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Codependency Check

The Codependency Check is a free 25-item self-report that examines patterns in a specific relationship — how much you over-rely on one person, bend yourself toward their approval, lose your own priorities in their orbit, over-function for their wellbeing, or struggle to hold firm limits. Five items per dimension, answered in 10–15 minutes, produce a severity score and a per-pattern breakdown. This is a structured check-in and educational screening tool, not a clinical diagnosis.

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Free to take. No credit card required.

Questions
25 (5 per dimension)
Time
10–15 min
Format
Likert agreement (1–5)
Output
Severity band (Green–Red) + per-pattern profile across 5 dimensions
Cost
Free. Premium adds relationship growth guides and cross-test reports.

Who this test is for

  • People who feel chronically responsible for a partner's, parent's, or friend's emotional state and want to examine whether that responsibility is healthy or has become a pattern.
  • Anyone who frequently suppresses their own needs in a relationship to keep the peace or avoid the other person's reaction.
  • Individuals in therapy or coaching exploring people-pleasing, enmeshment, or self-sacrifice patterns as part of their growth work.
  • People recovering from a relationship with someone who had significant mental health challenges, substance use issues, or controlling behaviour.
  • Anyone whose sense of self feels closely tied to one particular relationship — where that person's mood, approval, or wellbeing has become a measure of their own okay-ness.

How the test is scored

The check-in is built on widely discussed clinical themes in the relational literature — enmeshment, over-responsibility, self-sacrifice, and boundary diffusion — framed as a self-report about one specific relationship. Items are original; the conceptual framing draws on decades of clinical and self-help writing about relationship patterns that prioritise the other at personal cost.

The five dimensions

Over-Reliance is the extent to which you lean on this person for emotional steadiness, decision-making, or your basic sense of being okay. People Pleasing is how consistently you suppress your honest needs or reactions in favour of this person's approval or comfort. Identity Loss is the degree to which your own interests, friendships, or priorities have shrunk around this relationship's gravity. Caretaking measures over-functioning for this person's feelings and outcomes — a sense of responsibility that exceeds what is mutual or healthy. Boundary Diffusion is the difficulty holding limits — around time, space, privacy, or simply the ability to say no — without guilt, fear, or gradual erosion.

What codependency is and is not

The term codependency originated in the context of relationships affected by substance use or significant mental health challenges, where partners, parents, or adult children developed highly adaptive but self-eroding patterns to manage the unpredictability. It has since been applied more broadly to relational patterns characterised by over-responsibility for another's inner life. The patterns captured here exist on a continuum: some degree of care, attunement, and responsiveness to another's needs is healthy; the concern arises when the pattern is pervasive, one-directional, and comes at sustained cost to your own wellbeing and sense of self.

Reference: Beattie, M. (1986). Codependent No More. Hazelden Publishing.

Connection to differentiation and attachment

Research on family systems and adult attachment identifies a closely related concept: differentiation of self — the capacity to stay in genuine contact with important people while also maintaining a clear, stable sense of your own values, feelings, and direction. Low differentiation (high fusion) produces many of the patterns this check-in measures: emotional reactivity to the other person's state, difficulty tolerating their disapproval, and self-definition through the relationship rather than alongside it. Attachment anxiety also predicts several of the dimensions here — particularly Over-Reliance and Boundary Diffusion — because anxious attachment generates a persistent vigilance about whether the other person is still emotionally available.

This screen and professional support

This is an educational screening tool, not a clinical diagnostic. Elevated scores indicate patterns worth taking seriously and exploring further — they do not constitute a mental health diagnosis. If you are experiencing significant distress in a relationship, if you notice that the patterns described here are affecting your health, work, or other relationships, or if you are in a relationship where the other person has substance use, mental health, or controlling behaviour concerns, speaking with a therapist or counsellor is genuinely the right next step. Local and online support services are available in most countries.

Frequently asked questions

How is codependency different from being caring or loving?

Caring about someone and investing in their wellbeing is healthy and necessary in any close relationship. The distinction lies in directionality, cost, and voluntariness. Codependency patterns tend to be one-directional (you regulate them; they don't reciprocate), costly (your own needs, priorities, or sense of self are chronically compromised), and feel compulsory rather than freely chosen — the anxiety when you don't caretake, or the fear when you hold a boundary, is the signal. Love includes the ability to let someone sit with their own discomfort without rushing to resolve it for them.

