How to Heal from Childhood Emotional Neglect: 5 Components To Healing
The negative impact of Childhood Emotional Neglect, or CEN, can follow us from childhood well into adulthood if left unhealed. Yet it often occurs unnoticed, even in the most loving homes. This creates unique challenges when it comes to healing that traditional therapy methods can fail to adequately meet.
In this blog, I cover:
What is Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN)
The difference between emotional neglect and emotional abuse
How CEN happens
How CEN can impact us as adults (the cost of leaving it untreated)
How to heal from CEN: 5 components to healing
Why working with a CEN-trained therapist is beneficial
FREE DOWNLOAD to guide your own healing process
What is Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN)?
First things first: What is Childhood Emotional Neglect, or CEN? CEN is defined as a relationship pattern in which the parent does not respond sufficiently enough to their child’s emotional needs and inner world experiences.
Even though Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) is one of the most COMMON forms of childhood trauma, it’s the most difficult one to notice. In fact, most parents are unaware that they are emotionally neglecting their child, and most children are also completely unaware that this is happening. That’s because it’s caused by the ABSENCE of certain parent-child relationship experiences that are necessary for healthy child and emotional development.
Without these critical relational experiences growing up, children learn incorrect information about important concepts such as emotions, relationships, and identity. They also learn and perfect more maladaptive versus adaptive coping strategies to survive not getting their emotional needs adequately met.
The difference between emotional neglect and emotional abuse
Many people confuse emotional neglect with emotional abuse, but they are not the same! Emotional abuse is the PRESENCE of words and actions that cause emotional harm. On the other hand, emotional neglect is the ABSENCE of words and actions that are necessary for emotional connection and safety, and overall healthy emotional and child development.
A helpful way to think about it is that emotional abuse consists of words, actions, and experiences that happen and can be remembered, whereas emotional neglect creates no memories.
How Childhood Emotional Neglect happens
There are many reasons why CEN happens, but here are 5 main reasons:
Parenting norms are still based on outdated information about child development, which increases the chances of responding in ways that don’t meet our child’s emotional needs
Lack of access to and awareness of child development needs
Lack of sufficient parental/family support
A parent’s unresolved trauma
Emotional immaturity of the parent
How Childhood Emotional Neglect affects us as adults
If CEN is left unhealed, these learned lessons and maladaptive coping habits will carry on into adulthood, and can lead to significant struggles with:
Self-confidence
Communication
Emotion regulation and coping
Anxiety and depressive symptoms
Relationships (inability to trust, people-pleasing, avoidance, lack of boundaries)
Procrastination
Lack of motivation and direction in life
How to heal from Childhood Emotional Neglect: 5 Components of Treatment
Thankfully, healing from CEN is 100% POSSIBLE! Here are the 5 components of treatment that I guide my clients through in order to heal from their childhood:
Acknowledge that you were emotionally neglected AND accept that it wasn’t your fault.
Learn how not getting your emotional needs met as a child continues to impact your life now as an adult
Identify what - exactly - your unmet emotional needs were and how to sufficiently get them met today
Understand and shift your relationship with the learned maladaptive coping strategies you developed to get through childhood so they stop controlling you and your life
Learn and implement new information + skills to reconnect with, understand and handle your emotions and relationships, and reclaim your voice, your story and your life
Why working with therapist who is trained in Childhood Emotional Neglect is recommended
Many people who have experienced CEN struggle to even identify what’s wrong, let alone know what they need to make a change in their life. That’s because CEN is an “invisible” form of trauma, which differs from other types of trauma that are tangible and memorable.
This makes CEN not only difficult to detect, it creates unique challenges to treat. Most trauma therapies focus attention on working through what happened, not what didn’t happen.
Because of this, working with a therapist trained in treating CEN is highly recommended. CEN-trained therapists are able to provide additional information, structure, and teaching that you didn’t get growing up to fill in the missing gaps from your childhood.
Conclusion
One key thing to know about experiencing CEN is that it’s NOT YOUR FAULT. There’s nothing you could have done differently to prevent this from happening to you because, well, it was never about you. YOU aren’t broken or lacking in any way. This is primarily due to having emotionally immature parents and living in a society that is still largely uninformed about child development and what is needed to raise healthy kids.
FREE DOWNLOAD to start your healing journey
Remember, healing from CEN is 100% doable with the right support, information and tools! However, since CEN is considered an invisible form of trauma, it can be difficult to even know if you experienced it growing up, let alone know where to start the healing process!
That’s why I created the FREE Childhood Experiences Questionnaire that you can download right now to help you assess if this was part of your childhood experience.
This 20-point questionnaire is designed to help you identify critical experiences that may have been missing in your childhood in order to understand yourself better and know where to start healing so you can finally move forward from CEN. Click the button below to start healing from your past.
NEXT Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents SUPPORT GROUP STARTS March 4, 2025!
Want to join a small group of adults who also have a difficult relationship with their parents and want to feel more calm and in control in this relationship? This group is for you!
Get the support you need to feel less alone along with the information + tools to feel prepared - not pressured - to confidently navigate this relationship without sacrificing who you are.
Group starts Tuesday, March 4, 2025 and runs for 8 weeks.
Hi! I’m so glad you’re here!
I’m Katie Egge, a Minnesota-based therapist and coach who’s passionate about providing the support, resources, and tools that people need - but didn’t get growing up - to heal from and prevent Childhood Emotional Neglect.
BOOK A FREE CONSULT with me today to start moving forward in your life with more clarity, confidence, and authenticity.