Supporting vs. Enabling: How To Recognize The Difference

It’s pure to need to assist the individuals you care about as they face struggles like substance misuse or psychological well being challenges. But typically individuals’s makes an attempt at help teeter into extra dangerous territory: enablement.

“When a loved one is struggling with destructive or unhealthy behavior patterns, it can be hard to know how to lend your support,” mentioned Zainab Delawalla, a medical psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. “No one wants to see people they care about suffer, and in their care and concern, they inadvertently end up enabling the very behaviors that caused the suffering in the first place.”

There’s a superb line between supporting and enabling, however understanding the distinction can make sure you really assist these you care about. Below, Delawalla and different psychologists break it down.

“Supporting someone is an act of kindness done to show love and offer care,” mentioned Rachel Thomasian, a licensed therapist and proprietor of Playa Vista Counseling in Los Angeles. “When we support someone we care about, we are working to empower them to be independent, confident people.”

She famous that help typically means displaying up and sitting with the mess of somebody’s feelings as they navigate challenges in life.

“Being supportive means helping without shielding them from natural consequences and without depleting your own resources, be they emotional or material,” Delawalla mentioned. “Supportive behaviors encourage the person to take accountability for their actions, while maintaining open and clear lines of communication.”

When you present help, you have got set up wholesome boundaries and be sincere ― ideally with out being judgmental. It’s about selling the opposite particular person’s development and growth by permitting them to be taught from their very own errors and failures.

“Examples of supportive behavior include providing a listening ear to a friend going through a difficult time, calling to check on a family member who is struggling and letting them know the next time you plan to call and offering to help someone struggling with an addiction find supportive resources such as therapy or a recovery program,” mentioned Becky Stuempfig, a Southern California-based therapist who makes a speciality of grief.

“Think of enabling as overdoing support in a way that causes some harm to the person offering or receiving it,” Thomasian mentioned. “Enabling can be harmful because the person enabling their loved one is neglecting their own needs to tend to the needs of others and if guilt or shame are contributing factors to the decision to help or not. Enabling behavior can be harmful to the person one tries to help because it can keep them in harmful cycles of behavior and reliant on help and thus unable to help themselves in crucial ways.”

Although there may be some useful short-term harm management, enabling permits individuals to proceed making dangerous selections with out feeling the gravity of it ― thus fostering the narrative that their conduct isn’t so dangerous.

“The worst thing you can do is to continually shield a person from the natural consequences of their own behavior,” mentioned Sue Varma, a medical assistant professor of psychiatry at NYU Langone Health. “It sends the signal that life is perfect, that everyone else will swoop into clean up the mess and reinforces entitled behavior.”

Ask your self should you’re going out of your solution to enable somebody to chop corners and in the event that they even admire your assist and are placing in their very own efforts.

“Common ways that people engage in enabling behavior include making excuses for poor choices, avoiding tough conversations, continually taking on more than your fair share of responsibility, not following through on consequences, blaming others, feeling resentful and consistently sacrificing your own needs in order to ‘help’ someone else,” Steumpfig mentioned.

“Many people do not intentionally engage in enabling behavior and truly believe they are helping their loved one by bailing them out of difficult situations. They often have good intentions but have difficulty realizing that their responses are preventing their loved one from making positive, lasting changes.”

She supplied some particular examples of enabling conduct: making excuses to your baby after they mess up in order that they don’t should expertise the pure penalties, frequently offering monetary assets to somebody who you realize is utilizing the cash to purchase substances relatively than pay for dwelling bills and permitting a cherished one with social anxiousness to constantly keep away from demanding conditions in order that they don’t have to expertise discomfort.

“The difference between supporting and enabling is that supportive behaviors are geared towards positive change, whereas enabling behaviors merely mitigate the natural consequences of unhealthy behaviors, which then ultimately reinforce those unhealthy behaviors,” Delawalla mentioned.

