changing circumstances of one’s life.

The disabled will is why codependency has been described as the disease of addiction. Addicts of any kind have severe defects when it comes to choosing well. I decided to drink to solve the problems caused by my drinking. I decided to act out sexually and commit adultery to assuage my guilt for repeatedly betraying my wife by committing adultery. Words like “adultery” have a worse sting than simply saying “acting out sexually.”

The will depends on reason, conscience, and that which the ancient philosophers Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas called a habituated or “right appetite.” The intention, they believed, has to be educated so that a person experiences and tastes best. Aristotle thought we become brave by being brave, just by being just. The more we experience virtuous behavior, the more we learn how to choose to be ethical. Aristotle and Aquinas referred to this knowledge of choosing expertly as the virtue of prudence. Their formal definition of prudence involved practical reasoning based on the right desire and a passion for goodness.

The Impact of Unmet Developmental Needs

When we examine the symptoms of codependency, we find that they result from developmental dependency deficits, which are the consequences of various types of abuse and neglect.

Developmental deficits refer to unmet developmental dependency needs. These needs must be met for a person to develop a solid sense of self and emotional literacy; these needs depend on source figures for their fulfillment. A child’s needs cannot be met without reliance on a functional adult. Solid selfhood and emotional literacy are two essential foundations for developing moral intelligence and ethical character. 

Psychologist Erich Fromm defines ethical character as “the relatively permanent form in which our moral energy is channeled in the developmental stages of our life. Our ethical character is who we’re as expressed in our actions, how consistently we live, what we believe in, and how we actualize those beliefs.” People often say that certain behavior is “true to character” or “out of character.” Codependent and addictive behaviors are “out of character” for any healthy adult human being. Toxic shame creates inhuman and dehumanized behavior.

Emotional Literacy and Sense of Self 

Solid selfhood and emotional literacy are the fruits of an educated will. A person has good boundaries and willpower with a solid sense of self. Emotional literacy is characterized by the ability to think about and contain feelings, using them for self-soothing and expressing them with appropriate intensity.

The primary pillars of solid self-hood and emotional literacy are:

• The development of one’s own innate healthy or natural shame.
• The achievement of “empathic mutuality” by actualizing the innate need for secure attachment.

Healthy or natural shame is an innate human effect. It marks our natural human boundary and is the root of the natural moral law. Someone once described healthy shame as “the permission to be human.” Natural shame is an auxiliary feeling that signals limits and monitors our pleasure, excitement, and interest.

Natural shame lets us know we are limited and imperfect beings. It allows us to make mistakes and ask for help when needed. Natural shame grounds us in our finitude and lets us know that there is a higher power. The philosopher Nietzsche called shame “the source of spirituality.” Natural shame is essential to the development of moral life. When natural shame is nurtured healthily, it develops into guilt (i.e., moral shame). Guilt is the guardian of conscience.

Natural shame becomes toxic when children interact with source figures who are immature (developmentally arrested) and morally shameless. The caretaker’s shamelessness may take the form of the more-than-human, character-disordered control freak or perfectionist who chronically judges, blames, criticizes, beats, punishes, or sexually uses their children. It also may come from the neurotic character type who feels worthless and less-than-human, who treats their child as superior or worthless. In either polarized character form, the caretaker acts shamelessly and immorally.

Shameless caretakers were themselves the recipients of falsely empowering or disempowering abuse. Their grandiosity or worthlessness is a defense against their toxic shame. Shameless caretakers also use a primitive unconscious defense mechanism called “projective identification.” In projective identification, the projector, through interaction with the recipient (i.e., through acts of neglect or abuse), unconsciously induces feeling states in the recipient that are congruent with the projector’s own rejected feelings (in this case, their own carried shame). A shameless caregiver’s defensive projective identification causes those in their care to feel the shame of being rejected.

Pia Mellody has described the dynamics of the transfer of shame as “carried or induced” shame. Carried or induced shame is toxic shame. Toxic shame breaks the interpersonal bridge between the child and their caretaking source figure. This has disastrous moral consequences, as the empathic mutuality between the mothering source figure and child results from their secure bonding or attachment. Erik Erikson has repeatedly shown this secure attachment (and natural shame) as the earliest and primal root of moral life. The golden rule is embodied in empathic mutuality.

Secure Attachment 

Years ago, pioneering psychologist John Bowlby stated that attachment behavior is “vital to the species’ survival.” The earliest years of life are the most significant for attaining secure attachment. 

