Dependent personality
Dependent personality characterized by: Overt need for social approval, reassurance, and affection. Dependents are willing to give up their own ambitions to serve others and fulfill their needs. Often referred to as "needy" personalities, even by people with little psychological knowledge, dependents are temperamentally docile, noncompetitive, and passive. They have a strong need to belong and be accepted and they have a hard time making demands of others or delivering bad news.
Passive-adaptation with Other-nurturance: The dependent personality is passive, takes few independent initiatives, and is mortally afraid of conflict. He happily submits to dominant individuals and relinquishes his own wishes to satisfy those around him. Others consider him a pushover who is 'too nice for his own good.' If male, he is the quintessential 'nice guy' who can't get the girl. If female, she is the prototypical abused girlfriend who is too 'good for her boyfriend,' but also 'too weak to leave him.'
Sensitivity to praise and blame: The dependent personality is very sensitive to praise and rejection and can experience anxiety if others do not express their overt acceptance, appreciation, and approval of him.
Downplayed resourcefulness: The dependent is modest and comes across as innocent, naive, and even somewhat helpless. These qualities endear him to other people and prompt them to feel protective of him, as if they were his older sibling or parent. However, appearances can be deceiving, and not infrequently the dependent is much more competent and resourceful than he seems. Indeed, even a dependent who excels in his profession and is a benefactor to his community may downplay his resourcefulness in an effort to have others assume the ultimate responsibility for his actions. In response to admiring questions about his achievements, the dependent may become uncomfortable and purposefully push his modesty and feigned naivety to an extreme in an effort to deflect admiration (and by extension, responsibility).
Submission / introjection: Most people maintain opinions of their own as a matter of course, but with the dependent this is not so. The dependent looks to more dominant individuals in his life for cues on what to think and how to behave. In romantic relationships, he forfeits his individuality and seeks to align himself with the opinions and expectations of his partner. To avoid conflict and confrontation, the dependent internalizes the opinions of his partner and eventually comes to believe that these really are his own opinions. Outsiders therefore size up the dependent as an extension of the partner - an empty shell with whom it is impossible to do independent business.
A string of abusive relationships: Dependent personalities are prime candidates for ending up in abusive relationships with antisocial, narcissistic, or sadistic partners. But even with a non-abusive partner, any latent derogatory tendencies in the partner's psyche will eventually be brought to the forefront of consciousness by the dependent's contempt-inspiring submissiveness. For this reason, it is often easy to sympathize with the dependent, placing all of the blame on the shoulders of the abusive partner. Yet the majority of people who do so never stop to consider the dependent's contribution to the state of affairs.
Severity spectrum: The dependent spectrum stretches from cooperative (normal) to clingy (abnormal) to dependent (pathological).
