Recovery Exercise – Lack of Emotional Support and Guidance in Childhood

Consider how a lack of support and guidance while growing up may have influenced development. Children growing up in dysfunctional homes seldom have access to the emotional support and guidance they need or want. Envision yourself at different key stages in your childhood. In a journal, write about emotional support or guidance you may have needed or wanted but did not obtain.

When you were a child, who was available for you? Who wasn’t available for you? Who nurtured you? Who failed to provide as much nurturance as you needed? How did you, as a child, adjust to any failure to receive adequate support or guidance?

What major life choices- right or wrong- do you think you made as a child as a direct result of such failures to obtain needed emotional support or guidance? Consider how a lack of support and guidance resources while growing up may still be influencing present-day behavior. The failure to receive needed emotional support and guidance in childhood has significant consequences in adolescence and adulthood.

In what ways do you think failures to receive needed emotional support and guidance in childhood may be influencing current behavior patterns? Provide a specific example by talking about something you did within the last week or so and then link it back to some event in your childhood. Think about how any lack of support and guidance during childhood will be overcome in the future.

The lack of this during childhood does not necessarily sentence an individual to unhappy adult life. In what ways have you been able to overcome or compensate for any lack of support or guidance during childhood? In what ways would you like to be able to overcome or compensate for any lack of support or guidance during childhood? What sources of support or guidance do you have in your life now? What additional sources of support or guidance might you have in your future?

What major life choices do you anticipate you will make in the near or long-term future? How do you intend to bring sound judgment to bear- and not past emotions- in making these choices?

These recovery exercises are adapted from the book The Angry Heart written by Dr. Joseph Santoro and Dr. Ronald Cohen. Dr. Joseph Santoro is one of the founding members of Blue Sky Behavioral Health. Blue Sky offers individualized outpatient as well as residential treatment programs for mental health disorders such as borderline personality disorder. Our supportive and licensed clinical staff can make a major difference in your life. Learn how to live life well by contacting our facility today. Call (888) 822-7348 or visit us online at https://blueskyrecovery.com/