Secure attachment can be defined as the biological synchronicity between organisms. It’s the dyadic (interactive) regulation of emotion and has its foundations in the brain’s right hemisphere (or the nondominant, if you’re left-handed). The known functions of the right brain or right hemisphere (RH) are crucial to our sense of bodily and emotional self.

• It recalls autobiographical information.
• It relates the self to the environment and social groups.
• It maintains a coherent, continuous, and unified sense of self.
• It’s a source of resiliency and manages stress.

Secure attachment is a form of resonance, defined as a shared feeling or sense. Emotional information is intensified in resonant contexts. Secure attachments allow a child to develop resilience in the face of stress. Resilience is the ultimate indicator of attachment capacity and an infant’s mental health.

The key to secure attachment is the source figure’s capacity to monitor and regulate their own emotions, especially negative ones. This kind of regulation is one of the fruits of emotional literacy.

The relationship between the mothering source figure and the infant exhibits the most intense emotions in infancy. Communication is the right brain and to right brain. It will take three and a half years for the left brain (the seat of verbal language and logical thinking) to. In the beginning, the interaction occurs within a context of facial expressions, posture, tone of voice, tempo of movement, and developing action. 

The mothering source initially regulates the infant’s emotions. When this interaction is sufficient, the infant-toddler can increasingly self-regulate and cope with stress. Our earliest emotional experience directly influences the maturation of the right brain’s early regulator system.

The Effects of Abuse on Children

Emotional dysregulation and the disorders of the self are the effects of early relational trauma and child neglect and abuse. They are imprinted on the amygdala of the right brain (the nonverbal unconscious). As a leading neuroscientist, Dr. Allan N. Schore writes, “Emotional dysregulation is a fundamental mechanism of all psychotic disorders.”

Most abused and neglected children were poorly attached as infants because most abused and neglecting source figures were shameless, immature, and dysfunctional. It’s illogical to assume that they were mature during their infancy and became immature later on.

Most codependents and addicts began their lives without a moral foundation because achieving secure attachment establishes empathic mutuality, trust, and hope. Abuse and neglect continue unless the source figures caretakers get help and begin their recovery processes. This is happening more often as we grasp the dynamics of this whole sordid mess.

While I don’t like the connotation of words such as “pride,” “gluttony,” and “adultery,” I have to face the fact that my alcoholic addiction and sexual compulsiveness resulted in immoral behaviors.

Recovering from Character Defects

I’ve had to confront my “better-than” belief in my specialness and face up to making amends, owning my healthy shame, and accepting responsibility for my moral life. Steps 4-10 of the 12-Step program are crucial for rebuilding character, establishing a platform for virtue, and deepening spirituality. These are suggested steps, but I see them as an essential bridge to repairing character defects. If you don’t choose to do these steps, you’ll need to do the recommended work in other therapeutic contexts.

Therapists have wisely shied away from moralistic rhetoric, but I don’t see any way to mollify my character defects other than to see them as immoral behaviors.

We’re essentially moral beings. Our innate shame and need for attachment are the developmental roots of the natural law. Attachment and shame are the developmental motors of moral development and virtuous life.

Aristotle believed that human happiness is synonymous with living a righteous life. Happiness and virtue go hand-in-hand. Those who have walked a long way down the road to recovery know this. The tenets of AA promise it.

The cores of virtue are balance, polarity, and moderation. Thomas Aquinas, the Medieval philosopher, and theologian believed that virtue is arduous and takes time and hard work to develop. He thought that virtue is a habitus of the soul. 

A habitus is more than a habit. It’s an integral quality of a person’s inner life, something that has been so internalized that it’s a part of their very being. When people have such a quality, they don’t have to think deeply about things; they simply do good because good is sound. Not bribed by heaven or threatened by hell, this person does well because they have tasted it and want it. It’s goodwill.

Character defects are like holes in the conscience that distort our ability to make sound judgments. This is why recovering addicts and codependents are urged to get sponsors or consult with therapists. It’s why addicts and codependents in early recovery are encouraged to avoid making any major decisions for an extended period. The disabled will is as severe a moral problem as a person can have without being psychopathic.

There’s no better ideal or gauge of a person’s recovery than the degree to which they live a balanced and moderate life and make sound and ethical choices.

About the Author

John Bradshaw, MA, has combined his exceptional skills as a counselor, author, theologian, and public speaker for the past four decades to become a world-renowned figure in addictions, recovery, family systems, and the concept of toxic shame. Mr. Bradshaw has written three New York Times best-selling books: Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child, Creating Love, and Healing the Shame That Binds You.