REDEFINING DEPENDENCE - A REPLY

What appears to concern Cadbury, as it concerned Kaplan some years earlier, is the suggestion that women may be considered dependent more often than men. My linking dependence with imperfect maturation carried the unfortunate implication that women may be less mature than men. My paper concerned predominantly pathological dependence, which may well be due to imperfect maturation. The distinction between normal and pathological dependence is crucial and has now been more clearly defined. Evidence from a number of sources is provided to confirm that dependence is a complex concept which incorporates the components I proposed. The closeness-seeking component stands out more distinctly than the others. Dependence is not so much a precursor as a concomitant of depression. Depression is linked only with pathological dependence and this link is probably via a common factor of psychopathology. Pathological dependence is more common in women but only because of its link with depression. There are other pathological forms of relating which are more common in men and which may induce dependence in women. Though conventional femininity may be associated with dependence, dependence as a concept stands up without reference to femininity and applies equally to men and women.