Emotional Unavailability & Neediness

Book excerpt: Neediness and emotional unavailability are two sides of the same coin because both are based on a lack of self love, a fear of love and the hurt that love can engender due to the vulnerability that being in love generally evokes. A person may live out one side of the coin (neediness) in several relationships and then - in a new relationship - may find him or herself living out the other side of the coin (emotional unavailability). Emotional unavailability and neediness do not tend to be deliberate because there is never anything consciously deliberate about the way a defense mechanism arises in childhood. A man who refuses to commit should not blithely be judged as being manipulative or callous although on the surface he may very well appear to be so. Furthermore, the older he gets, the more of a history of this nature he acquires, and hence the more those who sit in judgement reach the conclusion that they are right. The same could, of course, be said about the emotionally unavailable woman. Another case in point: a woman whose neediness may appear as emotionally manipulative, generally also does not behave this way in a deliberate fashion. And again, the same could be said about the needy man. This book dissects the causes of these defense mechanisms, paving the road - for those who wish to change the inner landscape of their emotional constraints - to live and be able to love more freely.