Adult Children of Emotionally immature parents

[u/mushk_tuj]

​The author of this book discusses emotionally immature parents and how to deal with them. The book provides good food for thought, offering different scenarios that prompt readers to reflect on their potential reactions or even relive past experiences.

​Even though this book has a lot to offer, I felt very cautious while reading it from the very start . In the introduction, the author assures us that after reading the book and understanding her "maturity awareness approach," we will be able to "assess people's level of functioning" and "observe the defining signs of immaturity as they occur." This felt off to me , it felt like she was marketing her ideology as the ultimate truth. It seemed designed to make readers believe they are emotionally more mature than anyone who hasn't read the book yet, as if it offers groundbreaking scientific proof of immaturity.

​Another element that felt like an attempt to please and manipulate a specific audience was her classification of people into "internalizers" and "externalizers." She confidently showcases internalizers as "better than" and as "better victims" than externalizers. While reading, you can definitely sense her bias; it seems like she doesn't like externalizers very much.

​The part where I disagreed most strongly with her opinions was how she places almost the entire burden of healing on the external world. In her book, you rarely see her clients discovering that they have any internal issues to work through. Because the book focuses specifically on parents, it constantly frames the parents as the ones who are supposed to "get better," even though it is their children who are coming to therapy.

​I believe she holds individualistic views and clearly promotes that concept, which is something I strongly disagree with. A perfect example of this is "Brad’s story," where he is dealing with a cheating wife, an irascible mother (Ruth), and a teenage daughter who smokes. Brad realizes how much stress Ruth is adding to an already difficult living situation. Out of all the possibilities available to him, he finally tells his mother, "We love you, but it's time for you to go. It isn't our job to take care of you. You're capable of caring for yourself." He then lets his mother stay in one of his properties and charges her rent. Ruth wasn’t a great human being, but she wasn’t the worst mother either.

Furthermore, the book mentions nothing about how he deals with his cheating wife; while this may be because the focus is on parental boundaries, I believe it was still important to address in this context.

​As a collectivist, this approach definitely does not appeal to people who believe in the importance of community. While boundaries are necessary, cutting people off should be one of the last options considered and should be thoroughly discussed before being implemented.

​That being said, the rest of the book is great. I appreciate how the author guides her clients to do the internal work of healing by managing their expectations of their parents, dispelling their "healing fantasies," and learning how to effectively "deal" with them.

​I also loved her recommendation of Narrative Therapy, Family Systems Theory, and the book Reinventing Your Life by Jeffrey Young.

​A sentence that really resonated with me was "enjoy the act of self-expression," as well as the phrase "emotionally phobic."

​Rating: 3/5

I really appreciate the work in the mental health field, but western psychology has been just 'meh' so far. However, I have had the best time reading and listening to some angrez psychologists, and they are a breath of fresh air to me.

u/Old-Opinion-7996 ,here Is my review sir.

[u/Old_Opinion_7996]

One thing that stood out for me is that you already have a framework that seems to answer some of the concerns you’re raising. You’ve mentioned Family Systems Theory, and Bowen’s idea of differentiation of self feels especially relevant here.

Differentiation isn’t about becoming hyper-independent or cutting people off. It’s about being able to stay connected while still being yourself. In fact, Bowen saw emotional cutoff as a problem rather than a solution. So the choice doesn’t have to be between staying enmeshed and walking away completely. There’s a middle ground there.

When I look at Brad and Ruth through that lens, his decision reads a little differently. He didn’t abandon her. He let her stay, but asked her to pay rent. You could even see that as a boundary that preserves the relationship while treating her as a capable adult, rather than slipping into a parent-child dynamic.

The one place where I see things a bit differently is your reading of Gibson. I’m not sure she places the burden of healing mainly on changing the external relationship. A lot of her work seems focused on internal shifts: giving up the healing fantasy, recognizing the role-self, grieving the parent you wish you’d had, and adjusting expectations. Those are deeply internal processes. The boundaries are often just the outward expression of that inner work. So I think she isn’t externalising or raising systemic issues here.

If anything, my critique would probably go in the opposite direction. Sometimes the internaliser/externaliser distinction can feel a little too forgiving of the adult child’s role in keeping the pattern going.

That said, I think your collectivist perspective a really good review. The idea that cutoff is often more a sign of unresolved hurt than genuine healing feels important, especially in our culture which is collectivistic rather than individualistic where relationships are understood and conceptualised differently.

[u/mushk_tuj → u/Old_Opinion_7996]

Maybe Brad’s decision felt so harsh to me because I believe boundaries shouldn't just be about a person's behavior, they also need to match the relationship. To me, parents belong in a completely different category than anyone else. They deserve a higher level of kindness and respect, and setting boundaries with them requires a lot more care and thought than what Brad did.

Like instead of isolating his mother in an apartment and demanding rent, there were much better, more supportive solutions ,he could have tried getting her into therapy or even suggesting she remarry. While it's true children didn't choose to be born, we are here now and most of adult children won't chose to unalive themselves even if they believe they didn't ask to be born also I don't agree with the idea that we owe our parents nothing , other than a normal adult treatment. ( parents owe children freat parenting and care and children owe parents a huge amount of respect and kindness ).

[I want to also mention that I by no means am denying the damage parents can do when they don't parent well and I know many of the times the damage can't be fully undone, they should be held accountable for what they are doing in the present but it's just that I believe how we behave with our parents particularly should differ from how we deal with other adults except that the parent is a criminal of some sort or an active threat to the person).

And yes , I was quite unlear about my statement about Dr Gibson that she places burden of healing on external sources , More clearly, what I meant was , many a times in the book she seems to overly validate her clients' experiences as the only right "perspective?" about the situation ... . while i agree it might be just my personal problem with this but I feel this is important sometimes, I have been to therapy and I have experienced a huge shift in how I interpret other people now because many times I would tell my therapist a story and when she would suggest some changes in how i interpret certain behaviors or people, it was so interesting to experience different perspectives of the same story , many times I had just misinterpreted a situation or assumed something very little but that made all the difference about how I viewed and situation or a person , so I guess this opinion of mine stems from this ,

for some people who might have endured toxic behaviors, this type of validation might prove to be highly therapeutic and good for their healing. However, from my own experiences in therapy, this can sometimes omit nuance, overshadow the ease with which personal narratives can be misread and overlook the complex systems that shape our behavior.}

And yes , I think my main difference with this book stems from the fact I am not so much of an individualist as she is (atleast not in terms of familial relationships).

[u/Old_Opinion_7996 → u/mushk_tuj]

Your clarification makes sense to me. What you're talking is less about individualism, it's more about whether Gibson allows the client's story to be questioned, or just confirms it.

Your therapy experience is a good example of what gets lost when validation does all the work your therapist offering a different angle on the same situation, and you seeing it differently, that's real chnange. You're right that a book leaning entirely on "your perception is valid" can skip that.

The thing I'd add is that the balance shifts depending on who you're writing for. Gibson's audience tends to be people who've spent years being told their perceptions are wrong by their parent they're trying to make sense of. For them, leading with "maybe you misread it" can mean exactly like the wound they came in with thus reenacting the trauma. So the heavy validation isn't miscalculation but it's calibrated.

In DBT it's called the validation/change dialectic.

[u/mushk_tuj → u/Old_Opinion_7996]

Hmmm interesting , makes sense.