Tag Archives: mental-health

September 19, 2026

Power

By Steve Hauptman

.

No, control and power are not

the same thing.

.

Control means being able

to dictate reality. To force

life itself — people, situations,

outcomes — to meet our needs

and satisfy our expectations.

.

But power means being able 

to take care of yourself.

.

To get your needs met without

losing yourself in the process.

.

To not just survive, but to heal,

and grow, and be happy.

.

They’re not just different,

control and power.

.

Sometimes they’re opposites:

.

~ Power is a real possibility,

where control is often an illusion.

~ Power is healthy, where

controlling if often pathological.

~ Power generates energy, where

controlling drains it.

~ Power is rooted in self-acceptance

and self-confidence, where controlling

grows out of insecurity and fear.

~ Power makes you stronger; controlling

weakens you, can even make you sick.

~ Power attracts people to one another,

where controlling tends to drive them apart.

.

But the most important difference

between them is,

~ Power is something only adults can

develop, where controlling is the basic

survival skill of kids.

.

Think about it. If I’m a kid, I can’t

take care of myself. I need big people

for that – to feed me, clothe me, protect

me, love me. Without big people, I die.

.

And because I know this at the

deepest level, I learn early on to stay

on their good side. To please and

appease them, avoid their anger,

meet their expectations. To be what

big people want me to be, instead

of who I am.

.

This is inevitable.

.

It’s also how control addicts are born.

.

Because control addicts keep feeling

and functioning like kids instead of

developing personal power. They keep

pleasing and appeasing and manipulating

the way children do. Or they try to hide

their insecurity behind dominating or

bullying or abuse.

.

What they don’t do is come out

of hiding, reveal both their strength

and their vulnerability, never learn

to be themselves out loud.

.

Externally they look like adults. Inside

they still feel like kids who need support,

approval or permission from big people.

.

Recovery is about reversing this.

.

Recovery is about finally growing up inside.

*

Adapted from the forthcoming Second Editon:

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September 13, 2026

The two kinds of love

By Steve Hauptman

She is crying over a recent breakup.

.

“I loved him so much,” she sobs.

.

I try to look sympathetic.

.

Inside I’m thinking,

Not really.

.

Why?

.

Because she’s the one who

ended the relationship,

…

and

…

she did it because he kept

hurting and disappointing her,

…

and

…

she has a long history of

disappointing and hurtful

relationships, 

…

and

…

I’ve known many people

like her, people who confuse

 love with need.

.

It is, I believe, a common confusion.

.

Love and need are both intense

emotional experiences.

.

Both can overwhelm, confuse and

consume.

.

Both feel like a matter of life or

death.

.

Both reveal something essential

about you.

.

But there are important differences

too:

.

Where love feels like fullness, need

feels like craving.

.

Where love creates stability, need

generates anxiety.

.

Where love tolerates boundaries,

need repeatedly blurs them.

.

Where love manifests as giving,

need shows up as demanding.

.

Where love expands a person’s

capacity and perspective,

need shrinks both to that of a

hungry child.

.

So how does this confusion get started? 

.

In my experience, the three most

common ways are

.

~ You were raised by parents who

didn’t know the difference themselves. 

They told you they loved you, but

the message behind that was Meet

my expectations. Make me happy.

.

~ You grew up in a family unable to

tolerate separateness or integrity.  

Be what we need you to be, was the

message, or we’ll reject you.

.

~ Childhood left you emotionally

hungry, so hungry that now anyone

who feeds you feels like a sort of savior.

.

Which is what Erich Fromm probably

had in mind when he wrote,

.

Immature loves says,

“I love you because

I need you.” 

Mature love says,

“I need you because

I love you.”

____________

*The Art of Loving (1956).

* * *

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September 9, 2026

The psychology of holes

By Steve Hauptman

…

Listen to the audio version: https://stevehauptman.substack.com/p/the-psychology-of-holes

*

It’s supposed to go like this:

…..

We’re supposed to grow up in a good-enough

family, one nurturing enough to provide

adequate supplies of the 4 A’s:

…..

attention

acceptance

approval

affection

…..

The 4 A’s are the basic components of

love.

…..

If we get enough of these components,

we fill up in childhood, just like kids

fill up with good food.

…..

And we enter adulthood feeling reasonably

solid, reasonably valuable and lovable

and confident in our dealing with others.

…..

But if we grow up in a not-enough family

— one burdened by abuse, or addiction,

or mental illness, or parents who dislike

each other or themselves or their children

—  several things happen:

….

…..

1. We enter adulthood emotionally hungry,

carrying unmet needs that appear as holes

in our confidence and self-esteem.

…..

2. This hunger is so painful that it forces

us to try and fill those holes by getting our

needs met by others.

…..

3. We do this unconsciously, unaware of

why we feel how we feel or do what we

do or how it impacts the people around us.

….

4. We also do it covertly, hiding our true

motives from ourselves and others, trying

to control and manipulate other people

into feeding us what we didn’t get as kids.

….

5. Others often sense our hidden agenda

— even when they don’t understand it —

and react defensively by rejecting us or

distancing themselves.

