Your Parents Are Emotionally Immature. Now What? w/ Dr. Lindsay Gibson

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Being Well

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement, Mental Health

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2025

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dr. Lindsay Gibson joins Forrest to explore emotional immaturity, the consequences of growing up with emotionally immature caregivers, and what we can do to change those patterns in adulthood. They discuss the key signs of emotional immaturity, including egocentrism, low empathy, and affective realism. Dr. Gibson then shares how having an emotionally immature parent affects children, often by leading to emotional disconnection and people-pleasing, and the consequences of these patterns in adult life. Topics include the problems with “just be more compassionate,” estrangement, balancing competing desires, and how to heal in adulthood by reconnecting with your feelings, letting go of old fantasies, and setting healthy boundaries. About our Guest: Dr. Lindsay Gibson is a clinical psychologist and the author of the Emotional Immaturity series of books, including her bestseller Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. You can watch this episode on YouTube. Key Topics: 0:00: Introduction 1:15: How Dr. Gibson defines emotional immaturity 6:45: Markers of emotional immaturity in parents 11:05: Emotional intelligence in children, loneliness, and regulating parents 19:05: The arc of recovery, responding to feelings with thoughts, and healthy guidance 31:00: Repeating patterns in relationships 36:15: Letting go of the healing fantasy, and when to take space 42:45: Estrangement, compassion, boundary setting, and becoming more authentic 58:45: When healthy change creates social pressure 1:01:55: Common misconceptions about emotional immaturity 1:06:05: Recap Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link. Sponsors Head to fastgrowingtrees.com/BEINGWELL to get 15% off the best deals for your yard. Use BEINGWELL at checkout, and take advantage of their Alive and Thrive Guarantee! Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/beingwell. Go to ZOE.com and find out what ZOE Membership could do for you. Use code WELL10 to get 10% off membership. Get 15% off OneSkin with the code BEINGWELL at https://www.oneskin.co/ Connect with the show: Subscribe on iTunes Follow Forrest on YouTube Follow us on Instagram Follow Forrest on Instagram Follow Rick on Facebook Follow Forrest on Facebook Visit Forrest's website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to being well. I'm Forrest Hansen. If you're new to the podcast,
0:11.4	thanks for joining us today. And if you've listened before, welcome back. Over the past decade,
0:16.2	there's been a growing movement of people reexamining their childhoods, and particularly their relationship with
0:21.5	their parents. There's been an explosion of content about inner child healing, emotional neglect,
0:26.9	and generational trauma. We've certainly contributed some to that. And a greater willingness to
0:31.5	ask what are often very emotionally complicated questions. What kind of inheritance did I receive from my parents?
0:38.8	How is it shaped who I am today? And what patterns have I brought into my adult relationships
0:43.2	that I'd like to change? The work of today's guest has been a major influence on those
0:47.7	conversations, and I'm very excited to welcome Dr. Lindsay Gibson back to the show. Dr. Gibson is a
0:52.8	clinical psychologist and the author of the
0:55.2	Emotional Immaturity Series, including her bestseller, adult children of emotionally immature
1:00.3	parents. So Lindsay, thanks for joining me again. How are you doing? Oh, I'm doing great. It's wonderful
1:05.0	to be back. Thank you for having me. I was so happy to. I love talking with you last time. That
1:09.8	conversation kind of blew up. It's one of the
1:11.9	bigger ones that we've done, actually, and I've been really looking forward to this one. So for the,
1:15.8	for the first part of this, I'm not going to assume that people heard our first conversation. We'll kind of
1:19.6	set the stage a little bit. And from there, we'll go into some stuff that we didn't have the time to cover last time. So I'd love to start with how do you define emotional immaturity? Like, what are some of its key characteristics? One of the things that I really
1:32.2	stress is that emotional maturity is just one line of development. And we have our intellectual
1:39.2	development. We have our social development. And people can be very well developed in those areas.
1:46.6	They can be very popular.
1:48.0	They can be very intelligent.
1:50.2	But when it comes to managing their emotions and managing their relationships or even being
	...

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