Emotional deprivation
In simple terms, emotional deprivation is the long-term dissatisfaction of a person’s emotional needs.
The child needs an emotional, lively response from his parents, but there is no response.
And he lives “hungry” or “hand to mouth” - when occasionally he hears a stingy “well done”, or a neighbor smiles at him and treats him with candy.
Deprivation is loss, deprivation.
Emotional deprivation is loss, deprivation of emotional contact.
And for a human child, for a child, the need for emotional contact is basic, necessary for life.
For “prosperous” indifferent parents, the child does not seem to be in the emotional field of the family.
His sensory presence is ignored.
And he slowly learns to be out of involved contact with himself and people.
Such a child may be intellectually developed, especially if this was somehow encouraged by parents or someone at school.
He can live his sensual life in fantasies, inhabit other people's stories - stories, films, books.
But he is weaned from smiling in response to a smile. Cry when you are sad, and console when you sympathize.
He most often has prohibitions on expressing anger directly and sincerely, and he makes full use of passive aggression.
Stubbornness and harmfulness are what others see.
Defenselessness, confusion and permanent shock are what he lives inside.
Emotions for people are like gasoline for a car. Vasya feels and Vasya lives.
Our hero, non-Ivanov, dreams about life, reflects on life, analyzes life, fantasizes about life, maybe even “does life” and “does himself,” but does not live.
Not because he doesn’t want to, he wants it very much, but he doesn’t know how to express his emotional state.
A new young lady came to work. A pretty blonde, tanned shoulders and neck, a tattoo on her arm and the inscription “Stop the Earth, I’ll get off.”
The employees smile, whisper, someone called to go to lunch together, someone found out if she’s “married and has children.”
The new girl reacts in response: she clearly tensed up at someone’s stupid joke, she was happy at the offer to go for a smoke break together, she was embarrassed when she asked something about work for the second time, she was annoyed that she couldn’t immediately fill out the required paper for access to the local network.
None of them did anything on purpose, but after a few days Svetik already seemed to be part of the team.
Non-Ivanov did not participate in the general fuss. He wanted to, but didn't know what to say. I was terribly afraid of blurting out something inappropriate, of getting into a stupid and ridiculous position.
He watched her silently for six months, and was terribly upset when she began a flamboyant affair with a technical support engineer.
A year later, the romance ended rather sadly.
Not-Ivanov really wanted to hold her somehow, maybe offer his help. But he was still silent and looked, not understanding how to do a simple thing - how other men manage to find themselves in relationships when it was an impossible task for him to offer a pretty colleague a ride after work.
When a small child smiles sincerely, his mother blooms with a smile in response.
He lives his sensory experience in her emotional field.
She helps him cope with too strong emotions, responds to his presence.
Typical day. Doorbell. Vasya returned from school, he is a first grader.
Grandmother rejoices as if she had been given an order. He stops me and asks me to tell him how and what it was, and which teacher, and which guys, and which girls.
Urges you to wash your hands and have lunch urgently.
My mother immediately called from work, worried and pleased at the same time.
He hung up and another call - the father was interested in “how was the first day of school, son.”
Ordinary people are rarely, rarely noticed in what luxurious emotional wealth they live every day.
So, residents of a wonderful climate think that it is normal for it to be warm for more than a couple of months a year.
Children from families in which they experienced long-term emotional deprivation, like northerners without sun and warmth.
They vitally need it, but once they get to the south, they still need to be able to survive acclimatization, learn to remember about sunscreen, and not run out into the sun to “bask” for several hours before heatstroke.
In relationships, we not only receive “sunshine” or “thunder and storm” from other people, but we ourselves are sources of love and warmth.
Or cold and rain.
Or fog...
Our non-Ivanov learned from childhood to be a “neutral wall.” There is no warmth, love and sympathy from him, no passionate hatred, no embarrassment or anything else.
He does not experience severe suffering in the literal sense of the word; he rather feels “nothing” than pain or joy, sad or happy.
Other people might say that non-Ivanov does not allow them to show love and care, interest in themselves.
He does not respond, does not give signals at the level of non-verbal response.
His environment reads these signals and understands them as “don’t come, pass by.”
Which is what it does.
And he feels bad.
But he lives this lonely, sad and desperately want intimacy at the level of the “head”, and the body behaves like a “robot”, calmly frozen.
Another negative aspect of people who grew up in families with emotional deprivation is what is commonly called “ungratefulness.”
They seem to not feel sympathy for themselves and do not recognize the sympathy of others, which is read as rejection, devaluation and that same “ungratefulness.”
A person who has experienced emotional deprivation in a parent-child relationship believes that people will not be able to love him, be sincerely friends with him, care for him and be interested in him.
He is desperately afraid of being left alone.
And, at the same time, at the level of sensory involvement, he does not show his interest, his readiness to be in a close relationship.
Children who have experienced emotional deprivation very often develop one of the insecure types of attachment.
A child who is “not there” is an avoidant type.
It means that no matter how strong passions boil in his soul, only a “mask of indifference” will enter into external contact.
Now imagine what path in relationships needs to be taken in therapy, both the psychologist and the client, in order to teach the non-Ivanov not only to feel and understand his experiences, but also to show them spontaneously, share them with others, be able to cope with negative ones and enjoy the very process of living involvement.
You can compare this to how a person was taught to play chess throughout his childhood - to think and restrain himself in any communication situation, but it turned out that he needs to learn to sing and dance.
