A Washington institute says Trump's order exempting Russia from a sanctions law is a classic boundary collapse, and it has staged an intervention.
A Washington institute has diagnosed US-Russia relations as codependent after President Trump waived a Russia sanctions law he had signed himself. It has prescribed a fourteen-step recovery program and staged an intervention addressed to the sanctions law.
The Institute for Trauma-Informed Statecraft has formally diagnosed the relationship between the United States and Russia as codependent. The finding came on Wednesday, days after President Trump signed an order exempting Russia from a sanctions law. It was a law he had signed himself.
Clinicians at the institute call it a textbook boundary collapse. A boundary, they note, only counts if you keep it when the other person sulks.
The diagnosis draws on the full history. Researchers cite last year's summit in Alaska with Vladimir Putin, which they now file as a rupture that was never repaired, only reheated. They also flag the widening rift with Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
"Sanctions are the language of self-respect," said Dr. Marisol Ventry-Achebe, the institute's director. "You pass a law that says, this behaviour hurts me and I will not fund it. Then the other party invades someone, and you quietly waive it, because you don't want them to be upset with you. That is not diplomacy. That is a man waiting by the phone. We have seen this pattern in roommates. We have never seen it with a nuclear arsenal attached."
The institute has prescribed a fourteen-step recovery program. Step one asks Washington to name its feelings about Moscow without using the word "great." Step nine bans both capitals from calling each other after midnight. Step fourteen is simply signing the original law again, and meaning it this time.
Ukraine has been identified as the family member whose needs keep going unmet. Staff use the term triangulation. It means two parties drag a third into their drama so they never have to face each other.
"The sanctions law has been silenced the longest. We invited it to speak first."
The intervention took place in the institute's sunroom. A chair was set aside to represent the sanctions law, which facilitators addressed directly for most of an hour. Several participants said the law seemed tired.
Not everyone took part. Junior fellow Theo Lindqvist-Oyelaran argued that sanctions are a tool of state coercion, and that coercion is itself a harm. Colleagues thanked him for his vulnerability and moved him to a quieter room.
"Theo is right that punishment can be a form of violence," Ventry-Achebe said. "He is also right that Russia is doing a great deal of violence. Holding both of those truths is the work. I want to hold space for that, and then I want the sanctions back."
The institute has mailed its intake forms to the White House. It sent a second set to the Kremlin, translated into Russian. Neither has replied, which clinicians describe as avoidant, but within the normal range.
