Resource Review: Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: how to heal from distant, rejecting, or self-involved parents is a book written by Lindsey C. Gibson, PsyD. Dr. Gibson is a clinical psychologist with expertise in human development.
As a clinician in her private practice setting, she focuses her practice on adults working to unpack challenging childhood experiences. In this book, Dr. Gibson utilizes her clinical experience in combination with evidence-based research findings to explore the complex relationship between childhood upbringings and adult self-concepts. Dr. Gibson attempts to create a guide for individuals who have experienced the challenges of growing up with an emotionally immature parent. Readers will walk through the stages of understanding different types of emotional immaturity, the various responses that children may have when growing up and in mature home environments, and finally basic steps in the healing process.
Pros:
Dr. Gibson has created a very clear guide to understanding fairly complex elements in relational psychology. Readers will find that each concept is explained from a clinical level, and then reinforced through a de-identified vignette of a client that Dr. Gibson has seen in her practice. These real-life stories help to reinforce the concepts and allow the reader to understand how some of the relational dynamics may play out in common parent-child relationships.
Throughout several chapters of the book, the reader will find several lists, screening tools, and other resources to help apply the information in a self-reflective manner. Additional copies of the screening tools are also available through an online resource guide that purchases of the book have access to you. This allows readers do you have user-friendly, accessible versions of these tools for those who may want to discuss the book in a group setting, apply the screening tools to multiple different parents, or reevaluate their assessments of relationships and various points in time.
Towards the end of the book, there is a very user-friendly or step-by-step guide to practical ways to set boundaries with emotionally immature parents, ways to navigate these complex relationships as adults, and steps towards personal healing.
Cons:
The content of this book may be challenging for many readers who come from varying degrees of dysfunctional upbringings.
Many of the reflective exercises suggested, do you require individuals to have fairly distinct memories of their childhood, and the ability to thoroughly self-reflect, and may require additional levels of emotional regulation for the reader, which may be challenging for some. (Many of my clients report choppy or incomplete memories of childhood experiences, which may be frustrating or challenging to complete some of the proposed exercises.)
For readers helping to promote self-growth and personal insight:
This book is specifically written for individuals who are the children of emotionally immature parents. For that reason, this is an inappropriate and positive resource for those attending to increase personal insight into their childhood experiences and promote self-growth. It is important to note, that this book is written from the perspective of a clinical psychologist actively in practice, so the individuals who are used as examples in the book are doing this work of self-exploration, boundary setting, and healing, in the context of a supportive professional environment. Many of the exercises do require significant emotional regulation, and objectivity, and could be painful for some readers. It would be my clinical suggestion that this book may be best accompanied by individual therapeutic work or the assistance or support of a professional depending upon the degree of childhood wounding that is being addressed.
For professionals and other therapists:
Dr. Gibson does a thorough dive into the research on the complexities of parent-child relationships when parents may lack emotional maturity, self-regulation skills, and personal insights. Dr. Gibson appropriately poles from multiple theories including attachment theory, developmental theories, narrative therapy, family systems therapy, and more. She is adequate research that may assist other therapists in communicating with their own clients and supporting individuals who are working through childhood wounds and seeking to understand the dynamics of parent-child relationships better. The combination of these resources with the context of supportive individual therapy will likely be a helpful and healing combination for many clients.
It’s also important to know that as therapists, we enter this profession with our own history, and the reflective exercises in this book may help support therapists with complex parent relationships of their own to approach this work from a place of health and healing.
Final thoughts:
This book is unique, yet highly applicable to a large number of people who may be dealing with depression, anxiety, and other forms of emotional and mental distress as adults, stemming from complex child-parent relationships. The resources in this book should be used with caution, as they do require emotional control, and personal insight, which truly is a unique and research-informed view of the complexities of parent-child relationships in the varying results that adults parented by emotionally immature parents may face.
Interested in reading Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: how to heal from distant, rejecting, or self-involved parents Click here for purchase options.
(Links are included for convenience to readers. No benefit or compensation is received by Salyer Counseling Group)
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