Emotional Deprevation Disorder

Hello everyone! I find I have the time again today to write another blog, so here it goes. My therapist recently gave me a handout about emotional deprevation disorder. He told me to take it and read it and we'd discuss it the next time I visit. After reading the handout I became aware that I most definitely have this disorder.

Emotional Deprevation Disorder is a syndrome which results from a lack of authentic affirmation and emotional strengthening in one's life. A person may have been criticized, ignored, neglected, abused, or emotionally rejected by primary caregivers early in life, resulting in that individual’s stunted emotional growth. Unaffirmed persons are incapable of developing into emotionally mature adults until they receive authentic affirmation from another person. Maturity is reached when there is a harmonious relationship between a person’s body, mind, emotions and spiritual soul under the guidance of their reason and will. Source

I was not abused, neglected, or ignored as a child. I was harshly critized though. I've been tough on myself since I was a child and it has never gone away. I do know that my relationship with my mother was odd. She was tough on me and at times acted more like a sister than a mother. A sister I don't get along with, lol. When we would fight when I was younger we would race to the door when dad got home to tell him our side of the fight. We still do this, only by phone now.

The symptoms of Emotional Deprevation Disorder are as follows (I've highlighted my particular symptoms):

Insufficiently Developed Emotional Life

Abnormal Rapport
o Incapable of establishing normal, mature contact with others
o Feels lonely and uncomfortable in social settings
o Capable of a willed rapport but not an emotional investment in relationships

Egocentric
o Childhood level of emotional development
o Feels like a child or and infant and others must focus their attention on the individual just as an adult would focus on a young child.
o Incapable of emotional surrender to a spouse

Reactions Around Others
o May be fearful in nature or courageous and energetic
o More fearful people tend to become discouraged or depressed
o More courageous and energetic persons can become more aggressive

Uncertainty & Insecurity

Fear or anxiety
o Can be in the form of a generalized anxiety
o Fear of hurting someone else’s feelings
o Fear of hurting others or contaminating them (e.g. with germs or a cold)
o Need for frequent reassurance

Feels incapable of coping with life
o Worry that they’ll be put in a situation they can’t handle
o Can be easily discouraged or depressed
o May pretend to be in control in order to mask inner feelings and fearfulness

Hesitation and Indecisiveness
o Difficulty in making decisions
o Easily changes mind

Oversensitivity
o Overly sensitive to the judgments of others, criticism or slights
o Easily hurt or embarrassed

Need to Please Others
o Pleases others in order to protect self from criticism or rejection and gain approval of others
o Easily taken advantage of or exploited
o Fear of asking for favors or services needed

Self-consciousness
o Worried about what other people think
o Self-doubt and need for reassurance

Helplessness
o Do not dare to say “no” for fear of rejection

Inferiority and Inadequacy

Feel Unloved
o Believe that no one could possibly love them
o Feel devoid of all feelings of love
o Believe they are incapable of loving others or God
o Suspicious of any token of affection – continually doubt sincerity of others

Physical Appearance
o May have feelings of inadequacy due to physical appearance

Feelings of Intellectual Incompetence
o May have difficult completing projects
o Repeated failure or fear of failure

Show Signs of Disintegration in New Circumstances
o Fear of new situations and challenges
o Difficulty coping with new job, landlord, moving, etc.
Sense Impairments
o Undeveloped or underdeveloped senses (touch, taste, sight, smell)
o Lack of order, disorganization
o Fatigue

Further symptoms found in some individuals with emotional deprivation disorder:
o Deep feelings of guilt
o Kleptomania
o Need to collect and hoard useless things
o Paranoid condition
Source


Apparently the "cure" I've found online is Affirmation Therapy.

Affirmation therapy involves the therapist’s affective, not effective, presence with a client—in other words, it is a way of “being” with a person as opposed to “doing” something for him or her. Affirmation therapy can be formally described as a way of being affectively present to another human person in a therapeutic relationship in which the therapist reveals to the client his or her intrinsic goodness and worth. Affirmation is a profound way of being with someone that should not be mistaken for a set of simplistic techniques such as giving a pat on the back or a superficial or shallow compliment. Any actions or interventions on the part of the therapist are secondary to the therapist’s affective presence and are only healing in the context of the loving and nurturing environment created by the therapist.

All human beings have an intrinsic need for human love. With the exception of Divine intervention, it is essential to receive human love in order for an individual to feel good, worthwhile, and lovable—and have the capacity to love others. In essence, we must first be loved in order to love.

In affirmation therapy, the therapist’s role can be likened to that of a parent—nurturing, loving, understanding, giving example, teaching moral truths according to the capacity and belief system of the client, and seeing to the individual’s intellectual, emotional, and spiritual needs.

The therapeutic relationship involves a mutual sharing of the client’s life experiences, emotions, fears and anxieties, as well as an exploration of past and present as it relates to the symptomatology of the client. Most importantly, the therapist reveals the goodness of the client to the client through his or her gentle affective presence, which allows for the client's emotional, intellectual and spiritual growth and allows the client's symptoms to be outgrown and gradually disappear.
Source

I suppose when I meet with my therapist next we'll have to discuss this. I really have doubts that a therapist can fill the hole that my mother has left. I feel that these attributes of Emotional Deprevation Disorder I possess are so engrained in me that I can't be fixed. I guess time will tell.