Susan Forward

The single most dramatic difference between healthy and toxic family systems is the amount of freedom that exists for family members to express themselves as individuals. Healthy families encourage individuality, personal responsibility, and independence. They encourage the development of their children's sense of adequacy and self respect.

Unhealthy families discourage individual expression. Everyone must conform to the thoughts and actions of toxic parents. They promote fusion, a blurring of personal boundaries, a welding together of family members. On an unconscious level, it is hard for family members to know where one ends and another begins. In their efforts to be close, they often suffocate one another's individuality.

- Susan Forward,Toxic Parents,p174