Evidence-Based S4E1: Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People with Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD
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- Опубликовано: 21 авг 2023
- To purchase Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People from New Harbinger Publications, please visit: bit.ly/3Yh7bXp
Welcome to Season 4 of Evidence-Based!
Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD, author of Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People, joins us for a second time to discuss navigating relationships with emotionally immature people. Lindsay 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 four other books: Who You Were Meant to Be, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents, and Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. She also wrote a monthly column on well-being for Tidewater Women and Tidewater Family magazines for over twenty years. Her website is available at www.lindsaygibsonpsyd.com. Gibson lives and works in Virginia Beach, VA.
Visit our website at www.newharbinger.com and use coupon code 'Podcast25' to receive 25% off your entire order.
This podcast is edited by Jesse Fankushen.
To purchase Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People from New Harbinger Publications, please visit: bit.ly/3Yh7bXp
Spot on: every interaction becomes so exhausting. It's not your communication skills, they just don't want to understand you. And @52 minutes!
My older brother is an externalizer and I am the opposite - the internalizer. I grew up carefully watching and learning how to act the exact opposite to prevent chaos and turmoil in the home. Dr. Gibson explains our family dynamics to a T. I am just now trusting myself and realize my parents will never be able to provide me with what I need. I don’t like them as people, but I love them and that’s ok. I have to limit my contact to a minimum or else it scrambles my brain and takes me several days or weeks emotionally and mentally to recover from talking with them.
For me it used to be 2 days. Two days of feeling suicidal after contact, then ok again 🙂
I’ve been married to an emotionally immature man for 42 years. The pearl box analogy was spot on with our relationship. I’ve often said I feel like I’m on “50 First Dates” in my marriage. He doesn’t seem to connect things or remember things. Especially things about me. This has gone on a very long time and I never could understand it.
What is pearl box analogy? Ok google told me 😊
Yep. Me to. 42 years. 😢 I feel your pain. It is SO confusing, so lonely, so difficult to navigate because there's little "evidence" that something is seriously wrong. What hurts most is the damage of emotional neglect to my children.😢😢
This really describes the person who i considered my best friend for 30 years. She hasn't exactly wronged me. However her lack of self reflection or ability to accept responsibility, even in situations which do not involve me, became intolerable. This was usually due to her wanting someone else to fight her battles. Her lack of empathy and need for control effected me personally and I had enough. The moment that told me I needed to distance myself was when I realized I had traveled several hours to celebrate her children's and her birthdays, then received a text message on my birthday. I knew I made the right decision when I called to tell her my boyfriend proposed and we were engaged. She then told me how she and another friend discussed this happening and our friend would be very upset if another friend were made my maid of honor. We are in our 40s.
I wish only blessings for her, but I feel lighter not being close to her.
This gets very confusing when in the therapy community you are taught to "validate feelings" so then the person tells you to validate their mischaracterization of your intentions in a malicious way, jumping to their own conclusions as fact and if you are to argue what your intentions are then you are not validating their reality, they feel disrespected for not validating them and shut the conversation down with "I'm not going to argue with you", "you are gaslighting me" or respect my boundaries (meaning this isn't a conversation I'm willing to have) so now what? I feel like the therapy community is doing a real disservice by teaching "validating feelings" as gospel and not illuminating how it can be missused/misunderstood/weaponized, etc.
I totally agree.
I am currently struggling with this concept.
Validating is NOT agreeing with the content that they are saying. Validating is “holding space” for the expressed emotion. To do this takes an extraordinary amount of emotional intelligence.
You can’t have your ego needing to protect their characterization of you. You know who you are and you can see that they are working with a lot of cognitive distortions. You don’t take their internal distortions personally. If you do, this merely points to work inside yourself that isn’t complete, core wounds etc.
For example, if I tell you that I think you are a 5 headed purple dotted hippo…will you take that personally? Likely not. It doesn’t hit on any previous wounding. You can sit there, without defending, “setting them straight”…and say “interesting, tell me more”.
My example was very obscure and didn’t involve much sign of emotion (definitely delusion though) and so in an actual real life situation, you listen for the emotion and address that. You will get nowhere getting into “narrative correction” if you don’t validate the emotion. If you can’t do that, don’t understand that, then you can continue to build that skill. It works wonders.
If you stay in the surface level of defending the details and not seeing the painful emotions driving what they’re saying, you won’t be able to be therapeutic at all.
This is so well put!
“Any parent with more than one child can tell you how unbelievably different those two children are”. Any parent as long as they’re not an emotionally immature parent!
we , our parents, had no moral compass to direct us. we, our parents, had no guard rails to protect us. surviving was all we could do.
No moral compass? Whatsoever? Then you were stealing and assaulting others left and right?
When people say extremes, absolutes, you can almost guarantee that they have lenses of many cognitive distortions (all/nothing, always/never). The thinking is very narrow, rigid and doesn’t appreciate nuance and complexity of life.
