How Therapy Helps Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
Let’s Talk About Emotional Survival
Growing up with an emotionally immature parent often feels like your emotions weren’t welcome—or even real. You may have found yourself constantly shrinking, silencing, or spinning in frustration, all while trying to make sense of a world that didn’t feel safe. As a child, you did what you had to do. But as an adult, those same survival patterns might be holding you back in your relationships, self-worth, and emotional health. Whether you turned inward or lashed outward, the impact is real—and it deserves healing.
What is an Emotionally Immature Parent?
An emotionally immature parent is someone who struggles to regulate their own emotions, lacks empathy, or centers their own needs and perspectives above all else. They often invalidate the feelings of others and require their child to conform to their emotional world.
For children, this creates a confusing and unstable environment. Without healthy modeling or emotional mirroring, you’re left to navigate your inner world alone. Over time, most children fall into one of two emotional survival roles: the Internalizer or the Externalizer.
Internalizers vs. Externalizers — What Role Did You Take On?
Internalizers
What it looks like: Silencing your needs, stuffing emotions, striving to keep the peace or appear perfect.
Common Traits: Anxiety, depression, self-doubt, people-pleasing, chronic overwhelm.
Why it develops: In a home where your emotions weren’t welcomed—and only your parent’s reality was allowed to exist—you learned to shut down, retreat, and disconnect from your own needs. To stay safe, you lived outside yourself, attuned constantly to your parent’s mood, needs, and reactions first.
Externalizers
What it looks like: Outbursts, blame, emotional shutdowns, or struggling to maintain relationships.
Common Traits: Anger, frustration, impulsivity, boundary issues, feeling like “too much.”
Why it develops: In homes where emotional immaturity ruled, children didn’t just witness chaos—they absorbed it. For many externalizers, reactive, shut-down, and shut-out behaviors were modeled as “normal adult” responses. Without guidance toward emotional regulation, they learned to express pain the only way they saw it being handled: through volatility, control, or emotional withdrawal.
Why This Matters — When Survival Patterns Become Emotional Traps
These coping roles—though developed to protect you—can become emotional traps in adulthood.
Internalizers may find themselves in relationships with other emotionally immature people. Because they were conditioned to disregard their own needs, they may unconsciously accept being treated as emotional doormats, unable to advocate for themselves or believe they deserve more.
Externalizers, on the other hand, often isolate themselves emotionally. They may walk through the world believing they have “bad luck” with people or that no one ever really gets them—when in reality, their reactive defenses may be unintentionally pushing people away. Connection feels risky, even if it's deeply desired.
Without awareness and healing, these patterns repeat in relationships, careers, parenting—and self-worth. But here's the hope: what was learned can be unlearned.
The Path to Healing — Dr. Lindsay Gibson’s Model for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
The therapeutic model developed by Dr. Lindsay Gibson offers a compassionate, structured path forward. Focused specifically on the unique challenges faced by adult children of emotionally immature parents, this approach helps individuals:
- Recognize survival-based emotional patterns
- Rebuild emotional boundaries and self-trust
- Develop healthier communication and connection skills
- Reclaim emotional autonomy
Meet Sheena McRae — Your Partner in Healing
At Women’s Therapy Centre, we’re proud to have Sheena McRae, a skilled clinician certified in Dr. Lindsay Gibson’s model. With additional clinical training and lived experience navigating complex emotional relationships, Sheena creates a warm, nonjudgmental space where insight and healing can truly begin.
Her approach is grounded in deep empathy and practical strategies. Whether you're an internalizer seeking to find your voice, or an externalizer wanting to reconnect with calm and clarity, Sheena offers the tools to transform emotional survival into empowered living.
We offer virtual therapy for women across Ontario and most provinces, making it easier than ever to access the support you need, right where you are—on your terms, in your space.
How Healing Starts — Five Gentle Shifts You Can Begin Today
- Name your pattern: Understanding whether you’re an internalizer or externalizer brings compassion, not shame.
- Notice your emotional habits: Where do you shrink, react, or disconnect? Awareness is the first powerful step.
- Reclaim your emotional reality: Your truth matters—even if it was never validated growing up.
- Start small with boundaries: You don’t need to fix it all. One clear “no” is enough to begin.
- Seek skilled support: Healing is not about going it alone. With guidance, emotional clarity comes faster and deeper.
If this resonates with you, you’re already on the path to healing. Whether you’ve spent your life staying small or shouting to be heard—you deserve to feel emotionally safe, empowered, and connected. Book a session with Sheena McRae today—or download our free worksheet: “Am I an Internalizer or Externalizer?” Let’s begin this journey together.
