What is Childhood Emotional Neglect?
What is Childhood Emotional Neglect?
Most people think of physical neglect when they think of childhood neglect. There isn't much public awareness of emotional neglect, and without awareness there can be no discussion.
This lack of awareness means it can be hard for people to identify what the problem is and in turn can make it harder for them to get the right kind of help.
When most people think about childhood neglect, they picture something tangible; empty kitchen cupboards, dirty clothes, or physical danger at home. Emotional neglect is a different kind of damage. It’s quieter, harder to see from the outside, and often brushed off as ‘not that bad’.
For many adults struggling with low self-worth, anxiety, or difficulties in relationships, childhood emotional neglect (CEN) is a hidden root cause.
Where does the term Childhood Emotional Neglect come from?
Childhood Emotional Neglect is what happens when a child’s emotional needs go unmet, not because they were ignored entirely, but because no one helped them understand, express or manage their feelings. The term was recently made poular by psychologist Dr Jonice Webb, although it appears in many different forms much earlier in Psychotherapy literature. You might also find it referred to as attunement, attachment or good enough parenting. It was referenced extensively by Bowlby during his work on attachment.
Dr. Webb’s book Running on Empty is one I often recommend to clients. It’s clear, compassionate and full of real-life examples that help people connect the dots in their own lives.
What’s the difference between abuse and neglect?
Abuse is about harmful actions; being shouted at, hit, belittled, or violated.
Neglect is about what’s missing.
Children who are emotionally neglected might not be mistreated in obvious ways, but they grow up without emotional guidance, warmth, or validation. This lack of connection can be just as damaging.
Whether it’s emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse or neglect, all of these experiences contribute to childhood trauma and, in many cases, complex trauma (CPTSD). Other factors like bullying, racism, poverty, or living through war or instability can also deeply affect a child’s development.
Is Childhood Emotional Neglect deliberate?
Childhood emotional neglect is not always deliberate. Although some neglectful parents are cruel and may be narcissistic, this is not always the case.
Some parents are traumatised from their own childhoods and cannot handle 'negative emotions' such as shame, anger, sadness or disappointment. Trauma can be part of generational patterns that are simply passed down without much thought or intervention. Parents find it very difficult to teach their children how to manage 'negative emotions' because they didn't learn these skills in their families.
Some parents are struggling with their own mental health issues, or neurodivergence which means their parenting style is unhelpful or damaging to their children. There might be domestic violence in the household, they might struggle with substance abuse, bereavement or financial insecurity. Some are absent parents through work because they work long hours or their job requires frequent travel, poor mental health or because they are in prison, sick or in hospital.
Some emotionally neglectful parents love their children but don’t know how to connect emotionally, because no one ever showed them how.
Parenting styles that can lead to Childhood Emotional Neglect:
Certain parenting styles can create emotionally neglectful environments:
Authoritarian parents may be rule-focused and critical, with little emotional warmth.
They can have high expectations and be unavailable parents because they don't know themselves (or you) very well. Perfectionistic parents are often focussed on what you achieve rather than who you are and this can have a negative impact on a child's self worth.
Permissive parents might have fewer rules but offer little guidance or structure.
This can result in a lack of supervision and children who aren't kept safe by healthy boundaries or who cannot get things done, motivate themselves or achieve their goals.
Feeling disconnected from your family growing up can be a form of trauma because children require support and connection to develop self worth, learn to cope with difficult situations.
When people didn't experience healthy relationships themselves, it's very difficult to create a family life that provides this. Romantic relationships between the parents can be fraught with difficulties and there may be arguments or fights or domestic abuse.
What causes Childhood Emotional Neglect?
Neglect in childhood can be caused any or all of the following:
A lack of attention or positive input from parents
Parents who don't understand emotions themselves and therefore cannot help you to understand or manage yours
Parents who aren't able to teach their children healthy coping skills
Emotions are not talked about at home, and there isn't any concept that this is an important part of life
A lack of emotional vocabulary; you don't have the right experience or words to describe how you're feeling
The family dynamic is often stilted and stiff; people don't know how to relate to each other or communicate effectively
A lack of empathy for the child and no attempt to understand their experience
Something feels like it's missing, but it's not always clear what
Symptoms of Childhood Emotional Neglect in adults
Survivors of childhood neglect who didn't have good relationships with their parents often struggle with some or all of the following issues:
Feelings of emptiness
Feelings of worthlessness or low self esteem
Inability to talk about yourself
Difficulty understanding your needs
Social withdrawal from others or lack of social skills
Shame, feelings of isolation and emotional distress
'Inappropriate' emotional responses (for example emotional outbursts that you don't understand)
'Exaggerated' emotional responses
Anxiety disorders
Physical health issues (these should always be investigated by a medical professional before you consider an emotional cause)
Depression
Difficulty with emotional closeness in relationships
Emotional dysregulation (finding it hard to manage emotions)
Emotional volatility (feeling that your emotions change quickly or without reason)
Emotional numbness (not knowing what you are feeling)
Believing that good emotions are acceptable but that ‘negative emotions' should be avoided
Fear that people will discover how terrible they really are
Self criticism or criticism of others
Difficulty with anger when parenting
Finding it hard to express themselves to other people
Feeling hopeless
Minimising their own struggles
I've read ‘Running on Empty' now what?
If you've already read ‘Running on Empty' (Jonice Webb Ph.D.) you might be wondering what your next step should be. I recommend finding a therapist who specialises in CEN so that you aren't left spinning in circles trying to figure out what you're supposed to be doing and whether you're getting it right.
