Sep 5, 2021
“There is a good explanation for why emotional neglect had been so overlooked. It hides. It dwells in the sins of omission, rather than commission; it’s the white space in the family picture rather than the picture itself. It’s often what was NOT said or observed or remembered from childhood than what WAS said. All parents commit occasional acts of emotional neglect in raising their children without causing any real harm. It only becomes a problem when it is of a great enough breadth or quantity to gradually emotionally “starve” the child. Whatever the level of parental failure, emotionally neglected people see themselves as the problem, rather than seeing their parents as having failed them.”
Jonice Webb, Running on Empty (pdf is linked)
