How to Deal With an Emotionally Needy Friend: Emotion, Emotional Needs and Emotional Dependency

Do you have an emotionally needy friend who is becoming a burden to you? Be aware that an emotionally needy person is experiencing a deficit in the realm of his or her emotions and thus, he or she may turn to you for emotional support. As a friend, you know that this person would probably be there for you too, in a similar situation. You want to help him or her.

How to deal with an emotionally needy friend can present a conundrum of problems or possibilities. For example, he or she may become so emotionally dependent on you that it interferes with your life. If you are in a position to counsel him or her, that can lead to positive, proactive alternatives in terms of dealing with his or her emotional needs.     

What is emotion?

According to dictionary.com suggests emotion is “an affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness.”

Emotion has to do with a person’s feelings and the accompanying physiological changes triggered in a positive or negative manner.  Everyone functions from various emotional, mental, spiritual and physical levels that continually interact, because what affects the emotional realm affects other realms in varying degrees.

How to deal with an emotionally needy friend may depend upon what is happening in his or her emotional realm and how that affects other realms of his or her life. Being there for a friend, allows you to assess what is happening with him or her realistically, from a non-threatening perspective. Being there may be all that you can do and the best thing you could possibly do. Being aware of a friend’s need for compassion and concern during an emotional crisis can help to bring about healing for him or her.

When you see the mental, emotional, spiritual and physical realms in your friend’s life are adversely affected, you may decide to take action that will help your friend get beyond the emotional crisis. This could mean involvement with professionals like doctors, counselors, lawyers, etc. For example, your friend, a young woman in her twenties, finds she is pregnant. She panics immediately, not knowing what to do. She no longer has a boyfriend or any family in the area. Emotionally, she is in turmoil, feeling excited but devastated at the same time.

How do you deal with this kind of an emotionally needy friend scenario? If you panic too, that would create a less than ideal scenario. A kind and loving, empathetic approach , as opposed to a sympathetic approach is important. Initially, you may be able to support her emotionally while she examines her options, but in a situation like this, there are serious issues like her physical health, housing, financial support, childcare, etc. that may present a burden for you in terms of dealing with her emotional dependency on you. At times, emotional dependency of a friend can go too far, especially when it interferes with your life.

Being a kind, compassionate, caring and concerned friend, you are determined to be supportive of her emotionally, but at the same time you know that you must insist that she take the responsibility for her own life. If there are indications that she is not able to do that or cannot cope, seeking immediate counseling with and for her may be vital to her survival and yours.

Friendship is not the same as dependency. Being friends gives you a positive, pro-active platform for emotional support where the emotional crisis does not turn to partial or total dependency.