Basically, supporting is useful and entails wholesome boundaries, private development and the event of fine coping mechanisms, whereas enabling is dangerous and limiting and perpetuates problematic actions.

“When I think about the line that separates supporting versus enabling, I consider the long-term effects of my actions,” Thomasian defined. “Will this ultimately be something that makes things better for someone, or is it a quick fix that ultimately leads to long-term harm?”

She illustrated this level with the instance of educating a toddler to tie their sneakers.

“Supporting them to learn the task requires teaching, demonstrating and most importantly, having patience for the child to try, fail and try again,” Thomasian defined. “You can do the teaching, but you cannot do the learning for them.”

The enabling model could be an grownup who simply ties the kid’s shoelaces each time as a result of they don’t need to cope with the frustrations and tantrums that come up within the studying course of.

“While, in the moment, it is easier to tie their shoes for them, we are doing them a disservice by doing the task for them,” she added. “This example translates across many different situations, from giving money to someone who has a substance use issue, applying for jobs on someone’s behalf or lying for them.”

Basically, it goes again to the previous adage about educating somebody to fish, relatively than giving them a fish.

“Enabling is delivering fresh filleted fish daily to a completely capable adult, at your own expense, while they don’t have a care in the world, don’t appreciate it and are out and about,” Varma mentioned.

“People often do not realize that they are crossing the fine line between support and enabling,” Stuempfig mentioned.

She supplied some questions that may be useful to ask your self should you suppose your help may’ve crossed over into enabling territory. One is that if there’s a part of you that’s beginning to resent the one you love since you’re consistently placing their wants above your individual.

“Do I find myself often trying to save or rescue my loved one from experiencing real-world consequences?” she added. “Am I letting my loved one solve their own problems while supporting them in doing so, or am I attempting to solve the problems for them? Do I often find myself talking for my loved one when they are capable of speaking for themselves? Do I frequently set expectations or boundaries that I do not follow through on? Am I blaming others for my loved one’s situation rather than helping them take responsibility for their actions?”

Delawalla equally suggested contemplating whose narrative you’re supporting and whether or not displaying “support” requires you to compromise your individual morals, well-being and/or relationships.

“Am I making excuses to justify someone else’s behavior? Am I hesitant to draw a boundary because of fear of something worse happening?” she requested. “Supporting someone else should never come at the cost of taking care of yourself.”

“It is common for people to become stuck in a cycle of enabling others,” Steumpfig mentioned. “It may be the only way they have been taught to function in relationships, stemming from their family of origin.”

She beneficial working with a therapist to vary these patterns and discover how they developed within the first place. Additionally, she shared some useful reminders to remember as you shift away from enabling.

“It’s always OK to say no,” Stuempfig mentioned. “If your loved ones are accustomed to being enabled, they will often have a strong initial reaction when they are given a healthy boundary. It is possible to show compassion through support while still not supporting the unhealthy behavior.”

Try to make your intentions clear from the start and keep in mind that caring for your individual wants is important to be able to be emotionally accessible to others, she added.

If you and your struggling cherished one are feeling caught, begin by asking them, “What’s the best way I can help you right now?”

“This helps the individual articulate their needs and prioritize what feels most helpful,” Stuempfig defined. “It also immediately encourages them to begin brainstorming possible solutions to their own problem. It is sometimes most helpful to provide support by simply listening and reminding your loved one that they are not alone. Providing company, a hand to hold, a warm voice on the other end of the line and frequent check-ins are other healthy ways to support loved ones who are struggling and reduce isolation, which is often the most difficult aspect for people enduring tough life transitions.”

Resist the urge to unravel their issues for them. Instead, deal with displaying up.

“It’s easy to come up with solutions we think would help someone, and often it is easier to just do the thing for them rather than support them in finding their own way,” Thomasian mentioned. “The big challenge here is to exercise patience and tolerate frustration as their loved one finds their way.”