Detaching and the Disease/Person Paradox

Talking about detaching always raises a common idea: detaching from the behavior and not the person. I think Al-anon more often uses the words disease and person.

I disbelieve this, but maybe it is matter of definitions. 

I'll fall back to the way I divided the relationship dimensions around detaching in Detaching and Relationship Dimensions. I believe that, when you are talking about a chosen relationship - marriage to be simple - the intimate aspect of the relationship is really of primary importance. The marriage simply can't function without intimacy. So from the perspective of having a functioning marriage, I think that significantly detaching makes the marriage not a functioning marriage. I think this is what I think of when I think of detaching from the disease and not the person. 

From this perspective, detaching from the disease does detach from the person-spouse. In other words, for a spouse, when you detach from a significant harmful behavior, you DO detach from that person as your spouse.

It is still possible to detach and maintain those other aspects of relationship: living together, co-parenting, sharing finances, etc. So, to make the al-anon wording make sense for me, detaching from the disease and not the person means detaching emotionally but keeping the living together, co-parenting, etc.

After long reflection, I finally rejected the idea that a fundamental disease like a personality disorder could be treated separately from the person.  I believe they are one and the same. I've written twice about this: Onions and Scrambled Eggs, and The Parable of the Tree.

And certainly the clarity of this page certainly qualifies it as one of the great works of Mudaphysics.

Do you know how to detach from the sickness in your life?

© 2004-6 Richard, 21CP and Dalkeith Press