Even the best and most loving parents can fail their children in this way. Many are simply raising their children the way they were raised themselves, unaware that they are failing to provide a crucial ingredient to their growing child. This is part of what makes CEN so invisible.

But the message that you get as a child is: Your Feelings Don't Matter.

And since our emotions are the most deeply personal, biological part of who we are, we hear this message as, “You don’t matter.” 

So, you adapt to keep your parents happy, and you push your feelings down and away, so that they won’t bother anyone.

That strategy works well for you as a child, but as an adult, you start to notice that you feel numb or empty. You have a hard time relating to other people and expressing yourself. You may have difficulty knowing what you want or what you need or what you feel. You may even feel ashamed for having feelings and needs, and get angry at your own mistakes, or for simply being human.

We start here because it’s important for you to know exactly how your CEN developed, how YOU feel about it, and how it’s affecting you personally as an adult.

I always receive a lot of questions about how not being emotionally validated in childhood can lead to the emptiness, disconnection, and lack of fulfillment that you’ve been experiencing all these years. I understand how hard it is to realize and accept the connection between such a seemingly innocuous childhood experience, and such a powerful, damaging effect in adulthood.

In this module, I’ll walk you through exactly how the cause and effect are linked, specifically what went on inside of you as a child, and what’s happening for you now as an adult.

I’ll help you see how your CEN is the root cause of other issues in your life, such as perhaps lack of confidence, low self-esteem, social anxiety, self-directed anger. or depression.

We’ll get you started on learning and thinking about your feelings, increasing your feelings vocabulary, and tuning into your emotions.

By the end of this module, you’ll be more in touch with your CEN, and you’ll understand that what you’re struggling with is not your fault. This will free you up to stop blaming yourself and start attacking the problem.

If you answer yes to some of these statements, then you may have CEN.

If you have CEN, I want you to know that there is good news.

CEN is not a disease or a mental illness.

It’s really only a natural response to something vital that was missing in your childhood.

CEN doesn’t have to hang, like a dark cloud, over life any more. CEN is very treatable and you can overcome it yourself.

Once you understand what has really been happening inside of you and why you feel so different from everyone else, you will gain the ability to work through those issues and heal.

First comes awareness. Then you can heal. And I’ll show you how.

Now that you own and see your wall, I’ll teach you a new skill that you should use as often as you can. It takes a chip out of that wall every time you do it, whether you succeed or not.

I’ll get you started with focusing inward more, paying attention to your feelings and monitoring your emotions as you go through your day.

I’ll tell you about the possible pitfalls that can come up when you start to break your wall down, and I’ll tell you about how that worked for one of my patients.

I’ll teach you a special skill for sitting with and riding out a difficult emotion. It’s a formula for processing an emotion that really works, and I’ll give you an example of a real person using it.

I’ll give you an Emotion Cheat Sheet to keep on your phone so you can use it any time that you have a feeling that is painful or difficult.

We’ll start applying your new access to emotion and your new skills to your everyday life.

Two things will begin to happen here when you are practicing these skills regularly and persistently over time: the people in your life will start to notice a difference in you. You’ll seem more responsive, connected, and warm to them, and they may even be a little surprised by it. You’ll also notice that you’ll feel different.

You’ll be able to start using your new emotion processing skills to manage the natural feelings that will be popping up for you in your real life.

First, I’ll teach you some very important general rules about how emotions work. These are facts about emotions that you missed learning in your CEN childhood home. Knowing these facts will make your emotions less scary, and this process less daunting.

We’ll talk about what validity and validation mean to you, and how you can go through your entire life not feeling valid, without ever realizing it.

I’ll give you an example of someone who was afraid that valid = selfish, a common fear for CEN folks.

I’ll explain three ways for you to build your validity: by treating your needs and emotions as valid; by knowing yourself better; and by self-care.

We’ll talk about the important relationship between validation and self-care.  I’ll help you identify which areas of self-care are your biggest blind spots. Then I’ll give you the tools and the process to fix those blind spots.

This module is designed to drive home your realization that you are valid, and you matter. Our goal is that you genuinely feel and believe that your needs and feelings matter, and that you are worth the effort of care.

First we’ll talk about how CEN has affected your relationships with the people in your life, and prevented you from forming new, healthy ones.

I’ll help you choose one person to start taking risks with, and set you up with a structure to do it.

I know you’ll be afraid to change. You’ll be worried that you’ll receive negative reactions when you start to assert yourself and show your feelings more. I’ll give you some stock phrases to use to help the people around you react less, and understand what’s going on when you behave differently.

I’ll tell you about a patient who started saying “no” to her family, who always KNEW that she’d say “yes,” and how that worked out for her.

I’ll explain that there is a way to ease the process of becoming more assertive with people who don’t expect it, and how to do it.

We’ll talk about applying all of your new skills and new motivation to take risks to your current relationships, and how to move forward with it.

I’ll give you some simple phrases to make a conscious effort to use more often. These phrases will help you take up more space, assert yourself, and get your needs met a lot more often.

As you continue to work on this module, you’ll notice your relationships becoming more balanced. You’ll start to feel closer to people. You may weed out some people who are bad for you, and you’ll begin to feel more grounded, more supported, and more connected in your life.

You’ll also be sent an invitation to join me live for a bi-weekly Q&A / Coaching call where you can ask me questions about how to apply all of this to your personal situation.