….

6. The rejection and distancing increases

our hunger, triggering another round of

unconscious controlling and manipulation,

often followed by more distancing and

rejection.

….

This circular process continues until we

recognize what we’re doing and learn better

ways of getting our emotional needs met.

…

I’ve known many, many people like this.

….

I’ve been one myself.

.,…

There’s no shame in it. 

….

Emotional hunger is the common cold

of emotional problems.

…

But if I’ve learned anything about this

whole business, it’s this:

….

We will never feel adequately loved

until we finally identify our unhealed

holes and understand the ways in which

we keep ourselves hungry.

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September 6, 2026

Why can’t I stop controlling?

By Steve Hauptman

.

Because it works.

Or seems to.

.

Hey, I’ve learned a lot about control.

Like how important it is to me.

How I like when I have it,

and hate when I don’t.

How this makes me

look for it everywhere,

both when I know that I’m looking

and when I do not.

.

How deep down I still believe

that having control

is the only way

to feel safe emotionally.

.

And how many of my problems come

from this stubborn unconscious belief.

.

Especially problems I have in

relationships,

with other people who hate

being controlled.

.

And problems that come from

overcontrolling my own feelings,

from swallowing or hiding them,

even from myself.

.

How a life based on control-seeking

is ultimately exhausting,

like swimming endlessly

against a strong tide.

.

And how constantly trying

to edit reality

according to my needs and

my preferences

leaves me not powerful but weak.

.

Since whenever I fight reality,

reality always wins.

.

So why do I keep doing it?

.

As I said, because it works.

For a moment, it works.

.

In that moment, it seems to

promise relief.

In that moment, I feel like I’ve

solved something,

found a remedy for discomfort

or pain.

.

I haven’t, of course.

The moment passes.

The discomfort returns.

The sense of control evaporates.

.

Which means I must seek it again.

Just as any addict must,

when the anesthesia wears off.

.

And I’m starting to notice this.

I mean, really notice how brief

the relief is,

and how inevitable is the

pain’s return.

.

I’m beginning to notice the cycle,

and to hear me whisper to myself,

Here we go again.

.

And then to step back and

consider alternatives.

.

Like not controlling people,

but letting them be as they are.

Like not strangling feelings,

but letting them arrive

and depart on their own.

Like not controlling the future

by filling it with plans,

goals and promises,

but letting it simply unfold.

.

All this means, I think, that

I may be approaching

what they call a bottom —

that place of recognition

where you can’t do

what you’ve been doing

for one second more,

where the pain of fixing endlessly

swamps the fear of giving up the fix.

.

I’m not there yet.

But I’m closer.

.

And frankly, I can’t wait

to arrive.

Because after all this controlling

I really could use

a rest.

.

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August 29, 2026

About psychological curses

By Steve Hauptman

…

…

I don’t believe in magical curses.

….

I do believe in psychological ones.

….

As they appear in therapy, psychological

curses are false beliefs absorbed in

childhood by a kid too innocent to

know better.

…

You’re stupid, his father tells him

over and over.  So he believes it. 

He may be bright as Einstein.  No

matter.  He’ll start to feel, think

and behave like a stupid person. 

Because that’s what dad told him

he is.

….

You’re lazy, his teacher tells her.

Try harder. You could do so much

better if you’d just try harder. So

she spends her life trying harder

and harder and harder.

…

There are many common curses.

….

The world is unsafe. 

…

People are not to be trusted. 

….

Relationships will disappoint you.  

…

I run into such curses every day.

…

They don’t always emerge immediately.

Usually I need to know someone for

a while before I spot the patterns of

thinking, feeling and behavior that

suggest they may be carrying a curse.

…

You’re not enough. 

…

You won’t succeed. 

…

You’re unlovable.  

…

These are among the most poisonous

curses of all.

…

How to lift such a curse?

…

Insight usually isn’t enough. 

…

That’s because insights (Ah, I see how

I came to believe that) usually come

to the Adult part of the personality.

….

And it’s the Kid part that’s been

cursed.

….

What the Kid requires is a corrective

emotional experience.

….

That’s an experience which directly

contradicts the false belief beneath

the curse.

….

And since curses are embedded in

a deep part of us, the contradictions

usually need to happen over and over.

.

The Kid who feels unsafe needs to

repeatedly experience safe relationships. 

…

The Kid who feels inadequate needs

repeated experiences of being accepted

as-is.

…

And the Kid who feels unlovable needs

to feel unconditionally loved, not just

once, but over and over.

….

Of course, therapy with the right therapist

can provide some of these corrective

experiences.

….

But I think real recovery from a cursed

childhood requires that we seek out, or

create, such experiences in the real world.

…

Because without them it’s hard for the Kid

to unlearn the lies he or she absorbed in

childhood.

…

And because. without them, a curse can last

a lifetime.

* * *

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August 28, 2026

About hidden agonizing

By Steve Hauptman

(Continued from “About hidden agony.”)

.