When you say “we” are you talking about you and your family? Or we as in everyone? Not everyone is in survival mode only. Not everyone is missing a moral compass completely…
While you can have had struggles and also successes…it’s rarely entirely one or the other. That sounds like the lies trauma tells.
Your comment could be taken directly out of a CPTSD quote book…it screams CPTSD. I hope you can heal
@@Alphacentauri819you sound like an abuser i hope you can heal
Thank you. I'd love a book specifically on how to deal with Emotionally Immature Spouses.
Me too
Divorce. There's more important things than money
@@alfsmom8025and what about the kids 😢
I'm married 61 years to one. He still is a child. We live in the same house but I have my own life. Not the life I envisioned 61 years agp.
@@sandranovakovich688 Did you ever have children? I'm 20 years in, not married, no children and I feel the same way you do. I've done a lot of therapy to accept this and come to terms with the way things are, knowing even though he could never walk me down the aisle, we are still committed to each other and I'm in it for the long haul. It doesn't make it any less lonely though.
Writing a letter can sometimes be effective because the emotionally immature person can read it when they are calmer. As a child, I used to write letters to my mother rather than trying to talk to her when she would lose her temper, scream and act irrationally over quite trivial matters. She would read the letter when she had calmed down and the message concerning my POV on that particular issue seemed to get through. But her overall emotional maturity did not improve and these incidents occurred regularly and still do, even though I'm now in my sixties and she is in her eighties.
Wonderful topic. It’s explaining so much about my becoming dysregulated so frequently in my marriage. I’m now a widow & wanting to understand. I’ve bought your book. Thank you.
Hang in there! It’s impressive that You are seeking to grow through it all and learn more. You can do it!
I am so thankful to have come upon this book. This will help me break the family cycle and raise an emotionally secure human being. Knowledge is power!!
Good for you. Wish this was the goal for more parents.
@@alfsmom8025 true... it is, i guess-suppose, for many parents not clear (yet) that they need to clear out their own problems before having babies... they don't realise 'still' yet, it's devostating how many people are traumatised 😢 'knows too well'... the tricks, the lies, the gossip (hugs from Belgium)
My mom would never talk about her growing up years and I was always confused about this. She is on the other side now but I always tried and was always shut down. So sorry she could not go there. She did not display empathy toward any one that I ever ever EVER remember, only put down others. (Hope she has peace now, and am sure she does have peace because Jesus was her Savior, as He is mine also.)
Thank you for sharing. That is a very insightful comment. People not speaking about the past means that it was not worth speaking about in a way that is honest because it is too painful to them
thanks. So sorry she had pain, We came to know Jesus late in life so we did not know how to deal with lifes complications@@angelamossucco2190
The comment about the 4 yr-old and the cookie made me laugh.
Oh thank you Jesus 🙏🔥!! Thank you Holy Spirit for leading me to this video!! 🙏❤️ it makes so much sense my whole life, these type of people are sticking to me like a fly to the light 💡 and my whole life I’m thinking something is wrong with me and I feel exactly how you explain, shocked and without words!!! But actually I was dealing with EIP 🔥 oh my God!!!! The spell broke with knowing Jesus and He delivered me from the evil that attacked me from the traumas that these people caused me and now I have a vocabulary to know what happened to me. Thank you so much!! This is cherry on the top of my healing 😍❤️🔥!! Hallelujah ❤️🔥
Lindsay has such clarity in the way she describes the experience of communicating with the emotionally immature person. This framework has given me such a powerful way now of framing interacting with my brother and sister. I am interacting with ‘children”. We were in a dysfunctional family. Brother and sister were stunted in their emotional development (narcissists), whereas I became an empath. Thank you, Lindsay. Professor-Elizabeth
such a shame that after all these years my library STILL doesn't have Lindsay Gibson books.
The reason my brother and me had such different childhood experiences is because our mother treated us completely different. My brother was the favored child. To this day 30 years later, it is still the case.
same here and it still just as painful as it was when I was a child and felt unseen and unheard. I didn’t matter.
Even though I have adopted two children from orphanages and had two biological children and have raised a successful family for the most part, not to mention the fact that I have earned three degrees while raising teenagers… I’m still overlooked. My brother has a high school education, but they helped set him up with his own business so that could be slanted for success in life in every way.
I’m not jealous of any success that my brother has, he’s the golden boy and everybody knows it, but what I’m jealous of is the fact that they have loved him unconditionally and they never offered that to the other three of us
I can do without things, but to live with injustice is very difficult for me
I guess that’s why I became an advocate and a teacher and defender of the underdog in my life
I am the underdog
Thank you so much for your wisdom
31:12 Erickson challenges for growth
45:33 ambiguous loss
I appreciate and find it helpful to not have any of the DSM 5 labels of disorders used in these conversations.
Yes! I was thinking the same thing.
Profoundly meaningful and clear content. Thank you.
