While it is a part of our work, too often therapists overlook the issue of childhood emotional neglect, which cause cause insecure attachment and lead to problems down the road, says one woman.
That’s why psychologist Jonice Webb wrote the book Running On Empty about childhood emotional neglect. She identified a few reasons why it’s not brought up in the therapy more often despite it being so pervasive in an article of Psych Central.
“1. For therapists, CEN hides in plain sight. It’s so ubiquitous and such an integral part of Attachment Theory (a basic tenet for mental health professionals) that therapists just know it. It’s like the blurred backdrop behind the picture. In the mind of a therapist, CEN is not a thing. It just is. So we’ve never bothered to give it a specific name.
2. Research. Therapists don’t necessarily think of CEN as the cause of the specific pattern of adult symptoms that I have identified and described in my book, Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect. So as of now, there is no body of literature or research for them to consult. Establishing research data to support the pattern is my next goal. In the meantime, the only source of this full picture is the book, Running on Empty.
3. Memories. Most therapists like to deal with memories and facts as much as possible. CEN often offers neither
4. Eclipsed and Blurred – “Child Abuse and Neglect.” When I scoured the professional literature for mentions of Emotional Neglect, I found many references. But it was virtually always as part of this phrase: “child abuse and neglect.” I realized that this phrase has contributed to CEN being so overlooked. Unfortunately, the ubiquitous use of “child abuse and neglect” has taken the concept of Emotional Neglect and thrown it into a pot mixed with three other things which are far more visible and memorable:
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- Physical abuse: hitting, physical threatening of a child.
- Physical neglect: not providing enough food, shelter or warm clothing, for example.
- Emotional abuse: actively saying damaging things to a child, calling her names for example.”
She ends the article with a call for psychologists to look for childhood emotional neglect more often:
“If I could speak for all the therapists in the world, here is what we would say to them:
Your pain is real. It’s not nothing. You have it for a reason. It’s not your fault.
You feel invisible, but we see you. You can speak, and we will listen. So stand up and talk. And let us help you heal.”
