CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - How To Deal With Emotionally Immature People

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

In this episode, Whitney Goodman discusses emotional immaturity, its traits, and how to effectively deal with emotionally immature individuals. She emphasizes the importance of emotional regulation and provides practical strategies for managing interactions, drawing from insights in Lindsay C. Gibson's book, 'Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents.' Join The Family Cyclebreakers Club: www.callinghome.co/join Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the calling home podcast. I am your host, Whitney Goodman. Today we are going to be talking about emotional immaturity and how to deal with emotionally immature people. This is a solo episode. And just as a reminder for the entire month of January,

we are dedicated to talking about building our own emotional maturity and dealing with emotionally immature people at Calling Home. We have groups every week to help you with these topics. And if you join the Family Cycle Breakers Club, you'll also get new worksheets, videos, articles, everything delivered to your inbox or accessible on the site every single Monday for the month of January. And as long as you are a member of Calling Home, you get to keep access to that content as well as all other content that we have produced for the Family Cycle Breakers Club. So definitely head to Callinghome.com to join if any of this is interesting to you today and you'd like to expand on it a little bit more. But let's dive into emotional immaturity.

So most of you probably heard the term emotionally immature from Lindsay C. Gibson's book, Adult Children, Emotionally Immature Parents. I know that that was the first time I was really exposed to it. And I think I read that book back in like 2019, 2020-ish. And Dr. Gibson has been on The Calling Home Podcast. I was so honored to be able to interview her. So definitely really go back and listen to her episode. I interviewed her last year about adult children of emotionally immature parents. And it is a great episode. She is just a wealth of information. But there are a few key traits that we observe in someone who is emotionally immature. And before I get into those traits, I want to remind you. And I said this in my episode last Tuesday about how to

become emotionally mature is that all of us have the ability to drift in to some emotional immaturity, right? And all of us could benefit from working on our emotional regulation skills and becoming more grounded. And so when I talk about these traits, some people have all of these traits and those traits show up a lot. And then there's some people who only have a few traits and they show up only when they're super stressed or overwhelmed. And we have to remember that this occurs along a spectrum. There are people who have it much worse that really have no interest in improving, getting better. They have no self-awareness, very little empathy, and it is very difficult for them to identify that they are behaving in an emotionally immature way. And then there are people

who have a little bit more awareness of that on the other end of the spectrum. So let's just remember that when we're talking about this topic. The first thing that you're going to see in someone that is very emotionally immature is an inability to manage their emotions. And they might react quite impulsively. They have difficulty, like, stopping their impulses, and they react without thinking about the consequences. They'll have a lot of outbursts. So frequent displays of anger, frustration, contempt, sadness in, like, situations that seem very disproportionate. You know, I think it's like the toddler example of like a toddler reacting to not getting the right snack. It kind of is like that. But in adult form, they have a lot of difficulty handling criticism. So they respond defensively, blame others. They shut down whenever you give them any type of feedback. Emotionally immature people also really try to avoid responsibility at all costs. So they will blame others instead of taking accountability, come up with a lot of very creative excuses. justifications, rationalizations to avoid any type of ownership. And they may rely excessively on

others to solve their problems or even make decisions for them. You're also going to find that emotionally immature people lack empathy a lot of the time. And so they may be self-centered. They have a lot of trouble thinking about how other people might feel or react to things outside of what they would consider to be a normal reaction or a typical reaction for them. They might also be very dismissive of other people's needs. So they downplay others' needs, especially emotional needs, and ignore them. And they also can be quite emotionally insensitive. So make hurtful remarks or behave in ways that show that they're not emotionally attuned.

They might say a lot of things and then be like, oh, it was a joke. I was kidding. Like, why are you being so dramatic? because they cannot attune emotionally very well. They also have poor relationship skills. So emotionally immature people are quite conflict avoidant, actually, and they may refuse to address issues, or sometimes they make conflicts way worse because they are combative and argumentative.

They also might engage in manipulative behavior like guilt, pity, or other tactics to, like try to get their way. and they do this all the time in a lot of different situations. They also might be quite unreliable. They failed to follow through, say, oh, you never told me that. I forgot about it. It wasn't that big of a deal. They are very much more focused on themselves than meeting the needs of others and can

feel quite overwhelmed by the needs of others. They also might be quite needy. Despite dismissing everyone else's emotions, they might actually need a lot of reassurance all the time or attention or validation and even come across as quite immature, even though they can be grandiose or narcissistic in some ways. And they also might have a fear of independence. They don't want to make decisions on their own or they want others to make decisions for them. Emotionally immature people also engage in a lot of black and white thinking. I talked about this quite a bit in the episode on how to be more emotionally mature last week on Tuesday.