The call will not be psychotherapy, however.

I won’t be able to give you personal advice, but I can answer your questions about CEN and how to apply the program in your situation.

The Q&A / Coaching Calls are scheduled for Wednesday evenings, at 5:30 p.m. EST.

And, if you can’t make the Q&A  / Coaching calls, don’t worry. You can send me questions and I’ll bring them up during the call. A recording of each call will be available on the member’s area for you to listen to whenever it’s convenient for you.

And you will get access to my Fuel Up for Life Online Support Community. In my opinion, it is this community that really makes this program work. It’s powerful because the people are really engaged, really supportive. This community isn’t just where you will find me and other fellow participants going through the program with you, there will also be people who have graduated from the program and are there to help and support you as you go through it as well.

In this community you are going to post your celebrations, you are going to post your challenges, your struggles and your questions about working with CEN. I promise you, you will meet life-long friends in this community. It is the most valuable online experience I have ever been a part of.

In addition to this online support community, I will also offer a way for those who want to go deeper with support to connect with 3 other members of the community to create what I call a mastermind. The 4 of you will have the opportunity to meet once a week or every other week to help each other through the CEN related situations you are facing and give each other support and a sense of validation for the changes you are making in your life. This is a very powerful experience that can become a game changer for you.

How to Deal With Your CEN Parents

One of the hardest parts of healing from CEN is interacting with your parents.

You may be irritable with them, angry at them, or have difficulty being in their presence. I’ll walk you through the normal feelings you may be having. I’ll help you sort through what type of parents you have, and how you can interact with them with your new understanding. I’ll help you answer one of the most common questions I get from people: Do I talk to my parents about CEN?

Emotionally Attuned Parenting

CEN passes invisibly from one generation to the next.

Now that you know about your CEN and are dealing with it, you’re in an excellent position to make sure that you don’t pass yours down. I’ll give you some practical tips on how to make sure that you respond to and validate your children’s feelings. Just in case you’re feeling guilty about your parenting, we’ll talk about that too. Because in this situation, guilt is not helpful to either you or your children. And none of this is your fault.

How to Deal With Emotional Neglect in Your Marriage

If one or both partners in a couple have CEN, it is exceptionally difficult.

Marriage is a very emotional part of life, and when you have CEN, your emotional skills may not be quite up for the challenge. I’ll give you some tips on how to bring emotions into your marriage, use them and deal with them.

CEN Recovery For the Emotionally or Physically Abused

When you grow up with emotional neglect mixed with abuse of any kind, there are extra complicating factors. Your CEN is typically buried even deeper, beneath the more visible, memorable impact of having been called names, demeaned, hit or threatened as a child.

Many people make great progress in dealing with their childhood abuse, but find themselves still sitting with the disconnected, flawed, empty feelings from CEN. In this bonus, I’ll help you sort out how to apply this recovery program to your special situation.

Video for your Friends and Family about Recovering from CEN

Recovering from CEN can be difficult if your loved ones don't understand what you are going through.

I have created this video specifically for friends and family so that they can understand what CEN is and what it takes to recover from it. This way they can help you through the process of recovering.

So now you’re probably wondering, “What’s this going to cost me?”

I have taken years of clinical practice and experience to put this program together. It’s based on what has worked for my patients in the past. I have taken all of that knowledge and I have created an online CEN recovery program specifically for the public that can be done on your own, or with the help of a therapist.

In the best of all worlds, I would have each and every one of you come to my office so that I could go on this journey with you in person. But of course that’s not a realistic possibility. I’ve also considered offering Skype consultations, and I’ve received many requests for it from people who live far away and can’t get to my office in Boston. But unfortunately I don’t feel comfortable doing that because of recommendations and professional guidelines of the Massachusetts Board of Psychology.

Hundreds of folks have contacted me for advice about how they can work directly on CEN with their current therapist. All of these things together made me realize that I need to make CEN recovery more accessible to people who don’t live in New England, or who want to keep their current therapist.

I developed this program so that I can offer everything I’ve learned to all of the people who can benefit from it. I want to make this help available to all of the CEN folks out there who are quietly confused, and wondering what’s wrong with them.

No, it’s not the same as one-on-one therapy. Nothing really compares to that. But I’ve put so much into this program that, together with the calls and the online support community and small group masterminds, I feel it offers a high quality alternative when in-person therapy isn’t an option, or as a CEN adjunct to your current therapy.

Dr. Webb has been a licensed psychologist since 1991, and has worked in a variety of different settings over the course of her career, including a psychiatric emergency service and substance abuse programs. She has been the Director of several large outpatient clinics. For the past eight years, she has been enjoying her private practice in Lexington, Massachusetts, specializing in the treatment of couples and families.

Over two decades of practicing psychology, Dr. Webb gradually started to see a factor from childhood which weighs upon people as adults. This factor is extremely subtle. In fact, it’s so difficult to see that it goes virtually unnoticed while it quietly saps a person’s joy in life, causing him or her to struggle with self-discipline, or to feel disconnected and unfulfilled. Dr. Webb gave a name to this invisible factor from childhood. She calls it Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN).™

"As I became aware of the power and pervasiveness of Emotional Neglect, I felt compelled to draw awareness to it. My goal is to bring this unseen force from childhood out of the darkness and into the light. To make people aware of it and it’s effects upon them. To give them the words to talk about it and the tools to fix it."