Do you have an 'emotionally immature parent'? Top psychologist reveals the signs - and seven ways to stop them ruining your life with their narcissism and emotional manipulation

When Natalie arrived in my consulting room, she had all the outward trappings of success: a high-flying business career, happy marriage, successful children and close friendships. But she was plagued by a recurrent nightmare. ‘The theme is always the same,’ Natalie, 50, told me. ‘I’m in a desperate situation I can’t get out of. I’m trying frantically to find a solution. Different roads, different keys, different doors – none of them work. I’m all alone.

‘Often I’m responsible for other people who are watching, but they give me no help. Then I wake up, my heart racing.’. Natalie’s dream captures what it feels like to be emotionally alone; to believe you have to deal with everything by yourself and not even consider asking for help.

It’s a feeling lots of people will identify with. The reason? This is often the psychological legacy for children who grow up with ‘emotionally immature parents’. As a clinical psychologist with 35 years of experience, I developed this phrase after I had a revelation while listening to a client talk about her father. I realised that he wasn’t just inappropriate or abusive; he was pathologically immature.

At an emotional level, he was like a giant toddler – at best, a 14-year-old – putting his wants above everyone else’s and lacking the empathy and protective instincts towards his children that we associate with parents. I thought of how many psychotherapy clients I’d had whose childhoods – and then their adult lives – were overshadowed by this kind of parental egocentrism, over-reactivity and emotional manipulation.

As a clinical psychologist, I developed the phrase 'emotionally immature parents' after listening to a client talk about her father, writes Lindsay Gibson. That day I saw these parents differently, revealed for the bullies they were. While no official clinical diagnosis exists to identify ‘emotionally immature’ parents, my insights have clearly hit home.

My books on how adult children can best deal with their emotionally immature parents have sold more than a million copies and appeared on bestseller lists worldwide. I believe that a great truth has been hiding in plain sight, obscured by social stereotypes that wrongly assume our parents know best and we must always defer to them.

And the legacy of growing up with an emotionally immature parent can be profound. Some clients find themselves in abusive relationships because they know no different, or alternatively have such a low opinion of themselves that they don’t feel worthy when they are loved.

Some forge good relationships and what should be a happy life, but their upbringing still finds a way to haunt them, whether through anxiety, depression or bad dreams. In Natalie’s case, she had felt responsible for her mother’s emotional state since childhood.

Nothing had changed now her mother was elderly and had moved in with her and her family. No matter how much Natalie did, her mother would always still complain that she didn’t love her, or help her, enough. Her mother was carrying out an ‘emotional takeover’ – when an emotionally immature parent induces emotions that help control a child for their own benefit.

So how do you recognise an emotionally immature parent – and how can you avoid an emotional takeover and break free of this cycle?. What’s key is that there’s a difference between a pattern of emotional immaturity and a temporary emotional regression. Anyone can briefly lose control when tired or stressed.

However, in emotionally immature people, certain behaviours show up repeatedly – and they rarely apologise or experience regret. Emotionally immature people are usually led by their feelings; they don’t deal well with stress and often have a tendency to overreact.

They can’t cope with differing thoughts and opinions. Go against them and they’ll shut you out. In any interaction, all roads lead back to them. An example might be a mother listening to her daughter describe a relationship crisis and using it as a springboard to talk about her own divorce. Or a parent who upstages their child’s victory with recollections of their own accomplishments.

They like to be centre of attention, but while extroverts are receptive when others participate, an emotionally immature person will dominate a group’s time and energy. Role reversal is also a hallmark of emotionally immature parenting, with parents treating the child as if they are the parent, expecting comfort or someone to confide in.

For these parents, ordinary life’s vicissitudes can constitute a crisis that needs to be solved right now. So as their child, when they are upset, you tend to jump first and ask questions later. Take my client John. His elderly mother lived in a nice retirement community, but she frequently called him with problems that the facility’s staff could have fixed.