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A review by okinreads
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: how to heal from distant, rejecting, or self-Involved-parents by Lindsay C. Gibson
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.75
I found this book to be incredibly helpful and informative. I listened to the audiobook version, which I think helped it feel more engaging. The author goes over a few major sections that include what it means to be emotionally immature and specifically how this influences parenting, the impact of being raised by emotionally immature parents on the child, and finally resources and strategies for navigating life as an adult after having these experiences. There were exercises throughout the book to help you through the process and I found them to be really helpful. After finishing the book, I feel like I have more confidence and a stronger capability when it comes to assessing my needs, setting boundaries, and navigating future interactions with a focus on self care and self love. Very exciting!! I really liked this book and would recommend it to anyone who struggles in their relationship with their parents, grandparents, in laws, or if you just want to better understand emotional immaturity.
There were a few things that do hold this book back in my opinion. The first thing is that I didn’t see the author ever state the cultural context she comes from or what lens to read the book in. To me, everything is cultural, so that felt like a crucial piece that was missing. I did my own research on the author and figured out she is a white American, but I think it would’ve been useful to acknowledge that that’s her background and the context for her research. The second thing is that she sections off the children of emotionally immature parents into two types: internalizers and externalizers. She spends a great deal of time focusing on internalizers and their traits, internal beliefs, typical ways they express themselves in this context, and ways to cope with some of the unhealthy thought patterns they have. She also states that if you’re reading her book, you’re most likely an internalizer. I was hoping she would go into as much depth with externalizers, but she really just said that typically externalizers become emotionally immature parents later in life, blame their problems on others, and don’t seek out self awareness, and she left it at that. I didn’t appreciate this model and although she says you can have traits from both sides, I don’t see why a binary system is helpful in the first place. Internalizers are absolutely emotionally immature as well and primarily focusing on the negative aspects of externalizers felt very strange to me.
Overall, despite my complaints, I did still find this book to be helpful and insightful! I would recommend taking the internalizer/externalizer binary less seriously, but to hear what she says and take what you specifically need from the book.
There were a few things that do hold this book back in my opinion. The first thing is that I didn’t see the author ever state the cultural context she comes from or what lens to read the book in. To me, everything is cultural, so that felt like a crucial piece that was missing. I did my own research on the author and figured out she is a white American, but I think it would’ve been useful to acknowledge that that’s her background and the context for her research. The second thing is that she sections off the children of emotionally immature parents into two types: internalizers and externalizers. She spends a great deal of time focusing on internalizers and their traits, internal beliefs, typical ways they express themselves in this context, and ways to cope with some of the unhealthy thought patterns they have. She also states that if you’re reading her book, you’re most likely an internalizer. I was hoping she would go into as much depth with externalizers, but she really just said that typically externalizers become emotionally immature parents later in life, blame their problems on others, and don’t seek out self awareness, and she left it at that. I didn’t appreciate this model and although she says you can have traits from both sides, I don’t see why a binary system is helpful in the first place. Internalizers are absolutely emotionally immature as well and primarily focusing on the negative aspects of externalizers felt very strange to me.
Overall, despite my complaints, I did still find this book to be helpful and insightful! I would recommend taking the internalizer/externalizer binary less seriously, but to hear what she says and take what you specifically need from the book.