Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect

This is an important book. This book by Jonice Webb (2013) reinforces Pete Walker's book on Complex PTSD (2013) and Bessel Van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score (2014) book on developmental trauma.

All three of these very recent books clearly make the claim that childhood emotional neglect is traumatic, and has long term consequences.

Forty years ago essentially the same claim was made by Dutch psychiatrists Anna A. Terruwe and Conrad W. Baars in their 1972 book Loving and Curing the Neurotic. The revised and updated ediion (2002) by Suzanne Baars of this book is entitled Healing the Unaffirmed: Recognizing Emotional Deprivation Disorder.

Webb, Walker, Van der Kolk, Terruwe and Baars are Not simply wrong in what they have written about. In fact, these authors are not wrong at all.

It is the American Psychiatric Association that is simply wrong in its 2011 rejection of Van der Kolk and others' proposal to incorporate into the updated DSM manual a formal Developmental Trauma Disorder diagnosis, saying that "The notion that early childhood adverse experiences lead to substantial developmental disruptions" is merely faulty "clinical intuition..." (Van der Kolk, page 149)

Jonice Webb, citing Bowlby (Attachment Theory) and Goleman (Emotional Intelligence), has written a perceptive, accurate book regarding Childhood Emotional Neglect and its unfortunate consequences.

It is beyond understanding why the American Psychiatric Association (of all people!) can be so unaware of and unmoved by what these authors have to say.

Again, this is an important book. I hope it is widely read and taken to heart. See Van der Kolk regarding the science of Childhood Trauma.

This book is all over the place. It spends far too much time talking about examples of other people's neglectful experiences and very little time offering insight to your own mind and telling you how to fix it.

The author shared several of her patients' childhood experiences but most of them didn't feel relatable, in fact sometimes their experiences sounded so tame and minor compared to my own that I didn't think it should even could be categorized as emotional neglect. Some of the writing in the book seemed uninformed and rambled off topic and lost direction. When I finally got towards the later chapter which outlines how to address it, I was very unimpressed. It provided general "self help" ideas and just reiterates them to make it seem like it is targeted towards emotionally neglected people when it is just generic information you probably already knew. It recommended a pretty basic "checklist" approach which seems like it came out of your average 12 step program which has proven to be rather ineffective.

After reading this whole book I didn't have any "Aha" moments, don't feel like it steered me in the right direction and don't feel any closer to resolving years of neglect.

Interesting read and has helped provide me with a new perspective on this issue. Written in rudimentary terms, easy to understand.

When you encounter that thing you can't quite put your finger on with a therapy client, you are likely dealing with childhood emotional neglect (CEN). Perhaps there's no overt trauma in their history or they talk about having parents who really did "the best they could," but your client is clearly dealing with mental health issues and/or attachment issues. When this is the case, they most likely experienced some degree of CEN, and this MUST be addressed!

The author begins by listing out the 12 types of emotionally neglectful parents and simultaneously does a great job giving lots of case examples to bring to like the subtleties of CEN, which is very normalizing. She then goes on to provide a very clear overview of the 10 ways issues caused by CEN can manifest in adulthood.

The last half of the book is dedicated to providing clear cut guidance on how to begin healing from childhood emotional neglect. She provides concrete activities and worksheets that you can begin using right away or that you can adapt to use with your clients if you're a therapist.

I believe it's actually rare to find a person who hasn't experienced some degree of CEN in our day and age. And even if there are a myriad of other presenting issues going on which have brought a client to therapy, it should definitely be considered whether CEN is a component of the larger picture.

I would highly recommend this book to both professionals and the average person alike.

Written in an easy to read, understand and apply manner. CEN should be something we’re all talking about as I’m sure it affects many whether directly or through the ripple effect.