A therapist or counselor can provide valuable insights and strategies for breaking enabling patterns. Encouraging personal responsibility is key. You’re not just applauding from the sidelines; you’re pushing them to do better and be better. It’s not about being cruel; it’s about being kind in a way that promotes growth and responsibility. Setting healthy boundaries is crucial. Codependency and enabling often go hand in hand, like peanut butter and jelly in a dysfunctional sandwich.

Making excuses

In essence, enabling occurs when we shield others from the natural consequences of their actions, inadvertently reinforcing negative behaviors. When treating individuals who are engaging in enabling behavior, it is important to address both the enabler and the person being enabled. If a loved one brings to your attention that your behavior may not be beneficial to you or the enabling definition psychology person you’re enabling, take some time to consider it. Enabling happens when you justify or support problematic behaviors in a loved one under the guise that you’re helping them.

Abuse

A sign of enabling behavior is to put someone else’s needs before yours, particularly if the other person isn’t actively contributing to the relationship. When someone you care about engages in unhealthy behavior, it can be natural to make excuses for them or cover up their actions as a way to protect them. In this case, an enabler is a person who often takes responsibility for their loved one’s actions and emotions. The term “enabler” refers to someone who persistently behaves in enabling ways, justifying or indirectly supporting someone else’s potentially harmful behavior. In many cases, enabling begins as an effort to support a loved one who may be having a hard time. It’s important to take steps to recognize this behavior and correct it by setting boundaries with the person, avoiding making excuses for them, letting them take responsibility for their actions, and encouraging them to get help.

• Recognizing the pattern of enabler behavior is important because it can help us understand the role the enabler is playing in the person’s harmful habits.
• Breaking this pattern can be the first step toward breaking the cycle of harmful behavior.
• You’ve probably heard the term “enabler.” It’s one that’s often charged with judgment and stigma.
• You might find yourself asking, “When did I become a full-time firefighter for someone else’s dumpster fire?

Tweaker Behavior: Understanding the Patterns and Consequences of Methamphetamine Use

It doesn’t mean someone else’s harmful behaviors are on you, either. They may focus their time and energy on covering those areas where their loved one may be underperforming. Breaking this pattern can be the first step toward breaking the cycle of harmful behavior. These are all examples of enabler behavior. Enablers simply allow (not specifically support) the abuser’s own bad behavior while flying monkeys always support and perpetrate bad behavior to a third party on their behalf. A parent may allow an addicted adult child to live at home without contributing to the household such as by helping with chores, and be manipulated by the child’s excuses, emotional attacks, and threats of self-harm.

Usually, enabling happens accidentally. You can enable someone’s bad behavior in many ways, but it all boils down to the things you do to keep them in the status quo. What is enabling, and why is it unhelpful?

In fact, many people who enable others don’t even realize what they’re doing. Enabling behavior is often unintentional and stems from a desire to help. Sometimes it may mean lending a financial hand to those you love. You may find yourself running the other person’s errands, doing their chores, or even completing their work. They may skip the topic or pretend they didn’t see the problematic behavior.

How to Spot and Stop Enabling Behavior

You’re also being a good role model for consistent behavior. It’s not letting those boundaries slip when the going gets tough for your loved one that’s the hard part. In these moments, it can be hard not to feel compelled to do something. Our loved ones often come to us in a moment of crisis. Giving them non-specific help (like money) that doesn’t support a well-defined goal I don’t just mean literally cleaning up their messes (though I’m sure plenty of people do this as a means to “help”).

• By allowing the other person to constantly rely on you to get their tasks done, they may be less likely to find reasons to do them the next time.
• This can lead to increased substance use, increased risk-taking behaviors, and difficulties in developing healthy coping skills and problem-solving strategies.
• In this case, an enabler is a person who often takes responsibility for their loved one’s actions and emotions.
• The road to recovery and change is almost never a spotless one, so it’s important not to guilt trip or shame them if and when they slip.
• The term “enabling” has its roots in addiction recovery circles, but its tentacles reach far beyond substance abuse.
• I started out by listing unhelpful enabling behaviors, such as repeatedly lending money without accountability, with the caveat that sometimes a concrete piece of support could be appropriate.

Long-Term Effects on the Enabled Individual

Recognizing the pattern of enabler behavior is important because it can help us understand the role the enabler is playing in the person’s harmful habits. According to the American Psychological Association, an enabler is someone who permits, encourages, or contributes to someone else’s maladaptive behaviors. In a negative sense, “enabling” can describe dysfunctional behavior approaches that are intended to help resolve a specific problem but, in fact, may perpetuate or exacerbate the problem.

Signs of Enabling and How To Stop

There’s nothing wrong with helping others from time to time. You might feel torn seeing your loved one face a difficult moment. This is opposed to providing means and opportunities to continue engaging in self-destructive behaviors.

It’s time to trade in our enabling capes for supportive scaffolding. By recognizing and addressing our enabling tendencies, we can cultivate relationships that truly support and empower one another. Encourage risk-taking (within reason), praise effort over outcome, and model healthy behaviors yourself.

But what my cousin–and those like her–was doing was not helping. Their sympathy overflows, and they want so much to help their loved one. Allow yourself to grieve, prioritize self-care and lean on your support system — you’ve got this!

The specifics can change, but at its core, enabling behavior tends to have some common themes. We asked Dr. Borland about the signs of enabling, and how to put an end to the cycle of nonproductive “helping.” And it’s counterproductive to the person you’re trying to help. But these behaviors often encourage the other person to continue the same behavioral patterns and not seek professional help. Enabling behaviors include making excuses for someone else, giving them money, covering for them, or even ignoring the problem entirely to avoid conflict.

Fear of conflict, low self-esteem, and a misguided sense of love or duty can all contribute to enabling behaviors. When kindness turns toxic, it’s time to confront the insidious nature of enabling and its power to perpetuate destructive behaviors. Clinicians should be aware of the potential negative consequences of enabling behavior and work to address it in their treatment of individuals who are engaging in enabling behavior. For the person being enabled, it is important to help them to recognize the negative impact of their behavior and to develop healthier coping skills and problem-solving strategies.

Not only does this positively reinforce good behaviors but also strengthens the trust between you. Now that you’ve relinquished control, turn your attention to the person you’re trying to help. Neither shaming nor excusing helps a person change their behavior, and going back and forth between the two is even worse. Accidental enablers can use boundaries to stop the cycle. We sometimes reflexively feel like we have to give money or some other non-specific form of “bail.” But after a time or two, you simply become the ATM (or the dog house, or life raft). But I can’t help but be curious about how things would have gone if they’d both known the difference between enabling and helping when they first met.

It’s time to break free from the enabling cycle and embrace a healthier, more empowering way of connecting with others. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither are healthy relationships and behaviors. Enabling is a type of dysfunctional behavior that can have a wide range of clinical implications for both the enabler and the person being enabled. For the enabler, it is important to recognize that the underlying motivation for their behavior is often to help and protect the person being enabled.