Dependency & Interdependence
THE CLASSICAL ASSUMPTION: healthy development moves toward self-regulation and independence; ongoing dependency signals arrested development.
REMEMBER: needing help is not failed autonomy.
The organismic self-regulation assumption
Much body psychotherapy theory, going back to its earliest roots, treats the healthy organism as one that self-regulates — manages its own arousal, its own needs, its own nervous system, from within. That’s a genuinely useful concept for many things. It becomes a problem when it quietly implies that real health means not needing ongoing help from anyone or anything else.
The reconstruction
Regulation can be relational, technological, and assisted — and still be regulation. A carer’s steady presence, a medication schedule, a ventilator, a wheelchair, a personal assistant’s help with a daily task: none of these make a person less embodied, less regulated, or less whole. They’re simply part of how this particular body’s regulation actually works, for as long as it needs to work that way — which, for many people, is permanently.
The clinical shift
The useful clinical goal isn’t moving a disabled client toward greater independence as an end in itself. It’s supporting whatever configuration of support, self-management, and interdependence actually lets that specific person live well — which might include lifelong, substantial reliance on others, without that being framed as a shortfall.
For therapists
Check whether “greater independence” has quietly become a default treatment goal, regardless of whether it’s actually what the client wants or what their body genuinely needs. Interdependence is not a lesser outcome.
A question worth carrying
Is independence actually the goal here — or has it been assumed as the goal without ever being asked about directly?
You may also want to explore
Dependency, Interdependence and Care · The Compulsive Independence Complex · Disability-Informed Body Psychotherapy