Therapy for Adults who had Narcissistic, Critical, or Immature Parents

"If it’s not one thing, it’s your mother.” - Unknown

Signs you had a Narcissistic, Immature, or Critical parent

• One or both parents needed you to reflect well on them.
• You knew how to monitor their moods and anticipate their needs.
• You did whatever you could to earn their love.
• You do most of the giving/caring in your relationships.
• You worry about displeasing others, concerned they might retaliate.
• You still feel like a kid inside, terrified you’re going to screw up, that people will find out you’re an impostor.

Growing up with a parent who is immature - whether due to a personality disorder or their own childhood trauma, turns kids into hyper-responsible, overworking, people-pleasing adults. You’re left feeling exhausted, depleted, and resentful, giving away the kind of care and kindness you never got, and are still not getting. You wonder why you keep finding friends, romantic partners, even colleagues who take much more than they give. You wonder what you are doing wrong.

How a Narcissitic or Immature Parent affects your Adult Relationships

Our early relationships become a template for how the world works. We behave according to rules we’re not even aware of - rules that dictate how we treat others (we anticipate their needs and take care of them) and how others treat us (they run hot and cold, holding the power to make us feel good or bad). Your early experiences with mom, dad, or both taught you that love was conditional. You earned it by bolstering their self-image.

How a Narcissistic/Immature Parent Creates Codependent Kids

On one level, taking care of your immature parent(s) probably turned you into a little adult. On another, deeper level, you still feel like a kid because your parent couldn’t model how to be a healthy adult, functioning in the world, communicating clearly, setting appropriate boundaries. Instead, they modeled manipulation, coercion, imperiousness or arrogance, maybe even tantrums.

You might have decided at a very young age that you were going to do the opposite - to be as kind and trustworthy as possible. Unfortunately, making this choice without the counterbalance of self-care, self-compassion, and strong boundaries makes people codependent - taking care of others in the hope that they will take care of you too. Inside, there is still a little kid who never got the unconditional love, care, and nurturing needed to become a strong, capable AND trustworthy adult.

How therapy helps heal the wound of having a narcissistic, immature, or critical parent

Therapy helps on two levels. First, having a relationship with someone who doesn’t need your care gives you the lived experience your brain needs to form new neural pathways, knowing both consciously and subconsciously what a healthy, respectful, and mutual relationship should feel like.

You’ve been attracted to narcissistic or immature people because they felt familiar. They fit your unconscious relationship template. A healthy relationship rewires unconscious parts of the brain, so you develop a new template. Gradually, narcissistic and immature people start to feel off or wrong to you.

Second, therapy with someone who specializes in recovery from childhood narcissistic abuse or the neglect of a critical or immature parent can provide you with the skills you need to reparent yourself in healthy ways. You can learn how to be consistently warm, caring, supportive, and available to yourself in ways your own parent(s) never could.

As you develop the “adulting” skills you’ve always needed, your inner critic will soften. You no longer need an inner critic to make sure you’re behaving in ways that will win approval. That voice can shift, becoming an inner parent who is trustworthy, caring, and truly nurturing.

Reclaiming your Birthright: Confidence, Joy, and Mutual Relationships

As this process unfolds, you start to feel like a real adult, no longer at the mercy of others, thinking you won’t survive without the care of someone who you constantly have to win over. Paradoxically, you also start to relax and have more fun. The kid in you can start to play when it doesn’t have to pretend to be that perfect, always-on, always-together grown up. Life becomes more joyful.

As an added bonus, you may discover that narcissistic and otherwise difficult relationships fall away. People who only liked you for how you made them feel will start looking elsewhere to get their narcissistic needs met. That will make room for healthy relationships to flourish. Like attracts like. So as you heal and grow, you will find others who enjoy you for who you are, not what you do for them.

Schedule an Appointment to Learn More

My superpower is helping people recover from the trauma of having a parent who was immature. My mom was narcissistic and suffered from an eating disorder. My dad had borderline personality disorder and a history of childhood abuse. I became a super-people-pleaser. I was lucky to find a therapist who showed me what it feels like to be in a warm, supportive, respectful relationship. She taught me how to parent myself, to trust myself, to give myself the unconditional love I always needed. And it transformed my whole life. It is my honor, my joy, and my calling to offer that same experience to my clients.

If this resonates, you can schedule a free consultation and see if the way I work will work for you.