 | This article may be too technical for most readers to understand.(January 2024) |
Enmeshment is a concept in psychology and psychotherapy introduced by Salvador Minuchin to describe families where personal boundaries are diffused, sub-systems undifferentiated, and over-concern for others leads to a loss of autonomous development. [1] According to this hypothesis, by being enmeshed in parental needs, trapped in a discrepant role function, [2] a child may lose their capacity for self-direction; [3] their own distinctiveness, under the weight of "psychic incest"; [4] and, if family pressures increase, may end up becoming the identified patient or family scapegoat. [5]
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Enmeshment was also used by John Bradshaw to describe a state of cross-generational bonding within a family, whereby a child (usually of the opposite sex) becomes a surrogate spouse for their mother or father. [6]
The term is sometimes applied to engulfing codependent relationships, [7] where an unhealthy symbiosis is in existence. [8]
Others suggest that for the toxically enmeshed child, the adult's carried feelings may be the only ones they know, outweighing and eclipsing their own. [9]