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Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'
Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect by Jonice Webb, Christine Musello
2 reviews
marythewriter's review against another edition
This book was whooping my ass. Some relatively heavy content so had to put it down.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Mental illness, Self harm, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, Addiction, and Suicide attempt
crufts's review against another edition
informative
reflective
fast-paced
3.75
Running on Empty is a pop-psychology book discussing the concept of parental "emotional neglect", a term coined by the author. In general, parental emotional neglect occurs when parents fail to respond to their children's emotional needs.
"Emotional needs" include having one's interests and concerns recognized, being taught to handle boundaries, responding appropriately to authority, self-soothing skills, and more.
A classic example of emotional neglect would be if a child says "I like that" or "I don't like that" and the parent responds with "No you don't" or "Don't be ridiculous". However, there are many classes of emotional neglect discussed in the book, neatly laid out in a list of categories.
The author emphasizes the invisible nature of emotional neglect, saying (paraphrased) "When someone is overtly abused, they generally remember and recognize that it happened. If they find themselves struggling as an adult, at least they know what childhood influences are involved. But it's hard to remember something that didn't happen."
In this way, emotional neglect is like the "dark matter" of many people's childhoods, making its influence known while remaining invisible.
Overall, I thought it was an interesting concept and certainly worth discussing. Coming from a research angle, I found the book helpful as an author's reference. Specifically, it's great for authors who want to write characters with parents who don't quite understand them, but who are not overtly evil (with the exception of the sociopathic class of parent).
I also liked the use of illustrative examples in the book. However, I found it annoying that the author kept reusing the same child character ("Zeke") for wildly different situations.
Finally, it troubled me that the author inadvertently described being very pushy with her patients, insisting they had suffered emotional neglect even when they repeatedly denied it. It felt like she had just gotten a shiny new hammer (her theory of emotional neglect) and suddenly everything looked like a nail.
This was one thing I didn't like about the concept of "emotional neglect" as defined in the book: at times, it seemed to encompass an overly broad spectrum of behaviours. For example, examples were given of abuse that went beyond plain "neglect", like with the example of the sociopathic parent. In contrast to the author's assertion that "emotional neglect" is a lack of something, a mark of something that didn't happen, these examples are instead very memorable cases of abuse that did happen.
I think the book would have felt tighter and more unified if these parts were kept separate from the concept of emotional neglect.
Despite this complaint, the book was definitely an interesting read and helpful for research.
"Emotional needs" include having one's interests and concerns recognized, being taught to handle boundaries, responding appropriately to authority, self-soothing skills, and more.
A classic example of emotional neglect would be if a child says "I like that" or "I don't like that" and the parent responds with "No you don't" or "Don't be ridiculous". However, there are many classes of emotional neglect discussed in the book, neatly laid out in a list of categories.
The author emphasizes the invisible nature of emotional neglect, saying (paraphrased) "When someone is overtly abused, they generally remember and recognize that it happened. If they find themselves struggling as an adult, at least they know what childhood influences are involved. But it's hard to remember something that didn't happen."
In this way, emotional neglect is like the "dark matter" of many people's childhoods, making its influence known while remaining invisible.
Overall, I thought it was an interesting concept and certainly worth discussing. Coming from a research angle, I found the book helpful as an author's reference. Specifically, it's great for authors who want to write characters with parents who don't quite understand them, but who are not overtly evil (with the exception of the sociopathic class of parent).
I also liked the use of illustrative examples in the book. However, I found it annoying that the author kept reusing the same child character ("Zeke") for wildly different situations.
Finally, it troubled me that the author inadvertently described being very pushy with her patients, insisting they had suffered emotional neglect even when they repeatedly denied it. It felt like she had just gotten a shiny new hammer (her theory of emotional neglect) and suddenly everything looked like a nail.
This was one thing I didn't like about the concept of "emotional neglect" as defined in the book: at times, it seemed to encompass an overly broad spectrum of behaviours. For example, examples were given of abuse that went beyond plain "neglect", like with the example of the sociopathic parent. In contrast to the author's assertion that "emotional neglect" is a lack of something, a mark of something that didn't happen, these examples are instead very memorable cases of abuse that did happen.
I think the book would have felt tighter and more unified if these parts were kept separate from the concept of emotional neglect.
Despite this complaint, the book was definitely an interesting read and helpful for research.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse
Moderate: Child abuse, Mental illness, and Domestic abuse
Minor: Abandonment, Death of parent, and Medical content
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