Emotional incest with your parents — it doesn’t sound great, does it? But it’s a surprisingly common dynamic — and, no, it isn’t real incest. As poet Philip Larkin so eloquently put it, “They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do.” If you’ve had so much as one therapy session, (or, for that matter, spent more than five minutes scrolling on TikTok) you probably already know that there are plenty of ways a well-meaning parent can leave you with long-lasting quote-unquote “issues.”

Sometimes, parents treat their kids like they’re the parents. Other times, parents treat their kids like they are also adults — instead of forming a healthy parent-child dynamic, this can lead to a toxic and confusing relationship that almost mirrors an adult relationship. It’s something psychologists refer to as covert or emotional incest.

“Emotional incest is a form of emotional abuse (not physical or sexual abuse) that occurs between
parent (or primary care-giver) and child when the parent is not getting their emotional needs met or receiving the emotional support from a healthy adult relationship,” explain Ariel Eversoll and her mother Theresa Ritcher of the mother-daughter coaching team Mother to Daughter Healing.

Psychologist Kenneth M Adams coined the term “covert incest” in the 1980s, which refers to “a type of enmeshment between a parent and child where boundaries get blurred resulting in unhealthy family dynamics,” she goes onto explain.

Why does emotional incest occur between parents and children?

This dynamic can emerge for a number of different reasons, but it almost always occurs when the parent isn’t getting the support they need from an adult relationship, so they turn to their child to have those needs met.

“Emotional incest can happen in a single parent home due to divorce, separation or a death where the parent becomes emotionally dependent on their child to fill the role of the spouse, partner or friend,” Eversoll says. “It can even show up when both parents live under the same roof. If there is an emotional divide between parents, infidelity or loss of intimacy, one parent may seek from their child what they are not receiving from their partner.”

The dynamic always occurs between a parent and child and often between parent-child pairings of the opposite sex.

“However, emotional incest can exist within mother to daughter and father to son relationships,” adds Ritcher and Eversoll. “Having coached many individual women as well as mother-daughter pairs, we do see the emotional incest dynamic between mothers and daughters and it typically presents in two ways. The mother takes on the role of a friend or she is domineering towards her child, highly critical and emotionally abusive.”

It’s important to note that this pattern is unconscious. “This parent-child relationship dysfunction is learned and passed down from generation to generation,” the coaches explain. “The cycle will continue until someone is courageous enough to break the cycle.”

Why is emotional incest a harmful dynamic?

While it may be unconscious, emotional incest can take a serious toll.