The person in the grip of an

old distress says things that

aren’t pertinent, does things

that don’t work, fails to cope

with the situation, and 

endures terrible feelings that

have nothing to do

with the present.

~ Harvey Jackins*

.

Of course a therapist can only guess

whether his client received inadequate 

attunement from their mothers.

.

But it is not unusual for me to meet

people who make me suspect that

might have be the case.

.

They tend to be people who seem

forever at war with their feelings.

.

Like Alan, a quiet man whose marriage

is failing because he’s so disconnected

emotionally, who works all day and

then goes home to pore over paperwork

at his kitchen table, who is so turned

inward that he can barely sustain a

conversation in session, and whose

frustrated wife complains that “even

when he’s there he’s not there.”

.

Or Bonnie, a chronic people pleaser

who always looks tired, and seems

surrounded by people who discount

or abuse her, and who worries

constantly about falling back into

the suicidal depression which

overwhelmed her twenty years ago.

.

Or Caroline, an attractive and

educated woman who keeps drifting

into relationships with emotionally

unavailable men, who spends months

trying to get them to love her, then

blames each realtionship failure

not on the man but on her own

unloveability.

.

Or Dustin, a recovering alcoholic

stuck in a ten-year affair with a

married woman who gives him

less and less time and attention,

but whom he refuses to leave

because “she’s the only woman

who’s ever made me feel like

someone loved me.”

.

Harvey Jackins’ phrase —

endures terrible feelings that

have nothing to do with the

present — perfectly describes

each of these people.

.

Each is trapped in what I call

the Kid Trance: an emotional life

dominated by how they felt

when they were helpless children.

.

The Trance is an awful place to live.

.

Its defining characteristic is a

tendency to perceive ourselves, and

treat ourselves, as we were perceived

and treated by our parents. 

.

If they judged or abused or neglected

us, we judge or abuse or neglect

ourselves.

.

And if our parents had no clue about

how to deal with difficult feelings,

we too are left essentially clueless.

.

What do we do then?

.

We retreat into the ways of coping

we discovered as kids.

.

We may disconnect and distract

ourselves from our feelings, like Alan. 

Or exhaust ourselves trying to win

love and emotional feeding, like

Bonnie and Caroline.  Or cling

desperately to someone we hope

will meet our emotional needs,

like Dustin.

.

All this keeps our agony alive.

.

“Trauma is a basic fact of life,”

writes Mark Epstein.

.

It is not just an occasional thing

that happens to some people;

it is there all the time.  Things

are always slipping away…. 

The healthy attachment of a

baby to a “good-enough” parent

facilitates a comfort with emotional 

experience that makes the

challenges of adult life

and adult intimacy less

intimidating.**

.

But for the agonized adult who never

experienced healthy attunement with

a good-enough mom, healing must

come from one of the scariest

challenges of adult life: adult

relationship.

.

More specifically, intimate relationship,

defined as one where we can be ourselves

without shame or fear, and allow our

partner to do the same with us.

.

While the experience of adult intimacy

can’t erase an unattuned childhood, it

can, more than anything else, reduce

agony. It can become a life jacket to

keep us afloat, a safe harbor to which

we can retreat from storms.

.

For agonizing adults it is often

difficult and scary to learn.

.

But without it we can’t help but feel

adrift, vulnerable to emotional waves

that threaten to drown us, “traumatizing

us again and again as we find ourselves

enacting a pain we do not understand.”**

________________________

*Harvey Jackins is quoted by John Bradshaw, in Homecoming: Reclaiming and championing your inner child.  New York: Bantam, 1990.

**Mark Epstein.  The trauma of everyday life.  New York: Penguin, 2013.

* * *

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August 27, 2026

About hidden agony

By Steve Hauptman

.

I’ve written here before about emotional

constipation, a kind of unfinished business

left over from childhood which makes it

difficult for us to feel and function like

grownups.*

.

For recovering people, though, there’s

another kind of unfinished business —

another unhealed emotional wound —

that is important to understand.

.

And this wound is not one we’re likely

to discover on our own.

.

It is rooted in how our mothers responded

to us when we were infants.

.

Mark Epstein describes it in his book

The Trauma of Everyday Life, drawing

on the seminal work of British child

analyst D.W. Winnicott.

.

Here’s a simplified version of how Epstein

explains it:

.

One of a mother’s most important jobs is

to teach her child how to identify and

handle feelings. 

.

She does this by modeling a combination

of empathy (Oh, you’re having a feeling) 

and reassurance (Everything will be fine).

.

Anyone who spends any time observing

mothers with their children sees this happen

over and over.

.

Oh, you’re wet?

Here, let’s get you changed. 

Oh, you’re hungry? 

Let’s warm up your bottle. 

Oh, you hurt yourself? 

Here, let mama kiss it.  

.

And so on.  This ability to pay attention

to and respond appropriately to the

infant’s experience is called attunement. 

.

When attuned to the infant, Winnicott

writes,

.

mothers become able to put

themselves into the infant’s shoes,

so to speak. That is to say,

they develop an amazing capacity

for identification with the baby,

and this makes them able

to meet the basic needs of the

infant in a way that no machine

can imitate, and no teaching

can reach.**   

.