Can codependency patterns develop in non-romantic relationships?

Yes. The patterns this check-in measures can develop in any relationship with significant emotional weight: a parent-child relationship (adult children of parents with mental illness or substance use commonly describe these patterns), a close friendship, a sibling relationship, or even a workplace dynamic with a manager or colleague. The mechanism is the same — a relationship environment where one person's emotional regulation became your responsibility, and your own wellbeing became conditional on managing theirs.

Does a high score mean there is something wrong with me?

No. High scores on any of the five dimensions reflect patterns that developed for understandable reasons — usually in response to a relationship environment where they were genuinely adaptive at the time. People-pleasing, over-caretaking, and self-suppression are common responses to emotionally unpredictable or demanding relational environments. Recognising a pattern is not an indictment of your character; it is information about where your relational energy is currently going and whether that allocation is working for you.

My Caretaking score is high but I am a carer by profession. Is that the same?

Occupational caregiving and relational over-caretaking are meaningfully different things. The dimension here specifically measures over-functioning for one person's feelings and outcomes in a personal relationship — the sense that their emotional state is your responsibility to fix, and that you cannot rest until they are okay. Professional caregiving, done with healthy limits, does not necessarily produce the same pattern. That said, professionals in caregiving roles are at higher risk for relational over-functioning if the professional boundary and relational boundary are not well separated.

What does a Green score mean?

A Green overall score means your five dimension scores are collectively in the lower concern range — the patterns measured here are not currently showing up at a level that suggests significant self-erosion in this relationship. Individual dimensions can still be worth noticing even within a Green profile; a single elevated dimension is useful self-knowledge even if the overall picture is healthy.

Can I take this check-in about multiple relationships?

Yes, and it is often illuminating to do so. The patterns may vary significantly between relationships — a person can show low concern scores in a romantic partnership but high scores in a relationship with a parent, or vice versa. Taking the check-in for two or three important relationships and comparing profiles can reveal where the patterns are relationship-specific versus more pervasive across your relational life.

Is there a safe way to address codependency patterns on my own?

Self-awareness — which this check-in supports — is a useful starting point. The next steps that tend to be most effective involve gradually shifting the patterns rather than abruptly ending them: practising sitting with another person's discomfort without immediately fixing it, noticing the physical sensation when you are about to suppress a need and pausing before acting on the impulse, and experimenting with small limit-setting in lower-stakes situations. For pervasive or high-concern patterns, a therapist who works with relational dynamics or attachment is the most reliable guide — particularly if the relationship itself is distressing or difficult to exit.

Is codependency a mental health disorder?

Codependency is not a formal diagnosis in psychiatric classification systems. It is a descriptive framework for a cluster of relational patterns — a useful lens, not a pathological label. The patterns it describes do overlap with symptoms that appear in clinical presentations (anxious attachment, dependent personality traits, effects of trauma in relational contexts), but meeting the description on a screening tool does not mean you have a disorder. If you are concerned about the severity or impact of the patterns you see in your results, a qualified mental health professional can give you a much more precise and contextual picture.

How can I use this result with a therapist?

The per-dimension breakdown and the overall band make good starting material for a session. Bringing the specific dimensions that scored highest and describing one or two concrete recent situations where the pattern showed up gives a therapist concrete, specific material to work with rather than a vague sense of 'something feels off in this relationship.' The check-in is not a replacement for professional assessment, but it can accelerate the early exploration phases of therapy.

What your report looks like

Your report shows an overall severity band, a per-dimension breakdown across the five patterns, and specific signals to notice.

Overall severity band

A composite score placed in one of four bands — Green, Yellow, Orange, or Red — with a plain-language description of what the band typically reflects in relational experience.

Five-pattern profile

Separate scores for Over-Reliance, People Pleasing, Identity Loss, Caretaking, and Boundary Diffusion, showing which dimensions are driving the overall picture and which are lower concern.

Pattern signals

For elevated dimensions, specific behavioural signals that suggest the pattern is active — concrete enough to recognise in recent situations rather than vague descriptions.

Growth direction (Premium)

Per-dimension guidance on what a shift toward healthier balance looks like in practice: what you are moving toward, not just what you are moving away from.