Book - Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD
This book is about more than parent-blaming. Drawing on her extensive clinical career working with adults bravely exploring their various broken relationships, Dr. Gibson provides a clear, accessible framework for fostering healthy adult relationships - with parents, with an intimate partner, with acquaintances, and even with yourself.
You'd think the title says it all - and it does say a lot - but this book offers even more. Dr. Gibson helps people name the emotional burden they carry into adulthood and consider what healthy interdependence looks like, not just between parents and their adult children, but also between people in general. The book also provides checklists and specific questions that help the reader examine the extent to which their experience lines up with other people who have also struggled in relationship with a parent.
I also appreciate that this book helps the reader look inward and understand their unique temperament and how that can contribute to codependent patterns in relationships.
I recommend it because it makes the amorphous, opaque experience of guilt and parental estrangement take shape into something manageable, workable, and frankly hopeful. As a parent I've found this book has changed how I interact with my children, one of whom has recently crossed that threshold into adulthood.
"A lack of emotional intimacy creates emotional loneliness in both children and adults. Attentive and reliable emotional relationship are the basis of a child's sense of security. Unfortunately, emotionally immature parents are usually too uncomfortable with closeness to give their children the deep emotional connection they need."
Important Links:
Thrift Books - Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