Mom’s attunement is essential to the

infant’s emotional development,

because it models for the child how

to attune to itself. 

.

She is teaching her child Here’s what

you do with a feeling: You notice it.

You respect it. You pay it attention.

You decide what it’s trying to tell you,

and you respond accordingly.

.

An attuned mother provides a kind of

emotional container — an experience

of holding, attention and safety —

which the infant absorbs and learns to

provide for themself.  

.

But what if the mother can’t attune to

her infant? 

.

What if something else is occupying

her attention or draining her energy? 

What if she is sick, or exhausted, or

depressed, or frightened, or angry, or

being abused, or self-medicating with

some substance?

.

“An infant who is held well enough

is quite a different thing from one

who has not been held well enough,”

writes Winnicott.

.

You see two infants: one has been

held…well enough, and there is

nothing to prevent a rapid emotional

growth, according to inborn tendencies. 

The other has not had the experience

of being held well and growth has

had to be distorted and delayed,

and some degree of primitive agony

has to be carried on into

life and living.**

.

What Winnicott calls primitive agony is

the experience of being left all alone to

deal with incomprehensible and

uncontrollable feelings.

.

This is not an agony that simply fades

away over time.

.

Instead those afflicted carry it into

adulthood, where can take in two forms.

.

The first form is a chronic background

anxiety, which occasionally erupts as a

fear of breaking down, “losing it,” or

going crazy.

.

The other form is a damaged ability to

deal in healthy ways with their adult

emotional life.

.

(To be continued.)

________________________

*”The psychology of shit”

**All Winnicott quotes from The Trauma of Every Life by Mark Epstein (Bantam, 2014).

* * *

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August 25, 2026

How to be unhappy

By Steve Hauptman

.

New client this week. 

As always, I ask what she wants

out of therapy.

“Just to be happy” she shrugs.

I smile encouragingly. 

Inside I sigh,

Good luck with that.

.

Most people I meet aren’t happy,

and most of them don’t know why. 

.

So here’s a brief guide to the

mechanics of unhappiness.

.

If you’re unhappy, it may be because:

1. You misdefine happiness.

You think it comes from getting what you

want. But real happiness comes from

getting what you need.

.

2. You don’t know what you need. 

You’ve been trained to chase the wrong stuff,

like money or success or possessions or status

or the approval of others, and that’s where

you spend all your time and energy.

.

3. In chasing the wrong stuff, you

hide or forget who you are. 

In chasing success, for example, you may

work too hard at being what others want

you to be instead of who you are.

Or in chasing love and approval you may

bury your feelings, instead of listening

to them for information about what you

really need. 

.

4. You think instead of feel. 

Thinking your way through life can leave

you dominated by monkeymind.

Monkeymind is the Buddhist metaphor for

normal human consciousness, which,

like a monkey swinging from tree to tree,

swings ceaselessly from thought to thought

to thought, and dwells in the past and future

instead of the here-and-now. And since past

is just a memory and future just a fantasy,

here/now is the only place happiness can

be found.

.

5. You’re still following Plan A.

Plan A is my label for everything we learn

as kids about life and how to live it.

We each have a Plan A, and we each

learn in the same place and the same way.

The place is our family, and the way

is unconsciously. Nobody sits us down

at the kitchen table and says, “Listen up,

kid, here’s how you do Life.”  They just

do Life themselves, and we watch and

listen and soak it all up like little sponges. 

And it works for a while, especially while

we’re living in our family of origin.

But Plan A always breaks down.

That happens down when we move

beyond the family into a world filled

with new people and new problems,

and discover that what worked at

home doesn’t always work out there.

That what we needed as kids isn’t

what we need now as adults.

That we’re like tourists trying to

navigate around New York City

with a street map of Chicago.

.

6. You fight reality. 

You keep trying to edit people,

situations, outcomes and the future

into the versions you need or would

prefer. And when we fight reality,

guess what usually wins?

.

7. You don’t see how controlling

you are.

What do I mean by controlling?

Look at it this way:

From moment to moment, each of us

carries in our heads a picture of the

reality we want.  And we’re constantly

comparing that picture to the reality

we have.  Everything we do to bring

those pictures closer together —

whether we do it in public or in the

privacy of our most secret thoughts —

it’s what I mean by controlling. 

See it yet?

Add this, then:

Discomfort of any sort — physical,

mental, emotional, spiritual, everything

from agony to an itch — amounts to a

signal that the two pictures don’t match.

And we respond to that signal

automatically. 

So wherever there’s discomfort there’s

controlling. 

And we all know how uncomfortable

life can be. 

Controlling, in short, is as reflexive and

inevitable a response as slapping

a mosquito that’s biting you. 

.

See it now?

* * *

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August 24, 2026

The psychology of shit

By Steve Hauptman

Whatever we don’t own, owns us. ~ Carl Jung

.

.

Among recovering people, and in the lexicon

of nearly every therapist I know, the single

most common word used to describe unfinished

emotional business is shit.

Not surprising. It’s a good metaphor.