day. So they might view situations as all good or all bad or they have very rigid expectations of others or trouble adapting to change. They also might be quite resistant to growth. So they don't examine their own behaviors or emotions. They're fearful of vulnerability. You know, things that are required in order to take accountability would be things like vulnerability and being reflective. Emotionally immature people also show little interest in learning or improving their skills in this area. They often will say that they don't need to. There's nothing wrong with them. They'll become quite defensive if you try to bring up anything that is related to this. So one of the biggest things that I find among groups of people

who interact with emotionally immature family members is this feeling of resentment of like, why can I become emotionally mature or improve my skills that they cannot? And, some people stay emotionally immature for their entire life. And it's kind of hard to explain why some people grow and why some people don't. I think it's a complex interplay of factors like exposure to certain life events, personality, genetics, who you were raised by, where you were raised, all of these factors, what you were exposed to can contribute to this. But it can be quite frustrating for family members of emotionally immature people who are listening to podcasts like this and trying to grow and change, and their family member absolutely refuses

to even admit that they could benefit from some of that work. So I think it's important to remember that emotional immaturity is not necessarily like, quote unquote, your fault, but it is your responsibility to manage and to deal with. And unfortunately, a lot of the things that can lead to emotional immaturity are things that we, I should say, fortunately, have a lot of empathy for, but they can also lead to a lot of negative consequences relationally in your life. So people who are emotionally immature are likely to have experienced, you know, childhood trauma, emotional neglect themselves. They were not given a lot of opportunities to develop or to learn independence or resilience. They may

lack emotional education and they're still not trying to get it today. And they could have some type of mental health issues. Of course, you're going to see emotional immaturity, you know, in some personality disorders or some mental health conditions that makes it difficult to relate to those people and might make them very difficult to interact with. So bank more on course when you switch to a Scotia Bank banking package. Learn more at Scotia Bank. Bank.com slash banking packages. Conditions apply. Scotia Bank, you're richer than you think.

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But a box fan, happily yes. A day of sunshine? No. A box of fine wines? Yes. Uber Eats can definitely get you that. Get almost. Almost. Anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency App for details. Let's dive into some strategies for interacting with emotionally immature people. And in the book, Adult Children of Emotion Immotionally Immature Parents, Dr. Gibson shares three approaches to help you manage your interactions with an emotionally immature parent. And I'm going to

break down these strategies that she goes through in her book. But I think that you can apply these to any emotionally immature family member, whether that's a grandparent, a sibling, a cousin, aunt, uncle, it does not have to just be a parent or even a boss. These are strategies that can be useful to you across the spectrum of relationships. So the first strategy, and I love this strategy, she calls it detached observation. And so this means that you're going to operate from like your calm, cool, collected, thinking perspective, rather than going into emotional reactivity. And this takes a lot of practice. This is something that you really have to work on doing, learning how to regulate your nervous

system, taking deep breaths, talking to yourself, keeping yourself very calm in these moments so that you can remain embodying your adult self and not that like triggered childlike version of yourself. And so you really want to try to stay detached and observe these interactions almost as if you were a scientist, a therapist, someone who is sitting there and just looking at this person and going, huh, that's interesting. Okay, they did that. Instead of looking at it to react to, you're looking at these behaviors to observe. So this is what Gibson says in her book about this. If you're practicing observing your parent or other loved ones and find yourself getting emotional, your distress is a sign that your healing fantasy has been activated. And we talk

about this healing fantasy a lot at calling home. If you've ever been to any of our groups, you'll know that this is something that we are always coming back to and being like, hey, I think that fantasy is being triggered for you again. You've fallen back into believing that you can't be okay if they don't validate you. If you start slipping into your fantasy that you may be able to get the other person to change, you'll feel weak, vulnerable, apprehensive, and needy. This extremely unpleasant feeling of weakness is a signal that you need to shift out of responding emotionally and move back into observing mode. And again, that was Lindsay C. Gibson from adult children, emotionally immature parents. And so some of the things that she says you can try to do is narrate

your experience instead of their experience. So try to think about like, okay, I'm feeling a little bit anxious right now when they did that. I'm going to tap back into my breathing. I'm going to notice something in this room. Oh, that's interesting that they made their face change like that. How did that make me feel? And really trying to stay grounded in that I am aware of how I'm feeling. I am not out of control. I am fully present in this experience. I am not a helpless child. And if I stay aware and on alert for how I'm feeling, I will know if and when I need space to remove myself, how to respond, I can stay grounded. And if they're still getting to you, this is where that awareness piece comes in. If you notice yourself getting triggered,

especially to that child-like version of yourself, then that is a moment where you decide, I need to put some physical space between us. I need to hang up the phone, leave the room, go to the bathroom. I need to do something to break what is happening right in this moment so that I can come back to it later or decide that this is something that we cannot talk about. The next strategy that you can use is maturity awareness. So this is really about expressing and then letting go. And this is about not trying to always control the outcome, what the other person does, how they react, et cetera. So I want to read you again what Lindsay C. Gibson says about this in her book. Tell the other person what you want to say in as calm and non-judgmental a way

