Therapy for Emotional Neglect
If you're experiencing a few or more of the following on a fairly consistent basis, therapy for emotional neglect is the right support system for you:
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Persistent feelings of emptiness
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Emotional numbness
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Feeling unfilled
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Apathy
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Difficulties depending on others
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Reject help from others
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Crippling self-doubt
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Low self-esteem
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Imposter syndrome
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Lack of self-discipline
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Difficulties identifying life goals
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Lack of self-compassion
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Harder on yourself than others
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Struggle with setting boundaries
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Focus on others needs but dismiss your needs
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Chronic guilt, shame or self-blame
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Anger directed inwards
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Difficulties trusting others
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Difficulties identifying emotions
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Difficulties managing emotions
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Difficulties expressing emotions
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Sensitivity to rejection
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Lack of assertiveness
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Easy overwhelmed
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Feel "different" from others
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Feel like something is "wrong" with you
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Feel like you are deeply flawed
It's not unusual for adults to neglect, ignore, minimize or be ashamed of their emotions. When your emotions are ignored or dismissed in your childhood, you are essentially taught to ignore your own emotions. With this can come many challenges, particularly in your adult life.
We specialize in counseling adults experiencing difficulties due to emotional neglect from childhood.
Our therapists are integrative and incorporate several therapeutic approaches and techniques to help support you in identifying and processing your childhood emotional neglect. Here are the most common approaches we use to support you:
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Compassion-focused therapy
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Psycho-education
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Psychotherapy
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Holistic therapy
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Inner child work
As Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors, we have received specialized training in treating every person as a whole, and we help clients heal by taking the entire human being and their life experiences into consideration for assessment and treatment purposes. The goal is to help you strike a balance in taking care of your entire being, so you can effectively heal from your emotional neglect in a way that works best for you.
Common contributors to childhood emotional neglect:
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Transgenerational neglect: parents who were emotionally neglected as children may do the same to their children
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Parenting styles: parents may lack healthy parenting skills to meet children's emotional needs
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Traumatic events: illness or death
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Significant life changes: divorce or job loss
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Mental health concerns: depression
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Addiction: parental substance or alcohol abuse
Childhood emotional neglect is when a parent merely fails to support their child emotionally. It is the absence of response to your emotional needs and it happens more often than one might think. If you think you may be experiencing difficulties due to emotional neglect and would like some support navigating through this, please connect with us. We'd love to help you get started.
Inner Child Work and Re-Parenting
Often, healing from our emotional neglect requires us to address our needs that have not been met as children. Your therapist is trained to help you navigate through this process and will do so with the use of inner child work and re-parenting.
Components of inner child work:
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Establishing safe relationships
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Emotional and physical safety
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Inner/re-parenting of yourself
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Self-compassion
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Setting healthy boundaries
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Assertiveness and advocating for self
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Connecting with your emotional self
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Grieving the loss of your childhood
We will incorporate several components of inner child work, along with attachment focused strategies, to support you in overcoming your emotional neglect.
If you are ready to take the next step, we invite you to connect with us. Our counselors offer a free 15-minute phone or video consultation so you can get a feel for whether we are a good fit for your unique needs.
If you’re interested in learning more, contact us. We'd love to help you get started!