Counterdependency is the state of refusal of attachment, the denial of personal need and dependency, and may extend to the omnipotence and refusal of dialogue found in destructive narcissism, for example.

The roots of counterdependency can be found in the age-appropriate negativism of two-year-olds and teens, where it serves the temporary purpose of distancing one from the parental figure[s]. As Selma Fraiberg put it, the two-year-old "says 'no' with splendid authority to almost any question addressed to him...as if he establishes his independence, his separateness from his mother, by being opposite". Where the mother has difficulty accepting the child's need for active distancing, the child may remain stuck in the counterdependent phase of development because of developmental trauma.

In similar fashion, the teenager needs to be able to establish the fact of their separate mind to their parents, even if only through a sustained state of cold rejection; and again unresolved adolescent issues can lead to a mechanical counterdependence and unruly assertiveness in later life.