"Childhood neglect describes the trauma of what didn't happen. Neglect occurs when parents or caregivers fail to meet their child's educational needs or to provide adequate food, shelter, and medical care. Also, when parents and caregivers fail to provide emotional support, they may withhold validation, nurture, and affection, resulting in emotional neglect."
"Growing up without consistent emotional attunement, validation, or care interferes with a child's ability to develop a stable sense of self. When caregivers are emotionally absent, dismissive, or unpredictable, children construct meanings about who they are without adequate relational mirrors. Gélinas et al. (2025) research on adults entering therapy for intimate partner violence shows that psychological neglect is one of the strongest predictors of identity diffusion in adulthood. Identity diffusion refers to the difficulty of maintaining a coherent, stable sense of self."
Childhood emotional neglect occurs when caregivers fail to meet educational, physical, or emotional needs, withholding validation, nurture, and attunement. Growing up without consistent emotional attunement or predictable care disrupts the development of a coherent, stable sense of self, leading to identity diffusion characterized by confusion about feelings, needs, and deservingness. Identity diffusion increases vulnerability to relationship conflict, disconnection, insecure attachment patterns, and contributes to risk for intimate partner violence. Relational and systemic therapies repair fractured identity by fostering emotional safety, consistent attunement, validation, and mutual recognition within close relationships, enabling new relational meanings and stronger interpersonal boundaries.
#childhood-emotional-neglect #identity-diffusion #intimate-partner-violence #couple-and-systemic-therapy
Read at Psychology Today
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]