How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

Messiah Community Radio Talk Show

Are you one of the countless people who grew up with emotionally immature parents? If your parent's needs came first, you may still recall painful moments of childhood emotional neglect, when your feelings were dismissed, or when you took on adult levels of maturity in an effort to compensate for your parents’ behavior. And although you likely cultivated strengths such as self-reliance and independence along the way—strengths that have served you well as an adult—having to be the emotionally mature person in your relationship with your parent is confusing and exhausting. Emotionally immature parents take a toll on their children. Emotional loneliness is often the result of having parents who were so wrapped up in their own issues they neglected your needs for connection and attention, and even expected you to make them feel better. You can free yourself from the depleting role of catering to the needs of the emotionally immature. Once you understand how these immature people function, you will no longer feel guilty or ashamed for not helping them more. You will learn how to reconnect with your true self while interacting with others in ways that keep you from being emotionally drained. ​This book has been an Amazon bestseller and has been translated into thirteen languages. With the recent publication of my latest book, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, I have answered a question that has intrigued me for years: why do so many psychotherapy clients seem so much more together and self-aware than their family members? In other words, why are the least problematic people the ones seeking treatment? Realizing that many of my clients’ family members were highly emotionally immature, I set out to explore and explain their destructive interactions in a way that could free people to live their own best lives without being worn out by these draining personalities. By understanding our loved ones’ emotional immaturity, we can regain our trust in ourselves and get free from the destructive and confusing effects of early programming from childhood. In my previous book, Who You Were Meant To Be, I focused on how people can reconnect with their true self and sense of purpose. I have devoted my professional life to helping people learn how to rely on their own emotional guidance, strengthen their self-awareness, and increase their energy for full living. After obtaining two graduate degrees in clinical psychology – a Master’s degree from Central Michigan University, and a Doctorate of Psychology from the Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology – I became licensed as a clinical psychologist in the Commonwealth of Virginia. For many years I was also an Assistant Adjunct Professor for the College of William and Mary and Old Dominion University, teaching classes of doctoral students in the Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology. I have specialized in adult psychotherapy and personal growth counseling, as well as doing years of intensive personality and intellectual testing. In-depth psychodynamic training helped me understand people’s problems from a developmental perspective, leading to my livelong fascination with the striking differences between adults in their levels of psychological maturity. I came to clinical psychology from a background in art and literature, fascinated by all aspects of human creativity and conflict. Beginning in college as a studio art major, I then briefly switched to psychology, where I was disappointed to find an emphasis on animal experimentation instead of understanding people. Seeking to explore human nature, I finally found what I was looking for in English literature, where human desire and motivation could be studied endlessly. Finally in my senior year, a developmental psychology class introduced me to the field of clinical psychology, providing the scientific fascination I had been seeking.