dependence

also n.

1. The state of being dependent, as for support.
2. 1. Subordination to someone or something needed or greatly desired.
   2. Trust; reliance. See synonyms at trust.
3. The state of being determined, influenced, or controlled by something else.
4. A compulsive or chronic need; an addiction: an alcohol dependence.

also dependance

noun

Absolute certainty in the trustworthiness of another: belief, confidence, faith, reliance, trust. See belief/unbelief.

The condition in which a society is only able to develop, in part or in full, by a reliance on another nation for income, aid, political protection, or control.

A degree of dependence can only come about when one society comes into contact with another. Nearly all today's ‘underdeveloped’ societies were once viable and could satisfy their own economic needs but their economies were often torn apart after contact with a colonial power. It is therefore argued that Europe did not ‘discover’ the dependent, underdeveloped countries; on the contrary, it created them. See dependency theory.

Other economists argue that dependence is created by capitalism, because accumulation is the key component of the capitalist system. Accumulation depends on the extraction of surplus value, and A. G. Frank (1966) has argued that, in spatial terms, this entails a flow of surplus value from the poor periphery—the ex-colonies—to the metropolitan core—the more economically developed countries, which dominate the global economy. Others argue that each depends on the other; they claim that without the resources, labour, and markets of the South, the North could not survive.

A compulsive or chronic need to have something, for example, a drug or other substance. See exercise addiction, drug dependence.

The term "dependence" is part of contemporary language; it is frequently used in the field of psycho-pathology but more for descriptive convenience than to specify a precise relational modality concerning the subjection of a subject to an object. Sigmund Freud used the term infrequently but made reference to it in his discussion of the pleasure principle: "It will be rightly objected that an organization which was a slave to the pleasure principle and neglected the reality of the external world could not maintain itself alive for the shortest time, so that it could not have come into existence at all. The employment of a fiction like this is, however, justified when one considers that the infant—provided one includes with it the care it receives from its mother—does almost realize a psychical system of this kind" (1911b). Serge Lebovici (1991) remarked that the human being's original state of dependence is a fundamental postulate of Freudian theory; it is the baby's Hilflosigkeit, or helplessness (détresse or désaide in French).

As Michael Balint (1968) remarked, the notion of "oral dependence" appeared in the work of Otto Fenichel in 1945. Fenichel describes oral character traits, especially a disguised dependent need, created by reaction-formation, manifest in attitudes and behaviors of independence and rebellion. Franz Alexander used this idea to describe ulcerous subjects who indicate their condition by the conflict between the desire to maintain a state of infantile dependence and the affirmation of independence of the adult ego.

Melanie Klein showed no interest in the concept, but her students Paula Heimann and Joan Riviere, in Developments in Psychoanalysis, refer to the infant's total dependence on the mother at the beginning of life. The concept becomes central in the thought of Donald Winnicott (1963), who emphasizes that the baby, who is dependent on the care of those around him, is subject to a "dual dependency," which will become simple dependency as soon as he or she becomes aware of it.

This is part of a normal process for every human being, so that not every state of dependence later found to exist can be reduced to it. Yet this inaugural kernel, which is characterized by a sense of powerlessness (as well as the narcissistic omnipotence associated with it), is the basis of subsequently-observed states of mental dependence and defects in the separation-individuation process. Adolescence especially is a period of reactualization and the heightened revival of feelings of dependence and infantile helplessness. Philippe Jeammet (1989), who considers dependence to be characteristic of this period, has developed the concept within a metapsychological perspective that cannot be easily summarized. According to this conception, the adolescent shows himself to be clinically dependent whenever he feels that his object needs threaten his autonomy and narcissistic equilibrium.

Some authors have examined dependence in the treatment of borderline states, following Winnicott, who emphasized the danger of underestimating the transference dependence in this type of case as part of the counter-transference risks of his interpretation. He, like Balint, cautions against an overly systematic interpretation of transference dependence, introducing the risk of reinforcing the dependence—especially oral dependence—of the patient on the analyst, and the latter's omnipotence. Otto Kernberg, working with narcissistic patients, describes their inability to depend on the analyst from the beginning of therapy, which can be compared to the fear of "giving in to dependence" described by Masud Khan.