Consider:

Actual shit is a waste product, what’s left

undigested after our systems process nourishment.

Emotional shit is what’s left undigested after

human beings process (or can’t process)

emotional experiences.

Actual shit is smelly and unpleasant.

So is emotional shit.

Actual shit, when it collects inside you,

makes you very uncomfortable.

So does emotional shit.

Releasing actual shit is an enormous relief.

Ditto the emotional version.

The biggest difference between them is

that most people instinctually know what

to do with actual shit.

They know they need to expel it from the

body on a regular basis.

And they know that if they don’t they’ll

get sick.

But many people don’t know that about

emotional shit.

They think the way to handle it is to hide it,

keep it inside, store it up.

Then they don’t understand why they go

around feeling shitty.

They’re emotionally constipated.

Emotional constipation can produce all sorts

of symptoms, like anxiety and depression

and anger and addiction.

Also high blood pressure, headaches, backaches,

gastrointestinal distress and exhaustion.

Also arguments and violence and worse.

Perhaps most importantly, this is how our

inner Kids get wounded.

We’re not born constipated. We’re born as healthy

little animals, able to trust what our bodies tell us

and automatically expel waste products.

Then in childhood we begin hearing messages like

Quiet down and Big boys don’t cry or Don’t cry

or I’ll give you something to cry about.

Surrounded by giants on whom we depend for

food, shelter, love and security, we have no

choice but to follow such instructions.

Voila: Constipation.

And why, exactly, does emotional constipation

make us feel shitty?

“When feelings are denied or kept inside there

is typically a buildup of physical tension,”

psychologist Paul Foxman explains.

An accumulation of such pressure

leads to anxiety, due to fears of

losing control emotionally. That

condition also triggers anxiety

because of its physiological similarity

to the fight/flight response, which

is normally associated with danger.

Thus our personality creates a paradox

in which we deny feelings to prevent

anxiety but experience anxiety

when we deny our feelings.*

There’s one more consequence of constipation

worth remembering:

It makes it impossible to feel like an adult.

Feeling adult means feeling healthy and strong

enough to be yourself. That includes being

able to notice your feelings — even the smelly

ones — and take responsibility instead of

hiding them.

Taking responsibility means learning to

express feelings in appropriate ways, ways

that leaving you feeling empowered,

not constipated.

Hiding feelings is what kids do. So no matter

how old we are, to the extent we feel compelled

to hide our feelings from others, we are going

to feel like kids inside.

Adults can, in the jargon of recovery, own

their shit.

Of course there’s more to adulthood than

this one ability.

Owning your shit doesn’t automatically

make you a grownup.

But you can’t start feeling like a grownup

until you start owning your shit.

_______________________________

*Foxman, Paul. Dancing with fear: Overcoming anxiety in a world of stress and uncertainty. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1996.

* * *

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August 23, 2026

The split-level relationship

By Steve Hauptman

Anyone who wants a healthy relationship must

answer two questions:

……

How can I have you without losing me?

How can I have me without losing you?

……

Except we can’t really answer these questions.

…

We can only struggle with them.

…

Then again, it’s the struggling that matters.

…

Why?

…

Because those questions represent the two essential

needs each of us brings to any relationship:

…

Connection and freedom.

….

Acceptance by another person, and self-acceptance.

…

A genuine partner, and at the same time, an

authentic self.

…

Sadly, most people I know are secretly convinced 

that you can’t have both at the same time.

…

Most came from families — alcoholic, abusive or

otherwise dysfunctional — unable to teach them

to balance connection with freedom.

…

What they learned instead was that having one

meant losing the other.  That winning love and

approval from parents, for example, meant

sacrificing important parts of themselves, like

the freedom to express feelings or take care of

their own needs.

…

The family that raised us is where each of us

learned our own personal answer to the two

questions. And the answer we learned grew

into a crucial (though mostly unconscious)

part of our basic view of life and relationships,

what I call our Plan A.  

…

Some of us decide, “Since I can’t have both,

I’ll have me, and to hell with you.” 

…

Therapists call this the narcissistic answer.

…

Others decide, “Since I can’t have both, I’ll

have you, and to hell with me.” 

…

This is the infamous codependent answer.

…

So the narcissistic partner says “Me first,”

and the codependent replies, “Yes, dear.”

…

And the two personality types end up together

with stunning regularity.  (Remember Archie

and Edith Bunker?)

…

Watching such couples interact, one is struck

by their predictability.  In every situation the

narcissist finds some way to say “Me first,”

and the codependent to reply “Yes, dear.” 

…

It’s as if long ago they sat down and signed a contract.

…

Which, in a way, they did.

…

Their complementary answers to the two questions

probably account, in large part, for why they

ended up together.

…

In any case, the vast majority of couples I see for

couples counseling follow this pattern — so many

that I felt the need to give them their own name.

…

I call them split-level relationships.

…

Split-level relationships work for a while, but

almost always break down. 

…

Eventually one or both partners realize they’re

not getting what they need.

