Childhood Emotional Trauma (CEN)Therapy in NJ & PA
Do you feel an overwhelming emptiness, like there’s a hole inside you that nothing seems to fill?
You’ve tried overworking, overachieving, and diving into self-help strategies, but nothing makes you feel truly okay.
You may have realized that despite your parents doing their best, you experienced emotional neglect as a child. This awareness could be surfacing now, especially as you navigate parenting your own children, triggering painful memories from your past.
Whether you’ve become emotionally distant from others or find yourself feeling clingy and anxious in your relationships, deep down you know something isn’t right. You may have recently discovered Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) in your search for answers, and now you’re left feeling sad and lonely, unsure how to heal.
The Good News: Healing Is Possible.
Through therapy for Childhood Emotional Neglect, you can begin to heal these deep emotional wounds. With psychotherapy, you can reconnect with your inner child and start building a life filled with emotional intimacy, connection, and compassion.
Therapy will help you:
Become more self-aware and present.
Develop deeper emotional connections with your partner, children, and loved ones.
Open your heart to healthier relationships with friends, colleagues, and your community.
What We Will Work on Together:
Recognizing and Acknowledging Childhood Emotional Neglect: We'll explore and validate your past experiences, bringing awareness to the impact of emotional neglect.
Challenging Negative Beliefs: We’ll address and overcome the limiting beliefs that stem from childhood neglect, helping you build a healthier self-image.
Understanding Your Relationship Needs: You’ll learn to identify your core relationship needs to cultivate more meaningful and fulfilling connections.
Overcoming Fear of Rejection: We’ll work on easing the fear of being shamed, isolated, or ignored for having normal, healthy needs in relationships.
Navigating Parent Relationships: Together, we’ll develop a healthy plan to navigate your relationship with your parent(s) in a way that supports your emotional well-being.
Through this process, you will also:
Gain a clear understanding of how codependency, enmeshment, attachment styles, and childhood emotional neglect shape your current relationships.
Take steps toward developing a secure attachment style for healthier relationships.
Build deeper, more meaningful connections and feel safer in the relationships you already have.
Develop an emotional vocabulary so you can better express yourself and communicate your needs.
Experience less anxiety, depression, and stress, and grow into a more confident, authentic version of yourself.
Learn to set healthy boundaries with others, ensuring your needs are respected and valued.
…And ultimately, improve all your personal relationships!
Do I really have childhood emotional neglect?
Some questions to help you gain clarity.
Do you feel all alone in the world, even when there are people around you, still feel that there is no one you can truly rely on?
Do you walk around looking confident on the outside, and seem independent, but on the inside you’re desperately wishing you could depend on someone and not need to seem so strong?
Do you ever have this nagging feeling of sadness but don’t know where it’s coming from?
Do you wonder what that secret ingredient is that makes other people content and happy?
Do you worry that if you truly shared what you want, need or how you really feel, that your loved ones won’t love you anymore or will feel burdened by your needs?
Do you judge yourself harshly and have a strong inner critic?
Do you have a hard time knowing how you’re feeling inside? a felt sense?
Do you feel afraid of and avoid emotional intimacy (even-though some part of you desires it)?
Do you sometimes feel like you just don’t belong?
As an anxiety, trauma and childhood emotional neglect specialist, I have found that these are common feelings for those who experienced CEN Childhood emotional neglect.