Dr. Galit Atlas on the Wounded Child Running Your Love Life

Description:

Why do we keep doing the same thing over and over in love? Same argument, same shutdown, same spiral, same reach toward somebody who cannot or will not reach back. We are grown. We have read the books. And still, something inside us takes the wheel and steers us right back into the ditch.

Dr. Galit Atlas says the one driving is probably not you. It is probably the child you used to be.

Galit is a psychoanalyst in New York who has spent more than twenty years in a room with people trying to talk about love. Her last book, Emotional Inheritance, was an international bestseller translated into twenty-nine languages. Her new book, Come Closer, names six wounded children most of us are hauling around inside: the frightened child, the melancholic child, the ashamed child, the invisible child, the guilty child, and the chosen child.

In this conversation, Galit walks us through all six, what each one actually looks like in an adult relationship, and why we keep reaching for the familiar even when the familiar is what hurt us. She unpacks the invisible child who learned to hide too well, the guilty child who is always bracing to be blamed, and the chosen child who cannot separate from the parent she was recruited to take care of. She also opens her own story: her father's childhood in Iran, the losses her family did not have the privilege to name, and what happened when he showed up for her at the hardest moment of her life.

This is not a book about bad parents, and the rummaging is not for its own sake. It is the only way to stop the repeating. The goal is not an apology. The goal is getting the wheel back.

Read it with a pen in hand. And you probably already know exactly who to send this one to.

Thought-provoking Quotes:

• “The frightened child is afraid of closeness because they learned that the people they love and the people they depend on can hurt them.” – Dr. Galit Atlas
• “The familiar is our home. For better and for worse, even if it's filled with demons, it's our home.” – Dr. Galit Atlas
• “We repeat in order to repair.” – Dr. Galit Atlas
• “The invisible child masters the art of disappearing.” – Dr. Galit Atlas
• “As adults, we have the power to know ourselves, we have the power to evolve and to heal. It's on us.” – Dr. Galit Atlas
• “The goal is to get the wheel back and be in charge of the adult versions of ourselves.” – Jen Hatmaker

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Come Closer: Childhood Wounds, Adult Love, and the Secrets of Emotional Intimacy – https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Come-Closer/Galit-Atlas/9781668067147
• Emotional Inheritance: A Therapist, Her Patients, and the Legacy of Trauma by Dr. Galit Atlas
• D.W. Winnicott on hiding: it is a joy to be hidden, but a disaster not to be found

Guest’s Links:

Website - https://www.galitatlas.com/

Instagram - https://instagram.com/galit_atlas

Substack - https://wildanalysiswithgalitatlas.substack.com/

Connect with Jen!
Jen’s Website - https://jenhatmaker.com/

Jen’s Instagram -