…

Codependents usually notice first.  When that

partner is female, this can lead to the syndrome

called the walk-away wife.*

…

But narcissists tend to be unhappy too. They

often complain of loneliness, lack of connection

to their codependent partner, or an absence of 

respect or affection.  They may feel impatient,

frustrated, irritated, resentful. Sometimes they

drink, drug, overeat, rage, or cheat, and then

feel bad about that.

…

All this happens because split-level relationship

is inherently unhealthy.

…

Familiar, sure.  Comfortable, even, in the way

the predictable may come to feel.

…

But not healthy.  The unbalanced answers on

which a split-level relationship is based simply

cannot fill the emotional needs of two adults. 

…

So both partners end up feeling deprived, often

without understanding why.

…

What does recovery for such a couple look like?

…

Put simply, a sort of role reversal.

…

Codependent partners must develop courage

and practice standing up, asserting themselves. 

…

Narcissistic partners must develop empathy

and practice stepping down, giving instead of

grabbing.

…

Easy? 

…

No.  Not easy for either of them.

…

Just necessary to life on the same level.

____________

*’The Walkaway Wife Syndrome,” Michelle Weiner- Davis, on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jRyUbdHn9I

* * *

Buy here.

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May 22, 2026

The Red Thread, part 1

By Steve Hauptman

How I discovered control addiction

So I’m giving this talk, and suddenly

realize I don’t know what I’m talking about.

.

I’m a new social worker, six months out

of grad school, working for a clinic attached

to a rehab.  My new boss has decided I’m 

the best one to run the weekly Family

Education Series, basically a crash course

in alcoholism and how it screws up families. 

.

And tonight’s topic is codependency.

.

I know the topic well enough.  I’ve worked

as an alcoholism counselor, treated hundreds

of codependents, can diagnose one after

five minutes of conversation. 

.

But when I went to prepare this talk I found

I couldn’t define the word. 

.

At work we talked about codependency 

without ever stopping to explain what

we meant.   And when I looked into my

half-dozen books on the subject I found

each defining it in a different way. 

.

One was:

A specific condition characterized by

preoccupation and extreme dependence

on another person, activity, group,

idea, or substance. [1]

.

Another:

An  emotional, psychological, and

behavioral condition that develops

as a result of an individual’s prolonged

exposure to, and practice of, a set

of oppressive rules. [2]

.

A third:

A multidimensional (physical, mental,

emotional and spiritual) condition

manifested by any suffering and

dysfunction that is associated with

or due to focusing on the needs

and behavior of others. [3]

.

A fourth:

A recognizable pattern of personality

traits, predictably found within most

members of chemically dependent

families, which are capable of creating

sufficient dysfunction to warrant the

diagnosis of Mixed Personality Disorder

as outlined in DSM-III [4],

.

which sent me off to yet another book

to learn what the hell that meant.

.

Finally I came to codependency maven

Melody Beattie, who explained that a

codependent is simply

.

a person who has let another person’s

behavior affect him or her, and who is

obsessed with controlling that person’s

behavior. [5]

.

A fine definition.  Until I noticed it

describes just about everyone.

.

Having no idea which definition

would be best to offer my workshop, I

cleverly decided to present them all.

.

So here I am, having just done that. 

I’ve distributed a handout with the

five definitions on it, and read them

aloud, and am now looking at a

roomful of confused faces.

.

A man in a brown corduroy jacket

raises his hand.  I nod back.

.

“So what the hell is codependency?”

he asks.

.

Everyone laughs.

.

I laugh too.  (Inside I’m thinking

Shoot me now.) 

.

Then I shrug and hear myself say,

“Addiction to control.”

.

I am surprised at myself.  I’ve never

thought of it this way before. 

.

*

But Corduroy starts asking questions,

and answers are coming to me, and

it’s all making a new sort of sense. 

.

I explain that I see codependents as 

traumatized people convinced their

survival depends on controlling the

effects of “their” alcoholic’s illness. 

So they do things like hide booze and

avoid dad at certain times of the day 

and lie to his boss about why he missed

work or to the neighbors about why he

fell asleep in the driveway.  From all

these experiences they come to depend

on control as a way of coping generally, 

and set about applying it to everything

and everyone in their lives, to the point

where it makes them sick. 

.

“Sick how?” Corduroy frowns. 

.

Mainly anxious and depressed, I say. 

But also worried, and tense, and irritable,

and unable to relax or have fun, or identify 

and express feelings, or trust anyone, or

like themselves.  And self-medicating with

food or work or helping other people or

whatever else they can think of. 

.

And now Corduroy is nodding thoughtfully,

and so are others in the room, and I know

I’m onto something.

.

(To be continued.)

___________________ 

[1] Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse,

ChoiceMaking: For co-dependents, 

adult children and spirituality s

eekers (Health Communications, 1985).

[2] Robert Subby, Lost in the shuffle:

The co-dependent reality, quoted in

Whitfield (see below).

[3] Charles Whitfield, Co-dependence:

Healing the human condition (Health

Communications, 1991).  

[4] Timmen Cermak, Diagnosing

and treating co-dependence (Johnson

Institute, 1986).

