THE CO-DEPENDENT PARENT Free Yourself by Freeing Your Child <i> by Barbara Cottman Becnel (Lowell House: $19.95) </i>

Used to be, you could get a lot of mileage out of having bad parents. Just think: If Eugene O’Neill’s parents had known how to do the right thing, he might never have had cause to write “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” Or what if Philip Roth’s folks had cleaned up their act? Would he ever have written “Goodbye, Columbus”? Would Woody Allen have grown up to be Alan Alda? In the old, unenlightened days, people knew how to make the most of mom and dad’s neuroticism.

But in the addiction-fest of the last few years, it’s become essential, if not absolutely trendy, to purge oneself of all problems. And if you don’t think you have any problems, you probably know, and relate to, someone who does, which makes you a co-dependent.

“The Co-Dependent Parent” starts off with a chilling, if statistically vague, suggestion: “Most of us are co-dependent parents to a greater or lesser degree,” writes Becnel. Even the seemingly well-intentioned mom or dad fits into one of her five categories: parents who are too demanding, too critical, overprotective, disengaged or ineffective. She presents case studies to illustrate each problem, and then offers advice and verbal exercises designed to break the behavioral cycle.

It’s all well intentioned and earnest--Becnel’s strongest credential is her own experience as the daughter of a gambler father and long-suffering mother--but it’s hard to believe that her routinized solutions, which include such psychological golden oldies as “I’m OK, You’re OK,” would suffice if, as she asserts, co-dependency is a generations-old pattern people fall into before they realize what’s happening.

If a family is smart enough to seek help, “The Co-Dependent Parent” seems too elemental; if a family is drowning in mutual self-destruction, it seems too slight to offer salvation.