Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

By: Lindsay C. Gibson PsyD

Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin

In this breakthrough book, clinical psychologist Lindsay Gibson exposes the destructive nature of parents who are emotionally immature or unavailable. You will see how these parents create a sense of neglect and discover ways to heal from the pain and confusion caused by your childhood. By freeing yourself from your parents' emotional immaturity, you can recover your true nature, control how you react to them, and avoid disappointment. Finally, you'll learn how to create positive new relationships so you can build a better life.

©2015 Lindsay C. Gibson (P)2016 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD, gives practical insight into a prevalent problem.... The book is impeccably clear.... This utter lack of confusion makes the book quite soothing, despite the heavy subject." ( Foreword Magazine)

Astonishing information.

It seem that my whole life I was searching for the information in this book. I came upon this book by strange chance, and I'm so pleased to have found it. Thank you audible for having us in your library this book has shown me so much about myself and my family structure. I absolutely recommend it, not only to those who feel that they might have emotionally immature parents, but also for those people who feel that their own partner might be suffering from emotionally immature parents. Performance only gets 3 stars because the narrator seemed to inconsistently flip-flop between the "character voice" to a regular reading voice when it came to the case studies, or examples from clients.

Brain rewiring!

First of all, the narration was great. It's very informative, concise, organized and as a person with ADHD, it was easy to follow. This book helped me understand the reason behind my mom's behavior and also why I was so addicted to my first relationship; that basically mirrored how my mother treated my father. It also gave me tools in order to set boundaries for people with such proclivities. It helped me identify that I tend to internalize emotions and how to avoid doing that in order to keep relationships and myself healthy. Furthermore, it aids in self-reflection and self-understanding, offering the opportunity for a "new life", because you are now empowered by new knowledge. I highly recommend this book to anyone in a relationship; may it be with their parents, a significant other or their children.

Illuminating

As an adult child of an emotionally immature parent, I can confidently say that I have sought out relationships with emotionally immature people my entire life because it felt familiar. These relationships always exhausted me. Because of this book, I now have a much deeper understanding of why and how. I learned that I am an internalizer, which explains why I reached for this book to begin with, and why I always aim to satisfy the role of “therapist” to my EI “friends” who are incapable of being emotionally present for me in my time of need. This book is so good. I can’t wait to order a hardcopy to refer to OFTEN, especially when I fall into behavior patterns of emotional immaturity. Please, do yourself a favor, read this book, and take back ownership of your life.

Life changing book

This book gave me clear instructions on how to heal from being raised by dysfunctional parents.

A good book, with a familiar story line

While the book did a good job of pointing out how to deal with emotionally immature parents, it seems that it it was singing a song that was sung by Toxic Parents, Healing Your Emotional Self, and Reinventing Your Life about the harmful effects of dysfunctional parenting. The information was good, and I am recommending the book to my clients, but it was definitely not groundbreaking.