A completely different state, different “rules of the game”.
And before that, he still needs to be able to allow himself to master the sensory world, his own and other people’s.
After all, in his prosperous, decent, decent family, the law “we don’t do that,” “emotion is for weaklings,” and the like worked.
Growing up in a field of emotional deprivation is like a flower breaking through a crack in the asphalt. How can a plant from a sunny and hot country survive on crumbs of warmth in a shady place in Siberia.
Very hard.
If suddenly the reader recognizes himself in the “indifferent parent” and understands that he is unlikely to turn to a psychologist and learn to satisfy the emotional needs of his child, then you can at least, at a minimum, find for him a nanny, an assistant, a teacher, or maybe a relative - a mentor, any adult who will be emotionally warm, caring and stable in the child's life.
This will give him the opportunity to access human participation and love both in childhood and in the future when he becomes an adult.
Emotional deprivation is when, in response to your feelings and sympathy, you receive rejection and indifference.
It will be unpleasant for anyone to experience rejection.
It will be quite difficult for an adult to survive if he is rejected over and over again, day after day.
Emotional deprivation after some time leads to despondency, powerlessness, and decreased self-esteem.
Not being needed by a loved one is quite a painful experience.
To those who are rejected, it may sincerely seem that it will always be this way. Loneliness is his death sentence.
Now imagine a small child going through a similar experience.
A child who cannot say to himself something like “Yes, it’s sad that this mother is rejecting. It's a pity that my mother is indifferent. Anyway. I had two other mothers who loved me, and another one whom I myself rejected. And there will be more mothers in the future..."
Sounds crazy, doesn't it?
Mom is the only one.
And if she rejects her child on an emotional, sensual level, then he has a very, very hard time.
The decrease in vital energy is only part of his problem.
The inability to make contact, give and receive love is another part of his problem.
Low self-esteem, the conviction that he himself, in his originality and uniqueness, is not valuable, is not needed and cannot be loved - the third “piece” of the problem of emotional deprivation of a child.
There are three typical ways in which people cope with the effects of emotional deprivation from uncaring "welfare" parents.
The easiest option is to avoid the problematic situation.
No relationship means there is no need to contact other people, learn to be in close relationships, feel something, make mistakes, gain experience, get upset and upset.
Approximately such subconscious ideas lead to the decision: avoid contact by all available means.
Avoid not only in real actions:
- We're going out of town together this weekend!
- No I can not
- OK
A couple of refusals and people get used to the fact that they don’t have to invite an indifferent person anywhere.
The second way to cope with a problem is passive submission.
They said “you’re a nightstand,” which means you’re a nightstand.
If they can’t remember the name, we respond to someone else’s. Ivanov? So they will be Ivanov.
If you weren’t invited to the common table, don’t approach and don’t be offended. They called - he approached, they ignored him - he remained silent.
No relationship means no relationship. Hello loneliness.
The deputy boss decided that a “reliable person who doesn’t seem to drink” should go on a date with lonely Petrova under her auspices, so let’s go on a date. And it doesn’t matter whether Petrova likes it or not.
Sometimes even the most patient and enduring person reaches his breaking point and then he can break down and begin to hyper-emotionally demand something from others, express accumulated grievances to them, and later burn with shame and guilt for his action.
This is the third behavior option - overcompensation.
Another type of it is increased false emotionality.
When “oh, I sympathize”, “hold on, I’m with you, just hold on” and other things that are valuable only when they sound pathetic from the heart, with or without anguish.
People who are even remotely sincere are offended by this way of showing sensual contact.
Which again brings our non-Ivanov back to his problem of total deaf loneliness, as a consequence of emotional deprivation in childhood.
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consultation via Skype or text format
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Condition two: free and open exchange of emotions between parent and child
This is another very important factor for the successful emotional development of a child and his overall psychological health.
The ability to openly exchange emotions is ensured by the parent’s level of awareness, that is, the adult’s ability to observe his emotions and thoughts, identify and name them out loud if the situation requires it. Such a parent freely and appropriately expresses his own emotions and thoughts in front of the child and allows him to express himself openly.
The free exchange of emotions in the family usually provides the child with autonomy of judgment, the ability to express individuality, and the ability to regulate his behavior in various situations.
Such an exchange is possible when the parent perceives the child as a full-fledged person with autonomous boundaries, that is, as a separate person.
A low level of parental awareness is accompanied by high impulsiveness, irritability, and an uncontrollable outburst of emotions. Such a person is characterized by patterned behavior, automatic adherence to social rituals and scripts imposed from outside.
An unconscious parent often prohibits a child from expressing certain emotions, imposing rational explanations, in fact, on their own negative experiences: “Only the weak cry, and if you are weak, others will offend you... the weak achieve little... etc.”
In a family where the parent is not aware of his personal experiences and behavior patterns, the child is often perceived as an object of education that does not have its own boundaries, which requires adjustment, improvement and adaptation to the given framework.
What do we have to do? Brief summary
- Allow yourself to freely express your feelings and emotions.
- Allow your children to freely express their feelings and emotions, including towards you.
- Remember that the child freely expresses only those feelings that are understood by the parent.
- Allow your child not to conform to unconsciously imposed behavior patterns that are guaranteed to ensure your love.
- Encourage your children to become conscious adults who freely express thoughts and feelings.