as you can. And don't try to control the outcome. Explicitly say what you feel or want and enjoy that act of self-expression, but release any need for the other person to hear you or change. You can't force others to empathize or understand. The point is to feel good about yourself for engaging in what I call clear, intimate communication. Others may or may not respond how you want them to, but that doesn't matter. So what she's saying here is, to focus on what you want to do, not necessarily the relationship, creating understanding, changing the other person. You want to just come up with a goal for your communication in that moment. So you're going to identify what is the specific outcome here. Do I want to

decide where we're having Thanksgiving dinner? Do I want to share my feelings about something so that I can feel like I shared. Do I want to make something known to them? Do I want to get them to answer a question that I have? But come up with a clear objective for the interaction when it is something important, right? So she talks about, you know, really focusing on the outcome, not the relationship, because many people, when you're interacting with an emotionally immature person, you're trying to get them to like understand and empathize and validate. And if you accept they don't have that capability, I have this one specific thing that I want to get out of this conversation. That's what I'm going to focus on. And this is a great strategy to use when you have

like an important conversation, something it needs to be established, a goal, an upcoming event, etc. And so Dr. Gibson also says you're managing, not engaging. So instead of emotionally engaging with emotionally immature people, set a goal of managing the interaction, including the duration and the topics. And this again just brings you back to this feeling that I have control over what I talk about, where I go with this person, what kinds of things I do with them. Like, I am not a helpless child. And if I am choosing to maintain a relationship with this person, I can have control over some of the aspects of that relationship.

She also says that you may need to repeatedly redirect the conversation where you want it to go. And you may want to gently ease past attempts to change the topic or bait you emotionally. Be polite, but be prepared to address the issue as many times as it takes to get a clear answer. Emotionally immature people don't have a good strategy for countering another person's persistence. Their attempts at diversion and avoidance ultimately break down if you keep asking the same question. As a reminder, also manage your own emotions by observing and narrating your feelings to yourself rather than becoming reactive.

And then the third strategy that she lists in her book is stepping out of an old role self. And this is really about, again, embodying that adult version of yourself. So keeping your mind open, being aware of your own thoughts and feelings rather than getting focused on theirs. Often as children, when we grow up in dysfunctional family environments or with emotionally immature people, you get very hyper-focused on how to fix the other person, how to control what's happening, how to keep yourself safe, how to know what's coming next. And you get really disconnected from your own self. And so in this moment, can you try to be focused on you and keeping

yourself grounded rather than changing them and getting them to do something? So stay in your adult role. Do not give in to the emotional needs of your inner child. You can keep your or child safe, you can protect it. That is not the part of you that is in control or being dominant right now. And then a couple of other like self-preservation techniques that I wanted to give you that when you're interacting with emotionally immature people and you're choosing to maintain these relationships in your life, which many people do for so many reasons. I know that sometimes when we talk about this stuff, people are like, oh, why would you go through all of this? And there's so many reasons to go through it, right? It might keep you in contact with other people

in the family, it might give you, you know, access to other relationships, to opportunities to, you know, because you want to stay in relationship with this person truly just because it matters to you. Or you are disabled and you have an emotionally immature person that is helping you. You know, you can't move out of the house yet. There are so many reasons why people choose not to cut off family members and why they choose to stay in relationships that I think we need less judgment of that and more just awareness that some people might want strategies in order to maintain those relationships. And so you can recognize the patterns for what they are, stay aware of them, you know, tell yourself like, I'm not crazy, I'm seeing this, this is real,

this person does act this way all the time, and continue being open to evaluating if the relationship is worth maintaining over time. Things can always change. They can go in either direction and you can learn how to disengage from certain things respectfully and firmly while staying true to your own values. You do not need to slip into the same emotionally immature behavior that you are being shown from this person. All right. I hope that that is helpful to help you all learn how to deal with emotionally immature people

in your family. If you would like more help and support with this, please remember that you can join the Family Cycle Breakers Club at Calling Home. We really expand on this in so much more detail inside the Family Cycle Breakers Club and give you actual human-to-human support with other people that are going through these relationships and dealing with the same thing as you. I also think the worksheets on this topic are a great supplement to therapy, or if you're reading this book, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, that could be really

helpful for you as well. And if you have any questions for me, you can always call in to the podcast at 866-22. 25-5-4-66 and leave me a voicemail to ask me a question. We do play the voicemails on the episodes, but otherwise, if you don't leave your name or anything, there's no other identifying information. And we'll be focusing on this topic for the rest of the month. I look forward to seeing you all for the next episode. Please do not forget to subscribe to the podcast. Leave us a review. That is what helps me keep this podcast going and keeping it free for all of you. And I will see you again. next week. Bye.

The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist, patient, or other treatment relationship between you and Colling Home or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Collingholm's terms of service link in the show notes below. I don't know.