Episode 50: Healing from the Emotionally Immature Parent
In this milestone 50th episode of The Love Doc Podcast, Dr. Sarah Hensley opens with a candid observation she’s seen time and time again in her coaching practice: setting boundaries with emotionally immature parents—or in-laws—can feel even more excruciating than setting them with a romantic partner. Why? Because the first place we ever learned about love, safety, and connection was at home. And when the very people who were supposed to nurture our emotional needs couldn’t meet us where we were, it doesn’t just wound our childhoods—it quietly bleeds into how we love, trust, and show up in our adult relationships.
Dr. Hensley breaks down the deep psychological impact that growing up with an emotionally stunted parent can have. It can create chronic self-doubt, hypervigilance, an unstable sense of self-worth, and a blueprint of attachment where emotional neglect feels “normal.” Many of us unconsciously seek romantic partners who mirror the emotional patterns we grew up with—partners who are distant, unavailable, or inconsistent—because it’s the only intimacy our nervous system recognizes. Without realizing it, we are often trying to “finish the story” with someone else that was left incomplete by our earliest caregivers.
In a deeply personal segment, Sarah and her cohost Raina share their own raw stories: Sarah’s painful experience navigating a relationship with an emotionally immature father, and Raina’s difficult upbringing with a mother who was emotionally unstable due to her own unhealed trauma. They open up about how these early wounds shaped the choices they made in their first romantic relationships—often chasing emotional closeness where it was chronically withheld. They also reflect on how these experiences made them fiercely intentional about how they parent today, choosing to break the cycles of emotional disconnection by offering the attunement and presence they didn’t always receive themselves.
But healing from these wounds isn’t just about recognizing the past; it’s about actively choosing to reparent yourself. Dr. Hensley explains that “reparenting” means becoming the steady, loving caregiver to your own inner child—the one who was ignored, invalidated, or left to navigate big emotions alone. Through conscious practices of self-compassion, emotional validation, boundary setting, and nurturing rituals, you can literally rewire your attachment system. Inner child work, Dr. Hensley explains, is about meeting yourself in those abandoned spaces—learning to sit with your unmet needs rather than running from them, and offering yourself the empathy, care, and consistency you deserved all along.
If this episode resonates deeply with you—if you recognize yourself in these patterns and you’re ready to stop letting old wounds dictate your present relationships—Dr. Hensley invites you to explore The Love Doc‘s coaching programs and resources. Healing is possible, and it begins with the brave decision to show up for yourself in a way no one else ever could. Rebuilding your emotional foundation through reparenting and inner child work isn’t just transformational—it’s the first step toward the secure, fulfilling love you were always worthy of.
Tune in to "The Love Doc Podcast" every Tuesday morning for candid conversations, expert guidance, and a deeper understanding of life, love and relationships in the modern world. To see all of Dr. Hensley’s services please visit the links below and follow her on social media.
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