In contemporary psychiatric clinics there has been a recategorization and clinical reassessment of dependence. The term is no longer only applied to drug addiction, alcohol or tobacco dependence, and so on, but tends to define a biological-psychological-behavioral syndrome that is very broad and includes those states as well as pharmacodependence. The concept of "addiction," which is very similar to that of dependence, is an indication of this broadening. Thus the pathological behaviors in which an act of incorporation (often but not exclusively through use of a toxic object) allows the subject to relieve the internal tension by short-circuiting a threatening mental condition are grouped under the term "addiction." These include alcoholic and drug-related behavior, bulimia (and anorexia), as well as addictions that do not involve the ingestion of a product (games of chance, shopping sprees, sexual addiction), and even relational dependence.

Bibliography

Balint, Michael. (1968). The basic fault. Therapeutic aspects of regression. London: Tavistock Publications.

Freud, Sigmund. (1911b). Formulations on the two principles of mental functioning. SE, 12, 218-226.

Jeammet, Phillippe. (1989). Psychopathologie des troubles des conduites alimentairesà l'adolescence. Confrontations psychiatriques, 31, 177-202.

Lebovici, Serge. (1991). La dépendance du nouveau-né. (pp. 29-39). In C. Dechamp-Le Roux (Ed.), Figures de la dépendance, autour d'Albert Memmi, colloque de Cerisy-la-Salle. Paris, Presses Universitaires de France.

Winnicott, Donald W. (1965). The maturational processes and the facilitating environment; studies in the theory of emotional development. New York: International Universities Press.

Further Reading

Coen, Stanley. (1992). The misuse of persons: analyzing pathological dependency. Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press.

Searles, Harold. (1955). Dependency processes in the psychotherapy of schizophrenia. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 3, 19-66.

Winnicott, Donald W. (1963). Dependence in infant care, child care, and the psychoanalytic setting. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 44, 339-344.

—BÉNÉDICTE BONNET-VIDON

IN BRIEF: n. - Lack of independence or self-sufficiency; Being abnormally tolerant to and dependent on something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming (especially alcohol or narcotic drugs).

Tutor's tip: "Dependents" (those who rely on others for support) often look forward to the day when their "dependence" (the condition of being in a dependent, controlled, or subordinate role) on another is over.

Quotes:

"Depend on no man, on no friend but him who can depend on himself. He only who acts conscientiously toward himself, will act so toward others." - Johann Kaspar Lavater

"There is no dependence that can be sure but a dependence upon one's self." - John Gay

"There is no one subsists by himself alone." - Owen Felltham

"The ship of heaven guides itself and will not accept a wooden rudder." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Interdependency follows independence." - Stephen R. Covey

Dansk (Danish)
n. - afhængighed, tillid, dependens

Nederlands (Dutch)
afhankelijkheid, vertrouwen, verslaving

Français (French)
n. - dépendance, toxicomanie, sujétion à

Deutsch (German)
n. - Abhängigkeit

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (οικονομική κ.λπ.) εξάρτηση, εμπιστοσύνη, (διοικητική κ.λπ.) υπαγωγή

Italiano (Italian)
dipendenza

Português (Portuguese)
n. - dependência (f)

Русский (Russian)
зависимость

Español (Spanish)
n. - dependencia, confianza, subordinación, adicción, toxicomanía, vicio

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - beroende, tillit

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
依赖, 信赖, 依存

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 依賴, 信賴, 依存

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 의지, 미결, 신뢰

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - たよること, 依存, 信頼, たよりとなるもの, 未決, 依頼, 信用

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) حاله الحاجه لمساعدة ودعم الآخرين, اتكال, تبعيه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮תלות, ביטחון, אמון‬

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