Sometimes, when I’m working with people struggling with problems like chronic anxiety, depression or disordered eating, it’s hard to figure out where these problems came from. They describe reasonably happy families, with loving parents who did their best to raise happy, confident children. And sometimes what we figure out together is that there were ‘small misses’ – subtle issues with their parents’ attunement to that little boy or girl that led to lifelong problems.

Of course, sometimes these misses were not small and there was a deep lack of love, care, support, safety or any of the other things children need to meet their core developmental needs. And whether this lack of what you needed in childhood was small or large, what we are talking about is emotional neglect – an incredibly common problem that’s a key factor in many mental-health difficulties.

What is emotional neglect?

In schema therapy, we see this neglect showing up as an Emotional Deprivation schema. This means that, as a child, you were deprived of some of the key emotional nutrients you needed in order to thrive. And of all the schemas, this can be one of the hardest to detect in people, because it’s primarily about the absence of good things, rather than the presence of bad things. Let me give you an example.

*Jean comes to see me and in her first session, explains that she has a lifelong history of depression. She also recognises that she has low self-esteem, feeling bad about herself across the board and lacking confidence at work, as a mum, in her friendships and in terms of her body image.

When I ask about Jean’s childhood, she paints a rosy picture. ‘Oh, family life was great,’ she tells me. ‘I had such a happy childhood. Mum and dad were good to us, we had a nice house and everything we needed.’

But as our sessions unfold, it becomes clear that things were not quite so great for Jean. She was a shy, sensitive child who needed lots of love, warmth, support and encouragement from her parents. Although her dad was a kind man, he was also a workaholic, spending long hours at the office. Jean recalls barely seeing him throughout her childhood. ‘He was always at work,’ she says. ‘But I understood, because he paid for our house and all the lovely things we had as kids.’

Sadly, these ‘things’ were how her mother showed love to her children. She was quite a cold person, who was not good with emotion, so showed her kids love in practical ways – cooking meals, making sure school uniforms were pressed and clean, giving them toys for birthdays and Christmas.

She never told her kids that she loved them, never hugged them and scolded them when they were scared or hurt. She just couldn’t handle what she called ‘weak’ emotions like fear or sadness. So Jean didn’t get any of the love and hugs that she needed – an absence of good things, which didn’t help build her self-esteem and left her vulnerable to the depression that has plagued Jean throughout her life.

Healing the wounds of childhood

If Jean’s story resonates with you, it’s possible that you might have experienced emotional neglect as a child. And if so, what can you do to make sure this neglect doesn’t cast a shadow over the rest of your life? First, as I often say in these posts, knowledge is power. Start by reading up on neglect, in my blog and others like it.

You may also like Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect, by Jonice Webb. It’s an excellent self-help book that explains exactly what this form of neglect is, the different styles of parenting that can cause it (from the well-meaning but unattuned to the destructive and traumatising), and offers lots of helpful techniques and strategies to help build your sense of self-worth, confidence and resilience as an adult.

Second, if your wounds are really deep, you might need some help from a mental-health professional like me. Schema therapy is really effective for problems like neglect, but lots of other approaches will also help, like CBT, internal family systems or compassion-focused therapy. All of these approaches will help you identify painful, self-limiting beliefs and behaviours that maintain the sense of being unlikable, unlovable or not enough in some way.

Finally, remember that experiencing neglect as a child was categorically not your fault. You didn’t choose your family, or whatever issues they had that didn’t allow them to give you all the love, support and affection that you needed. So whatever problems that neglect caused in later life are not your fault either. You were just unlucky, got dealt a bad hand as a child, so you’re now struggling with the consequences.

But enough is enough. Don’t let the neglect you experienced define you as a person. Don’t let it define your life. You deserve to be loved, valued and cherished as much as any other human on this planet. Make today the day that you commit to healing and happiness. I very much hope that you find both.

Warm wishes,

Dan

*All of the case studies on this blog are composites of actual people – I would never reveal any personal or identifying information about my clients.