Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

by Lindsay Gibson

PLOT SUMMARY:

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson combines the psychology of attachment and the human need for connection with numerous anecdotes that offer a very stark picture of the reality of growing up in a home where secure attachment was not available due to a parent’s emotional immaturity. Throughout the book, there are stories, questionnaires, and psychological evidence that illuminate what it feels like to grow up in a home where the deeper emotional needs of truly being seen and understood were not met. After a thorough explanation of closeness and the naming of various impacts on readers who grew up without a healthy sense of this closeness, the book offers insights around the building blocks of empathy, what happens when we did not receive it growing up, living with an internalized worldview versus an externalized worldview, and the path forward. The path forward reveals the science, logic, and steps needed to find freedom from the once helpful, but now restricting life templates that were built to survive an environment absent of deep emotional connection.

EVALUATION:

Gibson shows a clear picture of the unmet childhood needs in the lives of many adults whose parents were either unstable, overly driven, avoidant, neglectful, or dismissive. While parents likely do the best they can with what they have been given, that does not mean that they had the emotional capacity to give their children what they need: emotional intimacy. She states, “Emotional intimacy is profoundly fulfilling, creating a sense of being seen for who you really are. It can only exist when the other person seeks to know you, not judge you” (8).

Through Gibson’s stories, the reader learns in a deeper way than ever before that the emotional neglect or harm they received was real, had an impact, and had nothing to do with them. Readers are finally able to name and put words to the experience of growing up in a home where one or both parents did not have the emotional maturity needed to create a secure connection.

Gibson normalizes why people feel the way they do when their caregivers were not able to provide a stable, emotionally mature environment. She then provides a practical approach to breaking free from the toxic ties, inner pain, and emotional instability that is pervasive in the lives of those who did not experience the deep security of emotional closeness.

THIS BOOK IS APPLICABLE FOR THE FOLLOWING:

• Readers interested in learning more about how their childhood impacts their present day relationships:

“Unfortunately by expecting past rejection to repeat itself, these children end up stifling themselves and promoting more emotional loneliness…As a therapist, my  job is to help them realize how their parents have damaged their self-confidence while also encouraging them to tolerate the anxiety of trying something new in order to connect more with others” (Gibson 20).

• Readers who feel guilty for the disconnection or even the hate they feel toward their parents and ultimately wish to be free of it:

“…’I can’t believe how much I hated her,’ he said. What Jake didn’t realize is that hate is a normal and involuntary reaction when somebody tries to control you for no good reason. It signals that the person is extinguishing your emotional life force by getting his or her needs met at your expense” (Gibson 16).

• Readers who are ready to not only think differently, but ultimately FEEL differently about themselves and others, and create a new path for their family.

“Dan Siegel, a well-known psychiatrist and author, has written eloquently about the healing power of emotion (2009). He says that if we allow ourselves to sit with our true feelings as they emerge, we can be transformed…..when we are feeling emotion, we are integrating and absorbing new awareness into our consciousness…I often tell clients that tears can be thought of as a physical sign of the integration process that’s occurring in our hearts and minds” (Gibson 169).

Review By Crystal King