Treating Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: A Clinician's Guide

(Paperback)

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Help your clients heal the emotional wounds created by growing up with emotionally immature parents.

If you treat clients who grew up with an emotionally immature, unavailable, or self-involved parent, you know all too well the lingering feelings of anger, loneliness, betrayal, or abandonment these clients experience in their daily lives. This comprehensive professional guide goes beyond mechanistic prescriptions to show you how to help clients not only recover from their symptoms-such as a lack of confidence-but to also restart their own personal growth and self-actualization process.

In Treating Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, psychologist and best-selling author Lindsay C. Gibson draws on more than thirty years of clinical experience as a psychotherapist, and outlines a unique approach to treating an extremely common syndrome that shapes the lives of so many people seeking therapy. In the book, Gibson also shares her perspectives on the goals of therapy, and what therapists need to know in order to provide the most effective interventions. Using these insights, you can help your clients heal from feelings of loneliness and abandonment, improve confidence, decrease reactivity to emotionally immature behavior, find healthy ways to stop self-sacrificing and meet their own emotional needs, and rediscover their true selves.

You'll also find powerful, effective therapeutic strategies to:
Establish a healing relationship with your clients
Help your clients feel seen and validated
Teach clients how to draw boundaries with emotionally immature people
Help clients think through when to cut ties with their parents or others
Help clients uncover self-defeating beliefs and engage in self-healing work

By helping clients free themselves from the effects of emotionally immature people-whether their parents or other people in their lives-you'll help them to create healthy, reciprocal, and positive relationships that uplift them and improve their overall quality of life.

Reviews

"After reading Lindsay C. Gibson's latest book, I find myself feeling so grateful for her emotionally mature voice in this world. Therapists will find both practical and profound guidance here. Having put language to what for so many ACEIPs has felt like ineffable pain, she has both validated and oriented us to our experiences and guided us out of suffering. This book now teaches therapists how to do the same for clients."
--Jenny Walters, MA, licensed marriage and family therapist, and founder of Highland Park Holistic Psychotherapy in Los Angeles, CA--Jenny Walters, MA
"In Treating Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, Lindsay C. Gibson offers compassionate guidance and practical strategies to help adults heal from the lingering effects of childhood wounds, empowering readers to develop healthier relationships and reclaim their emotional well-being. This insightful book is a vital resource for anyone navigating the complexities of parental influence on adult life."
--Britt Frank, LSCSW, SEP, author of The Science of Stuck and The Getting Unstuck Workbook--Britt Frank, LSCSW, SEP
"A must-read for anyone who treats adult children of emotionally immature parents (ACEIPs). Lindsay C. Gibson's clinician's guide is a modern and compassionate framework tailored for the unique obstacles faced by those who grew up with an emotionally immature attachment figure. Gibson's expertise and empathy shine through, offering practitioners the insights and strategies needed to support our ACEIP clients toward flourishing in self-alignment."
--Simona Vivi H, founder of the Center for Remothering and of www.remothering.org--Simona Vivi H
"Imagine having a wise, talented psychologist sitting beside you as you learn new skills in working with ACEIPs. In this book, Lindsay C. Gibson not only provides a guide for this work, but she also shares potential roadblocks that may occur and suggestions for how to move through them with illustrations from her own work."
--Esther Lerman Freeman, PsyD, associate professor, retired, Oregon Health and Science University --Esther Lerman Freeman, PsyD
"Lindsay C. Gibson has done it again! Whether you are a seasoned clinician or an early practitioner, this book will provide you with powerful strategies for helping ACEIPs. Her practical instructions provide a road map for deep emotional repair work. I love this work and strongly recommend it for all clinicians under my supervision."
--Anna Baranowsky, PhD, CPsych, clinical director at Bear Psychology, CEO and founder of the Traumatology Institute and Trauma Practice, and author of Trauma Practice--Anna Baranowsky, PhD, CPsych
"Masterful at helping clinicians understand ACEIPs and their emotionally immature parents (EIPs), this book offers background information on ACEIPs and EIPs, theoretical knowledge, important techniques, vignettes, and lists of ideas critical to working with ACEIPs. Containing an encyclopedic amount of knowledge, the book will deepen and strengthen your work with ACEIPs, and you will undoubtedly find yourself referring to it when working with this important population."
--Ed Neukrug, Batten Endowed Chair of Counseling at Old Dominion University, fellow of the American Counseling Association (ACA), and recent winner of the ACA publications award --Ed Neukrug
"This book is rich, readable, and practical! Lindsay C. Gibson is among my top ten go-to resources for working deeply with clients. This guide synthesizes current theoretical approaches, offering clinicians valuable treatment steps, empathic strategies, and useful tools for assisting clients to effectively process and grow from their formative experiences. Gibson also strikes the right balance between encouraging support and helpful psychoeducation for further developing our clinical selves."
--Suzan K. Thompson, PhD, consultant and licensed professional counselor in private practice in Virginia with more than thirty years of clinical practice experience--Suzan K. Thompson, PhD
"This is THE book we have been waiting for. Providing a comprehensive framework with practical interventions needed to effectively treat ACEIPs. With a voice of humility, expertise, and authenticity, Gibson provides expert guidance, equipping therapists with skills to support clients in overcoming their past to feel healthy, happy, and whole. An absolute must-read for every clinician."
--Tiffany Wentz-Root, MA, LMHC, ACS, corporate resilience and wellness facilitator, and founder of Resilient Roots--Tiffany Wentz-Root, MA, LMHC, ACS

Author Bio

Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist who has been a psychotherapist for more than thirty-five years, working in both public and private practice. In the past, Gibson has served as adjunct assistant professor for the Virginia Consortium Program in clinical psychology, teaching doctoral students clinical theory and psychotherapy techniques. She specializes in working with adults to attain new levels of personal growth, emotional intimacy with others, and confidence in dealing with emotionally immature family members.

Gibson is author of five books: Who You Were Meant to Be, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents, Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, and Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People. She also wrote a monthly column on well-being for Tidewater Women and Tidewater Family magazines for more than twenty years. Her website is available at www.drlindsaygibson.com. Gibson lives and works in Virginia Beach, VA.