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Signs You’re Dealing With Family Enmeshment, According to a Therapist

A therapist explains how enmeshment can blur boundaries, create guilt, and make adulthood feel harder than it should.

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One of the most common yet troublesome family dynamics is enmeshment, and it can be detrimental to your individuality and personal relationships, especially in adulthood. Here’s what you should know about enmeshment—and how to break free from your family’s reins. 

According to Dipesh Patel, MBA, MSW, LCSW/LICSW, founder and owner of Dipesh Patel LCSW Counseling Services, enmeshment is “not a diagnosis, but rather a relational pattern in which a sense of love and connection is conditional and based on sameness.”

“Many times, enmeshment begins in the family unit as an attempt to create psychological and emotional safety,” he explains. “Individual choices are treated as family choices.” 

While individuality might seem to be encouraged, that’s only the case if others in the family approve of it.

“A person is allowed to have their own life and make their own choices as long as it does not upset the family system,” Patel explains. “The moment........

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