for various comparisons. For the codependent group, exposure to previous counseling, admission of health problems, and reporting of a greater number of health problems were all associated with treatment completion. The researchers conclude that "individuals who admit they have health problems may be in less denial of the consequences of their codependency, and as a result stay in treatment" (p. 661). Unfortunately, this conclusion is weakened by three factors: 1) the subjects were assumed to be codependent by virtue of their association with a chemically dependent spouse/significant other, 2) the researchers seem to assume that health problems are the result of "codependency," and 3) the researchers further assume that nondisclosure of a health problem is a form of denial of the patient's codependent disorder. No proof of the validity of these assumptions is provided.
In order to better understand some of the problems inherent in the above-described "empirical research," it is instructive to go back to the early studies of spouses of alcoholics. Edwards, Harvey, and Whitehead (1973) provide a fairly thorough review and analysis of this research in their article entitled "Wives of Alcoholics." They make the case that the first theories of the alleged abnormalities seen in wives of alcoholics centered around the assertion that these women had a disturbed personality. The research into the "disturbed-personality" factor was limited to clinical observations of unrepresentative samples which were never compared with other types of wives such as those of nonalcoholics. A study by D.E. MacDonald (1956) is cited as significant because it was one of the first attempts to investigate the hypothesis that personality decompensation in the wife would follow sobriety in the husband. MacDonald found evidence of decompensation in 11 of the 18 women studied. These results seemed to lend some credence to the theory that wives o
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