COMMITMENTS : Death of a Label : It became a catchword to describe any caring person who nurtures. And, now, ‘codependency’ is dead, a victim of mis- and overuse.

For more than three years, mind doctors had been anticipating the end.

And now--finally--codependency is dead.

There’s no official date of death. But a growing number of mental-health specialists and studies confirm that the codependency written about in hundreds of books and articles, bemoaned on TV and radio talk shows, and commiserated about in seminars and self-help groups is gone.

Some therapists are in denial, clinging to the notion that excessive caring is a psychological disease called codependency. The public hasn’t heard about its demise; however, experts expect rejoicing since most find a “society of sickos nauseating,” says Robert Butterworth, a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles.

Sybil Wolin, a psychologist in Washington, D.C., says that since the fall of 1992, codependency “has been dying a slow death” spurred by an intense backlash against the recovery movement.

“I’d say codependency as we know it today is now officially dead,” says Wolin, whose “resiliency research” shows that codependency has become “a harmful term that pathologizes normal behavior.”

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It wasn’t always harmful, experts say. In the late 1960s, a handful of professionals coined the unscientific term “codependency” to describe an abusive relationship in which one person, usually female, “enables” an alcoholic loved one to continue drinking by shielding him from the ugly consequences of his liquor-soaked life. Eventually, it also included drug abusers.

Experts don’t dispute that the phenomenon exists. But what many find wearisome and unacceptable is the tendency to label kind, caring givers as diseased, says Marion Solomon, a Westside psychologist and author of “Lean On Me: The Power of Positive Dependency” (Simon & Schuster, 1994).

The past three decades’ emphasis on independence has “caused most people to think of dependence as a sickness,” Solomon says, “even though everyone has a natural need to depend on someone.”

Common sense told this to Lori Gilbert, 37, a self-described nurturer and former Southern Californian who now lives in the Washington, D.C., area.

Since the mid-’80s, “I’ve heard and read so much about codependency, and it described me to a T,” she says. “I’ve been working on my codependency for years but, to be honest, I’m starting to wonder if it’s a crock. . . . I don’t even have any alcoholics in my family.”

Indeed, to brand nurturing, selfless behavior as pathological is like labeling breathing as a physical ailment.

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Consider recent evidence refuting the legitimacy of modern-day codependency:

Nearly 30 years ago, counselors involved in Alcoholics Anonymous detailed the behavior of spouses, mostly wives, of alcoholics. To the point of overinvolvement, they focused everyday thoughts and actions on the alcoholic, yet disguised the addiction’s detriments from the public and attributed it to circumstances beyond the alcoholic’s control.

Theoretically, experts said, such behavior required the spouse to be a self-sacrificing caretaker who dissolves her life in someone else’s problem, thus relieving her from confronting her own. It also made her an accomplice to her husband’s alcoholism.

But, asks researcher Patricia V. Roehling, what partner in a loving relationship would not, at times, be protective, indecisive and overly nurturing? Or place a loved one’s needs before her own?

It’s natural to act this way, and the majority of people do not take it to the extreme, says Roehling, one of three researchers at Hope College in Michigan who last year reported on codependency.

The study concluded that codependent characteristics are typically feminine traits and, today, have nothing to do with alcoholism. Rather, the report stated, it is “a label of pathology that has been applied to stereotypically female behaviors.”

These behaviors, Roehling says, are opposites of characteristics, such as decisiveness and independence, that society values in men and often scorns in women.

“Codependency is a way to put women down,” says Roehling, citing recent studies verifying this conclusion, including one that found these behaviors more common in women than in men. “It’s a way to blame [women] for family problems.”

Besides, she adds, selflessness and nurturing are personality strengths, “something to take pride in.”

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The research of Sybil and Steven J. Wolin, authors of “The Resilient Self” (Random House, 1993), revealed that nurturing behavior can pull people out of despair, injecting them with the strength to bounce back from adverse situations.

Sixteen-year-old Jason ditched his substance-abusing parents to live in the basement of his girlfriend’s family’s home. He also dropped out of high school. Yet Jason remained “psychologically strong,” wrote the Wolins in an April 1995 article in a journal for pediatricians.

How? By endearing himself to his girlfriend’s family, knowing that being part of it would “make up” for the pain caused by his parents. And by quitting school to work part-time jobs so he could send his earnings to his two young brothers, who were still living in the harrowing household.

Because Jason was a child of alcoholics, many psychologists would have negatively labeled him as a martyr or overly responsible, “ready to sacrifice himself by compensating for his parents’ neglect,” the Wolins wrote. And although the authors call some of his solutions--such as dropping out--”self-destructive,” they emphasized Jason’s motivation and skills to help himself and his brothers.

“Jason’s a compassionate, decent young man,” Sybil Wolin explains. “He’s not pathological.”

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What killed codependency, she says, is its lack of purpose.

“It’s a wide range of behaviors that cannot truthfully be boiled down into one behavior. But people try [to create a definition] that allows them to avoid responsibility” for their problems. For instance, Wolin points to the popular “I can’t help having a low self-esteem since I come from a dysfunctional family.”

For other examples, Wolin suggests skimming through the bible of codependency, “Codependent No More” (HarperCollins, 1987) by Melody Beattie, a self-professed recovering codependent with no formal psychological training.

Beattie lists more than 130 characteristics of codependency, such as people who “anticipate other people’s needs,” “feel harried or pressured,” “get frustrated and angry” and “wonder if they will ever find love.”

Stuart Fischoff deplores today’s “I am victim, hear me whine” society. Still, he worries that too much criticism of codependency will deflect from genuine personality disorders, particularly involving substance abuse. For example, a spouse of an alcoholic who stocks a home with booze has a problem--one that should be dealt with professionally, says Fischoff, a psychology professor at Cal State Los Angeles who is also in private practice.

Terry, 47, a spokesman for Phoenix-based Codependents Anonymous, acknowledges that “sometimes but not very often” the definition of codependency “can get a little carried away. But that’s not really the point.”

It’s a legitimate psychological disease afflicting about 90% of the country’s population, he says.

“The point is that a lot of people need help.”

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A Term With Meanings for Everyone

There’s more than one way to describe codependency:

* “A codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior”--Melody Beattie in her book, “Codependent No More” (Harper-Collins, 1987)

* “Codependency means that I’m a caretaker”--an anonymous woman interviewed in Beattie’s book

* “Codependency is chaos in a relationship. It’s someone who’s caught up in a relationship”--Terry, a representative of Codependents Anonymous

* “A codependent is anyone with no self-esteem”--Betty Batenburg, a director for the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence of the South Bay in Torrance

* “[Codependency] is if you feel like you’re being eaten up alive. If you feel like you’re disappearing. If you feel like you’re being swallowed”--Carol Francis, a clinical psychologist with a private practice in Torrance

* “Codependency means that we were scarred in some way as kids, and then got involved in bad relationships (or no relationships) as a result”--a recent entry on the Internet’s alt.recovery. codependency discussion

* “Codependency is taking care of others. But there’s value in taking care of people. . . . [To label this a disease] is narcissistic because the person feels like he’s beyond blame, he’s too good to be blamed”--Stan J. Katz, a Beverly Hills clinical psychologist and author of “The Codependency Conspiracy” (Warner Books, 1992)

* “Codependency is dead”--Robert Butterworth, a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles