My Summary & Takeaways of Book: Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson

Hi, everyone.  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll share a summary and my takeaways from the book by Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson --  Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents.

Right now, I'm a mental health therapist in training and I've been reading tons of books to help me support and understand my clients better.   Some of these books are really excellent and I thought I'd share a summary and my thoughts since it may help you if you are considering purchasing a book.   In addition, it helps me to better synthesize and understand the information if I share it with you before I share it with my clients.

The book I read this time was Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents.  So, I've read a bunch of books about having parents with all kinds of issues: Narcissism, Borderline Personality Disorder, physical abuse, alcoholism, etc.  The thing that I like about this book is that it takes all of those different kinds of parents and boils the issue down into one big umbrella trait -- emotional immaturity. 

So, the thing is -- kids need things from their parents.  The obviously need food, water, shelter, and safety, but in addition, they need emotional connection.  People who had parents who were obviously neglectful or abusive probably realize that they have to work through some complex childhood trauma.  But for those who had all of their physical needs taken care of, it's hard to figure out why they may feel so emotionally lonely, angry, or distant from others.  They can also feel guilty for being unhappy, have a hard time trusting their instincts, and lack self-confidence.  I'm going to struggle to capture all of this in one video, but I'll do the best I can to give you the highlights. 

First of all, how can you tell if your parent was or is emotionally immature?   It's characterized primarily by having difficulties with the strong emotions of others.  Some people who are emotionally immature are perfectly fine expressing their own emotions -- even gleeful at times -- although others shut down their own emotions completely.  However, both of these types, when faced with a child's disappointment, sadness, or anger, really cannot handle it.  They can be so preoccupied with their own situation that they never even notice their child is out of sorts.  But when they are actively approached for emotional comfort, they pull away or might even get angry with the child for having these feelings.    These parents can be unpredictable -- wise at times and unreasonable at others.  They can lash out at any difference of opinion and can get defensive when challenged.  They don't have much self reflection and don't accept blame or offer apologies when it's clearly warranted.  Some will use their children as a confident, but they will not provide that support back to their child.  

Does any of this sound familiar?   This books give 2 assessment tests that will help you determine your parent's level of emotional maturity and determine the difficulties you may have had as a child with that parent.  I think the scoring is a total cop-out -- she basically just says if any of these are true, they are a sign of emotional immaturity.  But as a parent myself, it is literally impossible to never do any of these things unless you have the inner peace of the Dalai Lama.  I am sometimes insensitive, self-absorbed, and a killjoy, but you are looking for a regular pattern of these behaviors -- and the more behaviors exhibited, the higher the level of emotional immaturity.

I will say that some people have a really hard time labeling their parents as emotionally immature.  Particularly if you know your parent had a  rough childhood or you watched them struggle and sacrifice to give you what you needed physically.  Dr. Gibson points out that it's not an act of betrayal to acknowledge this about your parent.  In fact, it may help you to better understand their issues and may result in more compassion towards them.  But the most IMPORTANT thing is that having a level of awareness and acceptance of these issues may help you to do something about it for yourself, so you don't continue to perpetuate these unhealthy patterns.

There are 4 different kinds of emotionally immature parents: Emotional, Driven, Passive, and Rejecting:

• Emotional parents - are consumed by their own feelings and swing between overinvolvement and withdrawal.  They are unpredictable and anxious and need others to stablize them.  They see people, including their children, as either saviors or abandoners.
• Driven parents - may look the most normal.  They are achievement oriented and very busy.  They are constantly trying to perfect everything including their own children and can be controlling and tend to inappropriately interfere with their children's lives.
• Passive parents - seem to have compassion and empathy, but really they just avoid dealing with anything upsetting.  They may passively allow the more dominant parent to abuse or neglect their children without intervening.  They also give in and minimize issues just to preserve their own peace.
• Rejecting parents - don't appear to want to be bothered by their own children.  They command, blow up, or isolate themselves and never show any closeness or real actual engagement in family life.

Some parents are a blend of 2 or more of these types.

The next thing Dr. Gibson discusses is how children react to having emotionally immature parents.  There are two main coping styles: externalizers and internalizers.

• Externalizers tend to think all of their problems are caused by something outside of them AND that solutions also come from the outside.  Thus, they tend to live in the moment, act impulsively, blame circumstances, never take responsibility, and expect help from others.  They also tend to seek comfort from external sources like drugs, alcohol, and other numbing agents.
• Internalizers tend to think all of their problems come from inside them.  They also believe they can solve all of their problems by being more thoughtful, more careful, more successful, and more self-reliant.  They tend to be more introspective and feel more guilty.  They also do too much emotional work in their relationships -- giving a lot without asking for much in return.

Here is a small complaint about this book.  She does a lovely job of speaking directly to a specific kind of Internalizer -- and to be fair, that is the sort of person who is most apt to read the book.  Someone who is constantly striving to be more, do their own work, make things better.  However, the tone is a bit demeaning to Externalizers who, to be fair, are harder to sympathize with with their "everyone else is to blame attitude" and the acting out when they are emotionally disregulated.  She makes the point that most emotionally immature parents are Externalizers.

But I also think she missed a whole segment of Internalizers who aren't actively engaged in improving themselves and aren't trying constantly to make the relationship with the parent work.  And that is the Avoidant Internalizer.   These folks believe they can make a difference, but they do it by shutting down all of their emotional borders: nothing in, nothing out.  They aren't doing too much work in their relationships, because they keep their relationships entirely at an emotionally superficial level.  They avoid anything that smacks of emotional intimacy and protect themselves by being fiercely independent and self-reliant.  I also think there are people who fall somewhere between these two poles -- vacillating between being overly emotionally accommodating and shutting down for protection.  The bottom line is -- you want a bit of both the External and Internal coping styles.  You have to acknowledge that you are aren't responsible for every situation and that you alone can't fix it.  At the same time, you have to have some sense that you can make incremental and meaningful changes to your own life or else things will never get any better.

There is a whole chapter on being an accommodating Internalizer.  They are sensitive and perceptive, they have strong emotions and strong need for connection.  Unfortunately, they believe that they need to put other people first in order to connect.  They are apologetic when they need help and have a hard time asking for it.  They can become easy to neglect since they aren't acting out or demanding attention.  They feel immense gratitude for any kind of recognition at all.  They are very independent, but have a hard time trusting their instincts.  For example, sometimes they don't recognize abuse or boundary crossing in others.  As I said before, they do most of the emotional work in their relationships and they tend to attract emotionally immature friends and partners.  In this way, they can re-enact their lopsided childhood patterns with their parents in their adult relationships.

Dr. Gibson talks about the two things that hold us back: childhood healing fantasies and role-selves.  I won't go into too much detail here, but basically we have these fantasies that came about in childhood about what will make us truly happy one day.  We then foist these expectations onto our adult partners and expect them to fulfill them.  In addition, we created or were assigned a role for ourselves in our families of origin that helped us to cope, but those don't always line up well with who we are as people. 

People come into therapy for a whole bunch of reasons, but they rarely come in saying -- I need better ways to cope with having had an emotionally immature parent.  Instead, there are other indications of problems: depression, anxiety, anger management, relationship issues, etc.  I'm not Freudian, but I do believe that the strength of your emotional attachment in your most primary childhood relationship  affects every relationship and your entire understanding of life as you grow.

Finally, I like that Dr. Gibson gives good practical advice about changing the relationship with your emotionally immature parent for the better.  I have witnessed this change and it can be extremely difficult and wrenching, so give yourself some time and grace to get through it.  The first and most important thing is to change your expectation about what you might get from your emotionally immature parents.  Give up the fantasy that they will change and give you that positive feedback that you crave.  The new connection that you build will be about relating WITHOUT expecting a "relationship".  The three steps are observing in a detached way, focusing on the outcome, and stepping outside of your old role.  Let's take these one at a time:

• Detached observation - this involves operating from a calm, detached observational frame of mind and observing the interaction as though you were a scientist.  Recognize when you are feeling needy, angry, or vulnerable, and try to take steps to "detach, detach, detach."  You can always figure out a way to get some distance if your emotions start to blow up -- go for a walk, take a bathroom break, play with a pet.  The goal here is NOT to have a satisfying emotional exchange.  Instead, you just want to be able to relate without expecting emotional connection.  Manage, but don't engage.  Next,
• Focus on the Outcome - you should move away from expecting emotional connection and feedback, and instead figure out a specific goal for yourself.  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."  It will definitely be a change in how you normally interact.  And finally,
• Stepping out of your old role - be aware of the role you have played for your parent -- whether that is confident, helper, or golden child -- and step away from those set patterns.  Realize that your parent will try all kinds of tactics to throw you off your balance and get your back under their control.  Stay polite, don't react, and try not to take the bait. 

The last couple of chapters tell you what is will be like to be free of your parent's demands and how to identify partners and friends who are emotionally mature, so you don't continue to replicate old patterns.  In the end, I think this book could be transformative and healing for so many, but it can be unpleasant and emotional to face all of this.  It also takes a lot of self work to continue to manage these relationships without engaging.   Some people get overwhelmed reading it the first time and have to put it down until they are emotionally ready.  If this summary resonated with you, go buy the book.  It could save you hundreds of dollars in therapy.  Let me know what you think.  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!