[5] Melody Beattie, Codependent

no more (Harper/Hazelden, 1987).

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May 21, 2026

The smell of the bait

By Steve Hauptman

.

Last night I replayed a conversation

for the eleventh time.

.

I was trying to get it right.

.

Not the conversation itself; that

was over and done with.

.

But how I felt about it.

.

I did not feel good.

.

So I reviewed

(a) what I said,

(b) what I should have said,

(c) what I shouldn’t have said,

(d) what the other person said,

(e) what they really meant,

(f) what they might be thinking now.

.

Each pass gave me a flicker of relief.

A sense that I was getting closer

to something.

.

But the longer I stayed with it,

the crappier I felt.

.

Which told me I was monkeytrapped.

.

By now you’re probably familiar with

this analogy:

A banana is placed inside a jar with a

neck just wide enough for the monkey’s

paw to slip inside. The monkey grabs

the fruit, then finds its clenched fist is

too large to pull back out. It could free

itself easily; it just has to let go. But it

really really wants that banana. So it

hangs on. And it’s still hanging on when

the trappers come to collect it.

.

That’s a literal monkeytrap.

I write about the psychological version:

any situation which tempts us to hang

on when we really should let go.

Any discomfort which pulls us to try

and control what can’t or shouldn’t

be controlled.

.

Last night I was hooked by the promise

that if I just thought a bit longer,

analyzed more carefully, revisited

the conversation one more time, I’d

finally feel better — less tense, or

uncertain, or uneasy, or guilty, or

whatever the hell it was that I

was feeling.

.

Relief seemed just one more attempt away.

.

And then I noticed something new:

I’d been trapped by the smell of the

banana.

.

It was the irresistable smell of relief

that kept me obsessing over that

conversation, long after I should

have realized that its promise of

relief was a lie.

.

And lately this is something I’ve

come to see more and more clearly

in my work with clients:

.

Monkeytraps trap us because they work.

.

Just for a moment, they work. There’s

this tiny flicker of relief that comes

from replaying, analyzing, obsessing,

rechecking feelings, trying to think

our way into certainty.

.

Just enough relief to answer the inner

voice whispering You need to fix this.

.

So we set about trying to fix, and it

feels like we’re doing something,

clarifying something, moving toward

some kind of answer.

.

That moment is the hook. Because

the flicker of relief is real.

.

Then it fades. And we have to grab

for it again.

.

And again.

.

Psychologists call this negative

reinforcement. Negative refers to

removing something unpleasant,

reinforcement to encouraging the

behavior that removed it.

.

Translation: Controlling behavior

relieves just enough discomfort to

lead us into more controlling behavior.

.

It’s what makes controlling an addiction.

.

So it’s the smell of the bait that leads

us to review the conversation one more

time, or read another person’s mind,

or ask others what they think, or

doubt our perceptions, or beat

ourselves up for mistakes, or …

.

You know.

.

Over time, this becomes less of a choice

and more of a reflex. The moment

something feels off we move automatically

into managing it, or trying to.

.

Anyway. Last night all this flashed through

my mind pretty quickly, like a sudden

mental ZIP download.

.

Followed by one of my favorite aphorisms:

Where you put you attention is what grows.

.

So I took a deep breath, and suspended

the replay

.

I felt around in my body.

Found a small tightness in my chest.

.

It was the discomfort I had been

trying to fix.

.

Now I just looked at it.

Just looked.

.

I imagined it as a rubber band around

my heart.

.

I took another breath.

.

I kept looking.

.

There was no dramatic shift, no

immediate relief or resolution.

.

But the rubber band began to loosen.

Not all at once, and not completely.

.

But I felt better.

.

Not because I had figured anything

out.

.

Because I’d stopped trying to.

.

.

Bert and I recently began

publishing on Substack.

Come follow us.

https://substack.com/@stevehauptman

.

.

.

.

.

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May 17, 2026

Welcome to Monkeytraps (the Substack version)

By Steve Hauptman

.

I recently began publishing on Substack,

and this is the Welcome I posted there.

Come follow me.

https://substack.com/@stevehauptman

.

Welcome to Monkeytraps

.

My name is Steve, and there’s someone else

you should meet before we go any further.

.

His name is Bert.

.

Bert is my inner monkey — the part of me

that worries constantly, avoids feelings, replays

conversations at 2 am, and is absolutely convinced

that if he just thinks hard enough, plans carefully

enough, and controls enough of what happens

around him, everything will finally be okay.

.

He’s been with me for seventy years. I only

started noticing him about ten years ago.

.

He did not appreciate that.

.

He prefers to remain unnoticed.

x

If you’re in therapy, or in recovery, or just

quietly exhausted by the effort it takes to

manage everything, then you probably

have a Bert too.

.

Maybe yours is louder. Maybe quieter.

.

Maybe yours shows up as people-pleasing,

or rage, or a to-do list that never ends, or

a glass of wine at the end of every day

because that’s the only thing that makes

the noise stop.

.

Whatever form it takes, I’d guess you

recognize the feeling underneath it:

.

