Understanding Child Development

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Emotional numbness often begins when a child’s feelings are repeatedly ignored.

Feeling empty or different can stem from learned emotional disconnection rather than damage.

Numbness is a signal that your emotions were blocked for survival, not lost.

Understanding the source of numbness is the first step toward feeling again.

Way back in 2008, an amazing thing happened that changed everything. It changed the way I saw myself and parented my children. Ultimately, it changed the way I practice psychology. Here’s what happened.

I was busy seeing clients in my psychology practice. I was working with couples, individuals, and families. I was treating problems like depression, marriage and family conflict, anxiety, communication problems, anger, addiction, and more.

Some of my clients had traumatic or abusive childhoods, and some did not. My clients were a varied mix: plumbers, doctors, salespeople, secretaries, scientists, stay-at-home parents, students, among others. Many of my clients had very little in common with each other, yet I began to see a pattern among them that appeared over and over again.

A remarkable number of very different people tried to express a particular burden to me—a burden they had carried through their lives and felt deeply, but never had the words to express. They all said it differently:

I am not like other people.

I am not like other people.

I’m missing something.

I’m missing something.

I’m not alone, but I feel alone.

I’m not........

© Psychology Today