The origins of emotional deprivation lie in the person who serves as the maternal figure for the child–the person who is chiefly responsible for giving the child emotional nurturance. In some families this figure is a man, but in our culture it is usually a woman. The father figure is important also, but in the first years of life, it is usually the mother who forms the center of the child’s world. That first relationship becomes the prototype for those that follow. For the rest of the individual’s life, most close relationships will bear the stamp of that first experience with mother.

With emotional deprivation, the child received a less than average amount of maternal nurturance. The term nurturance has a number of dimensions, as you can see from the list below outlining the origins of this lifetrap. We use the world mother to refer to the maternal figure.

1. Mother is cold and unaffectionate. She does not hold and rock the child enough.

2. The child does not have a sense of being loved and valued–of being someone who is precious and special.

3. Mother does not give the child enough time and attention.

4. The mother is not really tuned into the child’s needs. She has difficulty empathizing with the child’s world. She does not really connect with the child.

5. Mother does not soothe the child adequately. The child, then, may not learn to soothe him/herself or to accept soothing from others.

6. The parents do not adequately guide the child or provide a sense of direction. There is no one solid for the child to rely upon.

It sometimes takes us a while to realize that a patient has the Emotional Deprivation lifetrap. Unlike most of the other lifetraps, where the parent does something active that damages the child, emotional deprivation results from the absence of certain mothering behaviors. Behaviors of the parent such as the criticalness that gives rise to the Defectiveness lifetrap, or the domination that gives rise to Subjugation, are highly visible. The parent commits actions the child can remember. But emotional deprivation is not always like this. Emotional deprivation is something missing, something the child never knew.

Emotional deprivation, therefore can be a difficult lifetrap for you to recognize. Unless you experienced extreme neglect, it might take some exploration to determine whether you were deprived as a child. You might recognize the lifetrap in yourself only after you have asked yourself specific questions: “Did I feel close to my mother, did I feel she understood me, did I feel loved, did I love her, was she warm and affectionate, could I tell her what I felt, could she give me what I needed?”

In therapy, many people with the Emotional Deprivation lifetrap at first say things like “Oh, I had a normal childhood. My mother was always there.” Dustin began therapy saying, “My mother gave me everything. I had everything I wanted.” However, when people with this lifetrap describe their past and current relationships, something is wrong. A disturbing pattern emerges. There is a feeling of disconnection. Perhaps the person is hypersensitive to being deprived or is chronically angry. It is only when we work our way backwards that we understand the origin. Although Emotional Deprivation is one of the most common lifetraps, it is often one of the hardest to detect.