Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

Product Information

Emotional parents are run by their feelings swinging between over-involvement and abrupt withdrawal.

Gibson, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice who specializes in individual psychotherapy with adult children of emotionally immature parents. Even after you become an adult, EI parents may still mock your ideas and emotions , discount your reality, disallow your emotional autonomy, and shame you for setting boundaries .

Instead of comforting their child, the parent might become nervous, angry, and sometimes punish them. The book I read this time was Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents. In this breakthrough book, clinical If you grew up with an emotionally immature, unavailable, or selfish parent, you probably still struggle with anger, sadness, resentment, or shame. You'll discover the four main types of emotionally immature parents: *Emotional parents, who may vacillate between over-involvement and abandonment, leading to frightening instability and unpredictability *Driven parents, who are often compulsively busy and can't stop trying to perfect everything, including other people *Passive parents, who may have a laissez-faire mindset and avoid dealing with anything upsetting *Rejecting parents, who may withdraw from any relationship with their child, showing either detachment or anger as primary responses All emotionally immature parents have one defining characteristic in common, even if they differ in style-none of them puts their child's needs first.

Once you understand how these immature people function, you will no longer feel guilty or ashamed for not helping them more. So, not "I want my mom to see things from my perspective" but "I'm going to say what I want, even if mom yells" or "I'm going to tell my parents I won't be home for Christmas" or "I will ask my father to speak nicely to my children. Gibson says, “Emotional loneliness” is a term that suggests its own cure: being on the receiving end of another person’s sympathetic interest in what you’re feeling. These individuals often find it challenging to naturally regulate stress, communicate effectively, and empathise with their children. All emotionally immature parents have one defining characteristic in common, even if they differ in style-none of them puts their child's needs first.In my family -- based on the distinctions I will discuss in a bit -- my husband is sweet, nice, and kind; my daughter is sweet and kind, I'm only kind, and my son used to be none of the above, but is growing into himself as an adult who is both sweet and kind. Children are preoccupied with pure instinct while emotionally immature adults are driven by anxiety and insecurity.