I need to get this under control.

.

That feeling is what Monkeytraps is about.

.

I’m a therapist who spent thirty-plus

years sitting with people in pain,

and who slowly came to believe

that nearly everything they bring

into therapy — anxiety, depression,

frustrating relationships, broken

communication, addiction,

the chronic low-grade sense that

something is wrong with us —

has a common root:

.

We are addicted to control.

.

I’m not talking metaphorically here.

We’re addicted in the same way

someone is addicted to alcohol or

drugs or food or work: we chase it

compulsively, automatically,

mostly unconsciously, and with

the absolute conviction that we

can’t survive without it.

.

I wrote a book about this called

Monkeytraps.

.

Here I plan to continue

thinking out loud about what I found,

and keep finding, in my clients,

in myself, and in the ordinary disasters

of being human.

.

What you’ll find here

.

Essays — longer pieces that follow an

idea somewhere uncomfortable. Personal,

clinical, occasionally funny.

.

Bert’s Therapy — a serialized comic strip

following Bert’s reluctant, resistant progress

through psychotherapy. He arrives weekly,

grumpy and skeptical, slowly beginning to

understand himself. Despite his best efforts.

.

In the Dark — sequential image pieces that

enact the experience of monkeymind in real time.

These appear twice a month on Saturdays.

.

Bert’s Life — single images containing one

idea, fully rendered. These show up in your

Notes feed, along with brief daily thoughts

on control, recovery, and what it means

to be human.

.

Everything here is free. All I ask is that if

something lands, you share it with someone

who might need it.

.

And if you want to know whether this is

the right place for you, try this:

.

Think of something you’ve been trying to

fix — about yourself, about someone you

love, about a situation that won’t resolve.

.

Notice how long you’ve been trying.

Notice how much energy it takes. Notice

whether it’s working.

.

If something in you just got a little uncomfortable

— welcome.

.

You’re in the right place.

Subscribe below, and I’ll show up in

your inbox. Bert will try to talk me

out of it. It’s a thing he does.

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May 6, 2026

Bert’s therapy/Session 32: Monkey business

By Steve Hauptman

So I have an Inner Monkey

inside me.

Yes. Everyone does.

Where does he come from?

He’s built in. He was there when

you were born.

I was addicted to control at birth?

No, Monkey starts out just as

a potential. He gets activated later,

when you begin to experience

discomfort and pain.

What happens then?

He goes to work, distinguishing.

Distinguishing what from what?

Distinguishing stuff he can tolerate

from the uncomfortable stuff

he needs to control.

So he’s trying to defend me

against discomfort.

Exactly. Defense is his business.

But isn’t that a good thing?

Sure, to a point. But Monkey’s

an addict.

Which means?

Which means he can’t handle

feelings. So he doesn’t know

when to stop.

Stop controlling.

Right. He tries to control stuff

he either can’t or shouldn’t

control.

Such as?

Other people, mainly. But

everything that happens in

your emotional life.

See, that’s where you lose me.

How so?

I get that controlling other

people causes problems. But

how can anyone not try

to control his emotional life?

I agree. We all need some sense of

control over our feelings. We’d

go insane otherwise.

That’s what I thought.

But if some controlling is

essential, too much is dangerous.

And Monkey tries to control

everything. Which causes more

pain that it prevents.

Pain, as in…

Anxiety, for one thing. Monkey-

driven people almost never feel

safe.

Because…

Because Monkey can always

find something to be scared of.

If it’s not real, he’ll imagine it.

And the imagining itself feeds

his anxiety.

So he has the right goal,

but the wrong method.

Let’s say he’s limited.

Controlling is the only way

he knows to regulate how

he feels. So he’s controlled

by his need to control.

Have you ever heard the saying

“When the only tool you have

is a hammer, everything looks

like a nail”?

That’s Monkey all over.

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May 3, 2026

Bert’s therapy/Session 29: Irritated

By Steve Hauptman

What’s wrong?

Nothing’s wrong.  I’m fine.

You don’t seem fine.

What do you mean?

You seem irritated.

I’m not.  I’m fine.

Okay, if you say so.

(Silence.)

(More silence.)

(Still more silence.)

What?

Jeez, let it go, will you?

(More silence.)

Oh, okay.  I’m irritated.

What’s irritating you?

Hell, I don’t know. 

I’ve felt like this all week.

What are you doing about it?

Doing? Nothing. Ignoring it.

So I gather. 

Do you own a car?

Sure.

You know that red light

on your dashboard?

The one that lights when

my engine overheats?

Yes.  What would you think

if I told you I’d covered my

light with duct tape?

That you’re stupid.

For ignoring the warning,

right?

Right.

Well, irritability is one of

your body’s red lights.

What does it mean?

Something wrong under

 the hood.  Some imbalance.

My point is, don’t tape

over the damn light.

Don’t mask it with denial,

or work…

or food, or alcohol…

or drugs, or tv, or sleep.

Pay attention to yourself.

Look under the hood.

Or what? My engine will

seize? I’ll end up on a lift

somewhere?

You wouldn’t be the first.

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