Childhood emotional neglect affects men and women in the same core ways, but they often look different.

Neglected women tend to turn their pain inward, becoming caretakers who ignore their own needs.

Neglected men often mistake their isolation for strength while feeling invisible and overlooked.

I often get asked whether childhood emotional neglect affects men and women differently. My answer is, "Yes, it can." Although the essential effects are the same, some of those effects do tend to play out differently in men than in women.

In my book Running on Empty, I tried to represent both genders in my descriptions, examples, and vignettes. Before I talk about this more, I need to mention one large caveat. The differences I've seen between emotionally neglected men and women are general descriptions that do not apply across the board. I often see what could be considered the “masculine” effects in women, and vice versa. Since there is a significant crossover, please don't take these differences too firmly or stringently. And definitely, do not think there is something wrong with you if you fit more neatly into the opposite gender. It does not indicate a problem of any kind.

As you look over the table below, you may notice that the differences are not very surprising. Neuroscientists have found (Ingalhalikar et al., 2014)........

© Psychology Today