Childhood emotional neglect is a term that’s being discussed more frequently; alongside other types of emotional abuse, it’s beginning to receive the gravitas that it deserves in order for us to work through and heal as adults. When you think of neglect, your mind will more than likely jump straight to a child who is left for hours or days on end, perhaps in dirty nappies or without food, unable to care for themselves and without anyone to care for their basic needs. Whilst many may have experienced this type of abuse and the impact it has on us as adults is huge, there are many who may have had their basic physical needs met, but their emotional needs were neglected with the same level of callousness and indifference. The sticking point for emotional neglect, for any type of emotional abuse, is often how society, and by proxy how we, perceive it to be ‘less’ damaging, when research suggests that isn’t the case at all.

Maslowe’s Hierarchy of Needs: Did you really have ‘everything you needed?’

Consider for a moment Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow’s theory emerged in 1943, initially as a study into human motivation, but over time it has become one of psychology’s underpinning theories, and is widely accepted as a basis for understanding how we develop and what our needs are. Today we understand Maslow’s theory as stating that we have a pyramid of needs, each one building upon a foundation of physiological needs such as breathing, food, physical touch and water. If we don’t have those most basic needs met, we can’t progress to the next stage of the pyramid and meet other needs. Seems simple enough, right?

We put such emphasis and importance on the ‘basic needs’ in society, and yet according to Maslow’s theory, over half of those needs are emotional. It begs the question: why do we dismiss the impact of emotional abuse such as childhood emotional neglect? Often what we find with emotional neglect is that one or more of the stages on the pyramid have been ignored or skipped – perhaps we had safety, a ‘roof over our head’ and parents who didn’t fit into any of the classic abuser categories, but we didn’t have love or belonging. We might look back and see that we sought to fulfil the need of love and belonging through striving harder for esteem, be that at school, with high grades or sports achievements, or perhaps within a friendship group, where we acted in ways that didn’t align with who we were, or perhaps we became stuck, unable to move past that lack of love and belonging and acting out in anger with a core belief that we were never enough. When one of these needs is missing, the others can’t compensate.

Lindsay Gibson’s Externalisers and Internalisers

In her book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, Lindsay Gibson notes that adult children of emotionally immature parents who have experienced emotional neglect often follow one of two paths: they become an internaliser, or they become an externaliser. Internalisers do exactly what it says on the tin – they internalise their negative experiences with their toxic parents. They are often very reflective and passionate about learning and healing, but they run the risk of becoming people pleasers and taking on too much of the emotional labour in relationships, becoming resentful in the process.

  • Internalisers are attached to the idea that they hold the power to change their circumstances and meet their own needs, but sometimes also that they hold the power to change others too. They would have been the child who tried their hardest to please their parents with good grades, sporting achievements and constantly seeking approval to feel ‘enough’. They may well have gone on to become high-achieving adults, but always feel there is something missing, or have a sense of never feeling fulfilled or reaching that self-actualisation at the top of the pyramid.
  • Externalisers hold firm to the belief that someone else needs to come along and fix their problems or fulfil their needs, and nothing they do will ever account for the ‘lack’ in their life. They are often impulsive or reactive, sometimes displaying their own narcissistic tendencies, and feel entitled or owed by the world. Externalisers would be the child who became stuck, unable to move forward into adulthood and become responsible for fulfilling their own needs or breaking out of the cycle of anger and hurt they are in. As a child they often mimic the toxic parent, in the subconscious hope that the parent will ‘see’ them and meet the needs they are neglecting.

Are you a rescuer? Karpman’s Drama triangle.

This dynamic ties closely to Karpman’s drama triangle, which illustrates the roles of victim, persecutor, and rescuer. Children experiencing emotional neglect are often pushed into these roles by a manipulative parent, externalisers learn to play the victim or persecutor role, leaning into the ‘help me’ or ‘you’ve done this’ narratives, whereas internalisers often take on the role of rescuer – taking on emotional burdens, striving to keep the peace, or trying to ‘fix’ family dysfunction. This behaviour, while a survival mechanism, often evolves into people-pleasing tendencies in adulthood, where the individual continues to sacrifice their own needs to avoid conflict or seek validation through care-taking others.

Gerenational trauma: Now we see the patterns

At this point you might be able to see how the patterns of generational trauma emerge. Perhaps you have siblings who mirror your toxic parent, or you recognise that, in your younger years, you did. As you’re reading this blog post, you’ve probably reached a point where you’ve become aware that your patterns of behaviour are no longer serving you, especially in healing your childhood trauma. Or maybe you’ve moved past this point and addressed some of these internalising or externalising behaviours, but you fear that cycle repeating with your own children. Whether you internalise or externalise, it can be detrimental to your healing, and finding a balance is key. We look a bit more at finding balance between internalising and externalising in another post.

For now, you might find it helpful to journal. Consider what area of your emotional needs was neglected, and reflect on how you have responded to that as you’ve grown into adulthood. As always, be kind and gentle with yourself, and remember you are not responsible for the choices or behaviour of your parent.