EI parents can draw you into reacting to them with unusual emotional intensity. That’s because they offload their unpleasant emotional states by acting in ways that stir up the same emotions in you. They pretend they don’t have such emotions, but actually they project them onto you to be contained and processed so that it seems you’re the one having the feeling. For instance, a passive-aggressive EIP might make you furious while they remain unaware of the extent of their own anger. This unconscious way of getting rid of disturbing emotion by making others feel it is called projective
...more
