What is emotional incest?
In emotional incest, a child is used by an adult for emotional gratification. When a parent goes to his or her child for emotional support or treats him or her more like a spouse than a child, psychologists call it emotional incest. The child is forced to support the adult by taking on the role of a spouse or serving as a confidant (parentification). Although there is no direct sexual touching, these emotionally entangled relationships sometimes have sexualized undertones.
The term emotional incest comes from psychology and is used for“an unhealthy emotional interaction between a parent or caregiver and their child, in which the boundaries between the adult and the child are blurred in a psychologically inappropriate way.” This definition has been criticized because it is difficult to determine when boundaries are blurred. There is also criticism of emotional incest as a diagnosis, because not every child suffers the same consequences from the same childhood, whereas sexual incest always clearly involves the same problems.
There is some consensus on the danger of emotional incest; it often results in the emotional needs of the parent being satisfied at the expense of those of the child, preventing the child from developing into an independent person with his or her own needs and emotions. Most strikingly, many people who experience emotional incest struggle later in life with similar problems as if sexual incest had occurred.
What causes emotional incest?
Many parents themselves had a traumatic childhood where boundaries were not present and they were victims of the same kind of treatment. Emotional incest is thus passed on from generation to generation.
Emotional incest is most common when a parent is lonely. This often happens when there is a divorce, death, addiction or mental illness where one spouse is unavailable to the other to fulfill their normal adult needs.
Aspects of the children that remind them of their absent spouse reinforce the tendency for emotional incest.
Examples of emotional incest
Asking a child for advice on adult issues
Difficulties with your partner, sexual problems, problems that do not directly involve the child, these are topics more appropriate to discuss with adults. Letting children participate in conversations about your problems in your adult relationships can blur the lines. A parent should not have to depend on their child’s support for romantic or social problems. Asking for advice on adult issues subtly puts the child in a co-responsible position. The roles are reversed.
Ego hunger
Some parents encourage their child to consistently praise their efforts or personality. This may be done indoors, or in public, where other adults see that the child seemingly adores the parent. The parent’s need to feel important or admired may come at the expense of his or her child’s character development.
Best Friend Syndrome
When a parent is his or her child’s best friend, boundary issues often arise. Education, expectations and personal responsibility are all affected by this behavior. This can force the child to put aside his or her social and psychological development for the good of their parent.
The child in the role of therapist
When a child becomes responsible for an adult’s emotional crisis or his or her parents’ adult relationship, the child is deprived of his or her own relationships and the opportunity to learn social behavior. Later in life, the child only feels comfortable taking care of someone else’s emotional needs rather than his or her own. In some cases, it is difficult or impossible for an adult child to have a stable romantic relationship because the child needs crisis to play savior.
Hypersexualization
Although there is no direct sexual contact, the relationships between child and parent may have sexualized overtones, with the parent taking an excessive interest in the child’s physical development and sexual characteristics, or violating the child’s boundaries through invasions of privacy in the bathroom or bedroom. The parent may also talk about his or her own sex life or sexual needs.
What are the consequences of emotional incest?
The result of this family structure creates similar problems for the child as sexual incest. Even when the child has grown up, left home, become an adult, it does not mean that these problems cease to exist. Some consequences are not apparent until adulthood. Common reactions to emotional incest are:
An attachment to feeling special
The child feels special because of the attention they receive and the unusual involvement of the adult. However, the price for feeling special is high:
- The child is often the target of the other parent’s resentment because he or she has taken his or her place.
- Similar resentment and jealousy may be experienced by siblings or friends who are aware of what is going on.
- The child may have a fear of being rejected
- The child may spend an inordinate amount of time and energy striving to “be special”
Feelings of guilt and inadequacy
Children often feel guilty and inadequate because they are unable to meet an adult’s emotional needs. The child’s limitations may cause the parent to express dissatisfaction. “Children who grow up with an invasive parent may have an unnaturally low opinion of their abilities, especially if the parent was critical or abusive. (From the emotional incest syndrome by Patricia Love). The result is unhealthy perfectionism.
Confusion about boundaries
Children are at great risk of not learning their boundaries. An emotionally incestuous relationship results in the child taking too much responsibility for an adult. Because of weak boundaries, children who were victims of emotional incest tend to seek toxic relationships rather than emotionally intimate relationships. In the latter type of relationships, each person’s autonomy is valued. In toxic relationships, one person’s autonomy is compromised because of the other person’s needs and values.
Confusion about power
Typically, the adult and child are not peers in an emotional Incestuous relationship. The parent-partner has more knowledge and power. This leads children to become confused about reciprocity because they believe that someone in a relationship must have power and dominate.
Other common symptoms
- eating disordered behavior,
- self-harm,
- problems with sexuality or sexual intimacy
- drug abuse
- self-destruction
- PTSD
- personality disorder
Why do you hear so little about emotional incest?
Emotional incest is a difficult concept to define. There is no physical abuse and it is not sexual. When a parent becomes a best friend, it may seem like the opposite of abuse.
A child may also enjoy some of the feelings that come from emotional incest. They may feel important or special because they are their parents’ confidant. Although they probably know that they will be treated differently than children around them, the feeling of maturity can be exciting. Children may feel helpful because they are the ones who get to help their parents. For all these reasons, it is difficult for a child to ask for support.
Emotional neglect out of love
If you were involved in an emotionally incestuous relationship with one or more parents, you were often treated lovingly and yet emotionally neglected. You may not have received parenting, structure or guidance as a child.
You have also never learned what your own emotional needs are. You can’t quite explain why you had an apparently good childhood and yet struggle with problems that also occur in people who have experienced sexual incest. Your boundaries have been structurally stepped over unnoticed, which is why you now have trouble functioning.