Ipek Aykol, LMFT
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Ipek Aykol

Ipek Aykol, LMFT
 

 


Ipek Aykol, LMFT, is a licensed marriage and family therapist, group practice owner, and former adjunct psychology faculty member specializing in addiction, trauma, anxiety, and complex relational dynamics. She is trained in EMDR and integrates trauma-informed, attachment-based, and family systems approaches into her clinical work with individuals, couples, and families. Ipek has extensive experience supporting both individuals struggling with substance use and loved ones navigating codependency, enabling, boundaries, and the emotional impact of addiction. She is also a doctoral candidate in holistic life counseling, with research focused on complementary approaches in addiction recovery.  

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Loving Without Rescuing: Helping Families Navigate Addiction, Boundaries, and Codependency   

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Description:

Families affected by addiction often find themselves caught in a painful cycle of fear, guilt, crisis management, and rescue. Parents, partners, and other loved ones may struggle to distinguish between supporting someone they care about and protecting them from the natural consequences of their substance use. For therapists, helping families navigate this delicate line requires more than simply advising them to "set boundaries" or "stop enabling."  

This intermediate-to-advanced workshop explores the emotional, relational, trauma-related, and attachment-based dynamics that can drive rescuing and codependent patterns within families affected by substance use. Participants will examine how fear, guilt, hypervigilance, and a sense of responsibility for another person's well-being can make it difficult for loved ones to step out of the rescuing role—even when they recognize that their efforts may be perpetuating unhealthy patterns.   

Through clinical examples and practical interventions, participants will learn to differentiate support from enabling, help clients tolerate the emotional distress that can arise when changing long-standing family patterns, and guide loved ones toward boundaries that preserve both compassion and connection. The workshop will offer trauma-informed and attachment-based strategies that therapists can use to help families move from fear-driven rescuing toward healthier, more sustainable ways of relating.  

Attendees will leave with practical tools for helping clients love and support a person struggling with addiction without assuming responsibility for their recovery, choices, or consequences. 

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:  

  • Identify at least three ways fear, guilt, trauma, and attachment dynamics can contribute to rescuing, enabling, and codependent patterns within families affected by substance use.    
  • Differentiate between supportive behaviors, enabling behaviors, and healthy boundary-setting using clinical case examples involving parents, partners, and other loved ones of individuals struggling with substance use.    
  • Apply at least three trauma-informed and attachment-based interventions to help family members reduce rescuing behaviors, tolerate emotional distress, and establish healthier relational boundaries.    
  • Develop at least one clinically appropriate treatment strategy that helps loved ones maintain connection and compassion without assuming responsibility for the substance use, recovery, or consequences of another person. 
 

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