Book Review: Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect by Jonice Webb, PhD

If there was any single book that applied to nearly all of my clients, this would be the one.  Emotional neglect is incredibly common, super hard to see, and yet it results in complicated feelings and issues that shape personality and behavior.  AND it’s treatable.

Emotional neglect means that a child did not receive appropriate attention to emotional needs, hugs, play, discipline, teaching, encouragement, supervision, or concern.  The majority of the time, children don’t notice that this support is missing because their family is typically the only family they’ve ever known.  Kids’ brains are designed to believe that if there’s an issue, they are the problem.  In order to get through emotional neglect, kids have to decide that their needs aren’t important; in fact, it would be wrong for their needs to be met.  Is that starting to sound familiar?  These kids grow up to be adults who often have difficulty giving their own needs and emotions enough priority.

Emotional Neglect is a neglected topic.  It is about what didn’t happen, so it can be harder to research.  Unlike issues such as depression or physical abuse, it’s really hard for someone to recognize that they’ve been emotionally neglected.  Research subjects are hardly waving their hands in the air asking to be counted.  In fact, one common trait of people who have been emotionally neglected is that they often rigorously defend their parents as “good” and as “having done their best.”  “My childhood was perfect.  I had everything I wanted.”  Who and what could there be to study?

Jonice Webb has done a phenomenal job of seeing very clearly these things which are super hard to see.  Her writing is not vague or ambiguous.  She takes this very confusing topic and lays everything out step by step.

She begins by laying out what emotional neglect can look like with a series of fictional vignettes organized around several different reasons that kids can end up being emotionally neglected in a home.  Her list includes:

·      The narcissistic parent—can only think about themselves.

·      The authoritarian parent--It’s my way or the highway!

·      The permissive parent—lacks oversight and engagement

·      The bereaved parent: divorced or widowed—too stuck in their own loss to engage in parenting

·      The addicted parent—not able to regulate themselves or stay present

·      The depressed parent—lacks the energy to be engaged

·      The workaholic parent—too busy to attend to the children

·      The parent with a special needs family member—might expect the other children to not have their own needs

·      The achievement/perfection focused parent—doesn’t recognize what’s appropriate for the actual child

·      The sociopathic parent—hurts their child or withholds affection for the parent’s own enjoyment

·      Child as parent—here the parent acts like a child and forces the child into taking more responsibility and an adult role

·      The Well-Meaning-but-Neglected-Themselves parent—lacks the understanding that children have emotional needs

By specifically calling attention to each of these 12 scenarios in which children can be emotionally neglected, Dr. Webb shows the many faces of emotional neglect.  For example, while some emotionally neglected kids regularly have to make all of their meals by themselves, others may have all of their meals made for them.  Emotional neglect has a wide range of examples.  What is common between them is that overall, the children were not provided the regular, dependable emotional support that kids need.

The 12 categories of parents that Webb provides are not meant to be limiting, as in, these are not the only categories of parents who might emotionally neglect their children.  Also, there are plenty of parents who are divorced, have demanding jobs, or are depressed who nonetheless manage to consistently provide their children with a nurturing, consistent emotional connection.  Other types of parents who might be at risk of emotionally neglecting their children includes parents with any sort of mental illness; generational trauma; racial oppression; poverty; parents/families going through any type of crisis; or families where abuse is present.  Abuse itself can result in children having a somewhat different set of symptoms to deal with later in their lives.  However, emotional neglect is very often present in homes where abuse occurs.  When this is the case, the abuse is not necessarily the bigger issue and it’s often the emotional neglect that makes it harder to heal from the abuse.

I’ve probably more than made my point.  Parents can be emotionally neglectful for any reason.  There are lots of different ways that can look.

To help you determine whether you might have experienced childhood emotional neglect, Dr. Webb has developed an online tool which is available on her website.  It’s a quick series of questions that you have access to after providing your email address.  She will then send you regular emails with more information.  It’s easy to unsubscribe if you’re not interested.

In her work as a therapist with clients who have experienced emotional neglect, she has found that they tend to have a similar series of traits:

·      Feeling empty

·      Counter-Dependence (can’t ask for help, need to be independent)

·      Unrealistic self-appraisal

·      No compassion for self, plenty for others

·      Guilt and shame: what is wrong with me?

·      Self-directed anger, self-blame

·      The fatal flaw (if people really knew me, they wouldn’t like me)

·      Difficulty nurturing self and others

·      Poor self-discipline

·      Alexithymia (an inability to feel, notice, and name emotions)

Of course, it’s common that adults who were emotionally neglected as children will struggle to meet the emotional needs of their own children.  Dr Webb address this with a balance of stating that parents are responsible for the care they provide their children while not blaming them or becoming negative.  She writes with great compassion as she provides guidance and support for parents trying to avoid passing on that legacy.

Emotional neglect is treatable.  In the book, Dr Webb focuses on supporting people to begin noticing their own emotions, including explanations on why that’s even important or helpful.  The other key piece is to learn to nurture yourself.  She includes charts to track your progress as you begin to notice and value new, healthy actions.

In my own practice, I use parts work and Lifespan Integration to build the neurological connectivity so that all of this becomes much easier.  With parts work, clients are able to directly practice caring for themselves, validating their emotions, and listening to themselves.  With Lifespan Integration, we are building new neurological connections that weren’t built for you as an infant and young child.

This would be a good book to buy and have on your shelf.  You may want to return to it each time you get an inkling that you’re ready to take another step forward.  As she says, you can’t tackle your whole recovery at once.  It’ll come in stages.  Keep the book at hand and keep moving forward.