{"id":24461,"date":"2025-03-22T08:15:06","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T09:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=24461"},"modified":"2025-03-22T09:26:35","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T09:26:35","slug":"the-interview-dr-lindsay-gibson-on-emotionally-immature-parents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=24461","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Interview\u2019: Dr. Lindsay Gibson on \u2018Emotionally Immature’ Parents"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We live in a culture permeated by therapy, one in which people are eager to apply psychotherapeutic concepts to themselves and their closest relationships. That includes, naturally, the relationship with our parents. But the desire to understand the hows and whys of our parents\u2019 emotional influence is hardly new. Indeed, a classic poem by Philip Larkin, \u201cThis Be the Verse,\u201d was buzzing around my mind as I prepared for this interview with the clinical psychologist Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson, author of the book \u201cAdult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents.\u201d Larkin\u2019s poem begins like this: \u201cThey mess you up, your mum and dad.\/They may not mean to, but they do.\/They fill you with the faults they had\/And add some extra, just for you.\u201d (Poetry aficionados will notice I swapped in a clean word for a foul one. Forgive me, Philip.)<\/p>\n

But what do we do with the age-old knowledge that parents can bend us in damaging ways? That\u2019s where Gibson comes in. Her book has become a slow-burning best seller since it was published in 2015 and has earned a devoted following on social media, where videos of people talking about it have been seen by millions. In the book, Gibson argues that a key to understanding harmful parental behaviors is, as her title suggests, the notion of emotional immaturity. Furthermore, that parental immaturity has negative ripple effects for children that last into adulthood. But thankfully, she says, it\u2019s possible to get out from under the weight of those emotionally immature parents. Even if that means, in drastic cases, breaking off the relationship entirely.<\/p>\n

So as someone for whom Larkin\u2019s poem rings true, I had much to ask Gibson, as well as a fair degree of skepticism about her work to put to her, all of which she was game to entertain, and all of which can still at times leave me muttering to myself: \u201cParents. Oy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The clinical psychologist explains the demands of \u201cemotionally immature\u201d parents, the impact it has on their children and the freedom of saying \u201cno.\u201d<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Subscribe: <\/strong>Apple Podcasts<\/a><\/strong> | <\/strong>Spotify<\/a><\/strong> | <\/strong>YouTube<\/a><\/strong> | <\/strong>Amazon<\/a><\/strong> | <\/strong>iHeart<\/a><\/strong> | <\/strong>NYT Audio App<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The broad definition of emotionally immature parents is parents who refuse to validate their children\u2019s feelings and intuitions, who might be reactive and who are lacking in empathy or awareness.<\/strong> But can you give me examples of emotionally immature behaviors? <\/strong>The biggest one is egocentrism. Imagine that a person starts and ends all their consideration with what\u2019s best for them \u2014 that\u2019s egocentrism. I just started watching \u201cThe Sopranos\u201d for the first time. If you listen to the dialogue, they completely nailed it, because everything always comes back to the viewpoint of the emotionally immature character. It\u2019s always all about them. Another one is the lack of empathy. The parent just doesn\u2019t get it. They say, \u201cWhy are you so upset about this?\u201d Or, \u201cThis is not a big deal.\u201d They cannot enter into the reality of their child\u2019s emotional truth.<\/p>\n

Those characteristics can show up even among the best parents sometimes. So how do people distinguish between normal, flawed parental behavior and behavior that\u2019s detrimental enough to rise to the label of \u201cemotionally immature\u201d? <\/strong>If you think of emotional maturity and immaturity as being on a continuum, all of us have a spot that we tend to hang out on. It doesn\u2019t mean that we stay there. If you\u2019re tired or you\u2019re sick or you\u2019re stressed, you are not<\/em> going to be as emotionally mature as you could be when you\u2019re rested and well and not stressed. However, if you\u2019re in one of these compromised states, you may do some things that look immature, but it\u2019s going to bother you. You\u2019re going to think about what you did. The emotionally immature person, it\u2019s like: \u201cThat was in the past. Why are you wallowing in it?\u201d The more emotionally mature person would get why you\u2019re still upset, and they\u2019re going to do something that indicates that they have felt for the other person\u2019s experience.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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We live in a culture permeated by therapy, one in which people are eager to apply psychotherapeutic concepts to themselves and their closest relationships. That includes, naturally, the relationship with our parents. But the desire to understand the hows and whys of our parents\u2019 emotional influence is hardly new. Indeed, a classic poem by Philip Larkin, \u201cThis Be the Verse,\u201d was buzzing around my mind as I prepared for this interview with the clinical psychologist Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson, author of the book \u201cAdult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents.\u201d Larkin\u2019s poem begins like this: \u201cThey mess you up, your mum and dad.\/They may not mean to, but they do.\/They fill you with the faults they had\/And add some extra, just for you.\u201d (Poetry aficionados will notice I swapped in a clean word for a foul one. Forgive me, Philip.)But what do we do with the age-old knowledge that parents can bend us in damaging ways? That\u2019s where Gibson comes in. Her book has become a slow-burning best seller since it was published in 2015 and has earned a devoted following on social media, where videos of people talking about it have been seen by millions. In the book, Gibson argues that a key to understanding harmful parental behaviors is, as her title suggests, the notion of emotional immaturity. Furthermore, that parental immaturity has negative ripple effects for children that last into adulthood. But thankfully, she says, it\u2019s possible to get out from under the weight of those emotionally immature parents. Even if that means, in drastic cases, breaking off the relationship entirely.So as someone for whom Larkin\u2019s poem rings true, I had much to ask Gibson, as well as a fair degree of skepticism about her work to put to her, all of which she was game to entertain, and all of which can still at times leave me muttering to myself: \u201cParents. Oy.\u201dThe clinical psychologist explains the demands of \u201cemotionally immature\u201d parents, the impact it has on their children and the freedom of saying \u201cno.\u201dSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | iHeart | NYT Audio AppThe broad definition of emotionally immature parents is parents who refuse to validate their children\u2019s feelings and intuitions, who might be reactive and who are lacking in empathy or awareness. But can you give me examples of emotionally immature behaviors? The biggest one is egocentrism. Imagine that a person starts and ends all their consideration with what\u2019s best for them \u2014 that\u2019s egocentrism. I just started watching \u201cThe Sopranos\u201d for the first time. If you listen to the dialogue, they completely nailed it, because everything always comes back to the viewpoint of the emotionally immature character. It\u2019s always all about them. Another one is the lack of empathy. The parent just doesn\u2019t get it. They say, \u201cWhy are you so upset about this?\u201d Or, \u201cThis is not a big deal.\u201d They cannot enter into the reality of their child\u2019s emotional truth.Those characteristics can show up even among the best parents sometimes. So how do people distinguish between normal, flawed parental behavior and behavior that\u2019s detrimental enough to rise to the label of \u201cemotionally immature\u201d? If you think of emotional maturity and immaturity as being on a continuum, all of us have a spot that we tend to hang out on. It doesn\u2019t mean that we stay there. If you\u2019re tired or you\u2019re sick or you\u2019re stressed, you are not going to be as emotionally mature as you could be when you\u2019re rested and well and not stressed. However, if you\u2019re in one of these compromised states, you may do some things that look immature, but it\u2019s going to bother you. You\u2019re going to think about what you did. The emotionally immature person, it\u2019s like: \u201cThat was in the past. Why are you wallowing in it?\u201d The more emotionally mature person would get why you\u2019re still upset, and they\u2019re going to do something that indicates that they have felt for the other person\u2019s experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24463,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24461"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24464,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24461\/revisions\/24464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}