Responding to the codependent employee.

Codependence is an important human disorder that is disturbingly prevalent. When codependence is viewed as a psychological concept, it offers a useful framework for evaluating and responding to problematic behavior. While nursing the addicted and codependent patient and family is an emerging specialty that is helping address the national health care problem of addictions, until now the nursing literature has provided little assistance with the need to recognize codependency from a broad perspective in nursing management. This field offers important and unexplored terrain for the creative and scholarly nurse to assist in developing nursing knowledge. This article has summarized key information about the general problem of codependency and suggests how to apply this information to the setting of the nurse manager. When a nurse manager responds to codependent behavior with understanding and firm control, feelings of security for codependent individuals can be increased and optimum performance will be facilitated.