Love or Emotional Hunger: Can You Tell the Difference?

Colette Dowling, LMSW

Real love nourishes the other person, be it a child or an adult. The real lover is interested in supporting the other person and encourages the unfolding of his or her personality.

But love can be confused with emotional hunger. Emotional hunger has little to do with the other person and everything to do with oneself. The person driven by emotional hunger didn't get what she needed as a child. It's a primitive condition of pain and longing that is caused by deprivation. Often, in a family, it's passed from generation to generation. The emotionally hungry parent uses the child for his or her own needs.

What are some signs of emotionally hungry parenting? It can be seen in a variety of behaviors.

* anxious overconcern and overprotection

* resentment of a child's accomplishments

* wanting the attention the child gets for oneself

Parents who are truly capable of giving love are not emotionally hungry. They have a positive self image and can feel compassion for the child. Parents who are capable of loving can maintain boundaries. The child of such parents feels loved and looks loved. Such a child is deeply secure.

By comparison, children of hungry parents develop reciprocal hunger. They're overly dependent and emotionally volatile, write Firestone and Catlett, in their book, Fear of Intimacy. They develop clinging behavior and are afraid to explore the environment.

As adults, children of emotionally hungry parents have higher than normal anxiety states. They fear success (which, emotionally, would mean separation from the parent). In their love relationships they tend to be witholding because earlier experiences cause them to fear being depleted or sucked dry. Emotionally hungry parenting puts children "on the take", in other words. Such children feel deprived. What is given to them never feels like enough. The emotionaly hungry adult is afraid of having children for fear of being further emptied.

Some questions for assessing your own level of emotional hunger:

* How willing are you for your mate to have friends of his (or her) own?

* Are you envious of, or threatened by, your mate's successes and involvement with work?

* Do you believe your mate should spend all of his (or her) spare time with you?

A person who suffers from emotional hunger doesn't feel loved, actually can't feel loved, because life will never offer enough compensation for what was lost in childhood. The sad truth is that a love relationship, even when offered, can't cure the victim of emotional hunger for the simple reason that he or she can't FEEL the love.

The things that stand in the way of feeling love can come to be understood, and repaired, in psychotherapy. Once trust with a therapist is established the chain of intergenerational hunger can be broken. In fact, it must be broken if one ever wants to be able to truly love another.

Colette has written eight books and is best known for uncovering women's psychological conflicts with independence in her best-seller, The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fears of Independence.

Colette Dowling, LMSW, has a private practice in Manhattan and specializes in the treament of women. Her Chelsea office is convenient to Brooklyn, Queens, Hoboken and Jersey City.

Click here for more information on Colette's therapy practice.

You may reach Colette at dowlingcolette@earthlink.net or by calling 718-594-0201.

To hear Colette talk about what it's like starting therapy with a new therapist click below.

For articles on women's mental health see Colette's website.

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