Thank you for the bottom of my heart ❤
Thank you so much for you work 🙏🏼🙏🏼💖
Many thanks for sharing this conversation 💞
25:45. Thank for explaining this dynamic.
These conversations are very helpful! Thank you!
Thank you! This was incredibly valuable content.
Thank you❤
Thank you! ❤
Thank you for the comment on children of divorce and addicts. Another act committed on our children.
Wow this is so eye opening. Thanks so much for your wisdom. My life feels better already just understanding what is happening.
Lindsay, you so brilliantly describe my ‘inner’ experience. I do know that I am not crazy when trying to interact with my emotionally immature older brother and younger sister. but having you frame the dynamic has been nothing short of ‘freeing’. Thank you. Professor-Elizabeth
I titled a painting "Sleepwalkers," where there are two cacti, a small and a tall one, side by side against a wall. One is taller than the wall and can see the beautiful sunset and clouds beyond the wall but the shorter one, even though it has a shadow, says the tall cactus isn't seeing sunshine and clouds because they can't see it. Much of society is run by sleepwalkers who deny the reality of more aware people.
I love this book so much, but I do find it lacking in bridging any gaps between the awake and asleep ones. It's not just EQ, it's IQ and spiritual grounding. The double empathy issue between neurodivergent and neurotypical folks is where the bridging needs to happen. Otherwise it's still just two sides of the same coin where the high EQ remain superior and absolve or abdicate themselves from any responsibility to others who don't think exactly as they do.
Wow mind blowing😮
I wrote a complete book for my mother who even bothered opening it, since i sent it to her in 2012 ! Using written language changes nothing to her cognitive hermetism. Peace & love
There is no point in speaking to this particular man. He does not listen to a single word. He is on to the next thing and it's about him and his life. No one else. He will immediately forget anything important you shared, he doesn't care to remember!
Do we normally mature people have a similar effect on the emotionally immature person? ie. 45:15 scramble their brains.
No. EIPs focus on what they want. If they don’t understand the information you are giving them they will reject/ignore it. If they are confused, then it’s about why you won’t do what they want. They ignore that you have different considerations/your own values/opinions.
I’ve noticed my EI spouse appears to have brain scramble. So if they heard this podcast they would maybe accuse me of brain scrambling them. When in fact they are the one who is going off topic and trying to get me off topic as well. Conflict to them feels impossible so they can’t see a way out so they go off topic. When I try to stay on topic they become completely befuddled and the conversation has to end because they are stumped. It’s exhausting.
Try communicating with someone who not only doesn't want to hear you anyway but is also hearing impaired and won't wear an aid. Ya might as well turn into a wall and speak.
I am wondering if a neurodivergent person would have these traits due to their disorder? I thought my partner was narcissistic until he open up to be about his autism.
❤❤❤
I don’t feel this is black or white-external and internal. There is a third one that is a blend of both. I have a bit of both behaviors. I know you speak about a sliding scale but saying one person is all or none isn’t realistic. I think some externalizers are willing to work on some of their unhealthy patterns but won’t self-reflect on other behavioral issues. It’s quite personal. As an internalizer, I at least know where those immature emotions are and why they are there. They still come up in very specific situations. However, I am willing to recognize and change my patterns. I’m working at this currently but sometimes the brain is a tricky wicket!
I am an introverted extrovert and here where your complexity in stark contrasts is coming from. Nothing is black and white but they are points on a scale that have discernible characteristics that are easily recognized by most people. A graphing cross would be a better field to visualize patterns of growth and development, maybe with internalizing vs externalization on one midline and stress levels on the cross. I mention the importance of the stress levels purely for what I have observed in my mother and now partner where like Lindsay says, the emergence of certain behaviors or backsliding occurs.
Good content, but please change the introductory back piano!!
Why?
@@ennvee1989 Do you not find it just jarringly unpleasant? Could have chosen something more soothing?
I wondered around until i found others _ i left home around 3 years old _ i go visit other people _ thats how i matured_ i lived in farming community _ related to 5000 people there _ so it wasn't weird thst i just walk in their house when i was little.
😊
This is my partner who i just realized after 13 years has tgese traits.
no sound?
living in lalaland.
i didn’t hear any advice for disentangling just more description of problems and answers behind a paywall
“Emotional coercion” is manipulation. Lindsey doesn’t like to use the word manipulation because it sounds malignant. But that is exactly what it is and it certainly is awful to experience for the EMP. (43:23)
You don't get your whole life back unfortunately. But you do get a fuller rest of your life than you would have otherwise.
Read about MBTI. Personality is inborn. You only have a small portion of the picture. Too bad you are so old and not have come across this yet. Wasted alot of time.
Wanted to listen but t the hosts’ vocal fry drives me nuts
Can you see the feature to read the transcript on this video? I bought the book on kindle and I am really enjoying it! Hope you can access the info either way.
Keep listening, it's mostly in the introduction. I think it's more prevalent when she's reading vs talking to a person.