Finding a therapist who specialises in CEN
Finding a Childhood Emotional Neglect therapist who gets it and knows how to work with you can be difficult. The term CEN is more widely used in the US and it might be that UK or European therapists that you speak to aren't familiar with the term childhood emotional neglect. Instead look for therapists who work with or have experience with:
Attachment difficulties/attachment disorder
Developmental trauma
Mother wound/father wound
Relational trauma
So therapists that specialise in any of the above are likely to understand what you're suffering from.
Most people start with individual therapy but couples therapy might also be helpful if you have difficulties with your partner and need help to understand each other.
When looking for a therapist it's important to look for someone that you like and think you might be able to connect with. You don't have to trust them completely but you should feel like they're listening and paying attention to you and that they're invested in understanding your experience. For more information, read how to choose a therapist
If you'd like to work with me, you can get in touch with me to schedule a call to see how I can help you here
Parenting with Childhood Emotional Neglect
If you're a parent who grew up without emotional connections with your own parents or who experienced abuse in childhood, becoming a parent can feel very lonely and trigger memories of your own abuse or neglect.
You might find that your experience changes as your child grows. It's common for people to struggle as their children reach age milestones when they themselves experienced abuse or parental neglect.
Learning about child development and how to support the parent child relationship can be very valuable if you can't look to your own parents for models of how to parent. Parenting skills can be leaned and some councils offer parenting classes to help families learn about healthy relationships and develop communication skills.
In some cases Family Therapy can be helpful. This might be available through CAMHS in the UK or you can also find private therapists who will help you start the healing process.
Can you get PTSD from Childhood Emotional Neglect?
Yes, it's possible to have PTSD from CEN. There's also a term called CPTSD which is complex trauma (complex ptsd) and it happens when someone experiences multiple traumas and not just one single trauma.
So if you experienced childhood emotional neglect alongside emotional abuse, physical abuse or sexual abuse, you are likely to have experienced many traumatic incidents. All forms of abuse committed by parents are also accompanied by emotional neglect, because it's not possible to meet a child's emotional needs whilst abusing them.
Frequently feeling unloved or alone can be traumatic for a child and can cause childhood ptsd.
You can find out more here
‘But nothing bad happened to me as a kid’…
This is something that I hear a lot. You may not have experienced abuse as a child but may still experience mental health issues and suffer from the long term effects of emotional neglect.
It's unlikely that all you childhood experiences were bad.
Although most people recognise that physical abuse, sexual abuse or emotional abuse causes long term effects and to understand that this can affect them as adults.
It's less common for people to recognise that emotional neglect can cause similar problems in adults.
This is because we also need lots of positive input and if you didn't get that it can be really damaging.
So maybe nothing bad happened, but maybe nothing good happened either. Parental neglect doesn't always mean that you had dirty clothes or not enough to eat. This is physical neglect but emotional neglect can be much more hidden and harder to spot from an outside perspective.
People who experienced emotional neglect as a child often report that people thought their parents were very nice or had respectable jobs or didn't fit the criteria of what an abusive or neglectful parent looked like. Many people live their entire life believing that there is something wrong with them or that their current situation is problematic. It is not always obvious to other people when parents are emotionally abusive or neglectful to their children, especially if they don't know the signs of abusive relationships or emotional maltreatment.
It's also common that people underestimate what childhood trauma looks like. They think of an abusive person as someone who beats their child and discount a parent who humiliated them and called them a failure because other people viewed them as a 'nice person'. You may grow up believing that sensitive people find life difficult and that's just the type of person that you are rather than seeing that you missed out on the benefits of a stable relationship with your parents.
How can therapy help with Childhood Emotional Neglect?
Children need to connect with other people. If you had an emotionally neglectful family, you didn't feel heard and if this doesn't happen, it can be hard to know what to change as an adult.
Interpersonal relationships (such as romantic relationships but also relationships with friends or family) can be difficult to navigate if you don't know what's going wrong or even what you're supposed to be doing in the first place.
Therapy not only gives you a place to ask questions and learn about what happened, but it gives you a space to practice. So we also practice how to understand each other in therapy and manage emotions that feel overwhelming. This lowers anxiety around feelings.
Sometimes, it's hard for people to know what they're feeling at all so we might also talk about how to recognise feelings and I will be able to help you do this.
It's common for people to feel like this is something they should already know and to criticise themselves for not being able to do this alone. But these are skills that you haven't been taught and once you are taught, you will understand. There's no more reason to expect yourself to understand emotions without any instruction than there is to expect you could speak Spanish without ever having had lessons. You can start at any age and it's not too late to feel better.
Is it possible to heal from CEN?
Healing from childhood emotional neglect can feel like a long journey, but it's possible.
The most important factors in healing from childhood emotional neglect are willingness to learn and practice. Anybody with the right approach and information can learn how to connect better with themselves and others.
Emotional development can be learned at any age and learning how to understand your emotional experiences can help you fight the effects of childhood neglect, improve your mental wellbeing and develop feelings of safety.
To find out how I can help you break free from your past and feel better about yourself book a call here
Parenting when you’ve experienced CEN
Becoming a parent when you’ve experienced emotional neglect yourself can be incredibly challenging - and lonely. Certain stages in your child’s development may trigger painful memories or bring up feelings you don’t fully understand.
If you didn’t grow up with emotionally healthy parents, you are likely winging it. But parenting skills can be learned and therapy can help with these skills.
Healing is possible
Recovering from childhood emotional neglect takes time, patience and self compassion. But it is possible.
The most important step? Start.
Thinking about childhood trauma but still have lingering doubts that maybe you’re you’re the problem? My short online course ‘Am I the problem?’ is a great place to begin. It’s designed to help you take the first steps toward healing and is based on my 15 year career of helping people recover from childhood trauma.
👉 Click here to access the course
👉 Or book a call with me to explore how therapy could help