Fighting: Worse than Drugs?

Fighting: Worse than Drugs?

            Knudson and Terrell conducted a study on codependency, interparental conflict, and substance abuse within families. They proposed that family stress is a more important predictor of codependency than substance abuse. They took 223 undergraduate college students from the University of North Dakota, and had them fill out self-report questionnaires on family, codependency, parental conflict, and substance abuse. It also included basic questions of race, student status, and gender. They filled out the surveys electronically, from the comfort of wherever they chose, and were made to sign a consent form.

            Less than 20% of students reported high levels of codependency and a similar amount of students rated their parents as having a substance abuse disorder. However when the statistics were evaluated, it was indeed found that there was a higher correlation between parental conflict and codependency than between parental substance abuse and codependency. It was found that the codependency created by conflict regularly continued into adulthood.

The implications of this are a heavy view to normal views in our society. It is usually believed that substance abuse is what leads to codependency and conflict between parents is easily overlooked. According to this study, parents should be careful to resolve conflict in a healthy way with their spouses, and teach their children what healthy conflict resolution is. 

The biggest limitation in this study was that it was based on self-report, which can easily confound studies, especially since this study required participants to report on retrospective data. Events from the past can be difficult to recall with the accuracy needed for a scientific study.   Also, there were significantly more women than men in the study, which may have skewed the data. Plus, all the participants were undergrads in Oklahoma; therefore, this information may not be generalizable to the general public.

Theresa M. Knudson & Heather K. Terrell (2012). Codependency, Perceived Interparental Conflict, and Substance Abuse in the Family of Origin, The American Journal of Family Therapy, 40(3), 245-257. DOI: 10.1080/01926187.2011.610725

Abstract