The messages we carry: How TA injunctions show up in childhood emotional neglect
In transactional analysis, injunctions are the early messages we internalise about who we are, what we’re allowed to do, and how much space we’re entitled to take up. Developed by Robert and Mary Goulding, these twelve core injunctions aren’t usually spoken out loud. They don’t tend to be conscious things that we’re thinking, but a little like the unwritten rules we start living by. Many of them are things we’ve taken on before we’re even verbal. They’re absorbed through atmosphere, behaviour, and the things that weren’t said or done. And for many people who grew up in households where emotional needs went unmet, they show up everywhere.
This isn’t about blame. Parents who pass these messages on often received them too, from their own parents, in their own childhoods. But becoming aware of them can be one of the most freeing things a person does in therapy. Because when you can name something, you can start to question whether it still needs to be true. This blog post is a brief look into those injunctions, what they might feel like, or have looked like in childhood.
What does recognition feel like?
When clients start to notice these injunctions in themselves, there’s often a moment of quiet recognition. A sense of “oh, so that’s what that is.” They might have spent years feeling like something about them was slightly wrong, or that they were always doing things in a way that wasn’t quite approved of. They might have been second-guessing themselves, leaning towards what their parents would have wanted rather than what they actually want. Or they might feel like they’ve been holding themselves back without quite knowing why, not quite reaching something, but not sure what’s been in the way.
Sometimes it’s more specific than that. A feeling of not being able to get close to people. A pattern of things going wrong just when life feels good. A struggle to let their own children grow up, because they had to do it too fast themselves.
There are so many different ways these injunctions show up in adult life. Here are all twelve, and what they can look and feel like.
Don’t exist
This injunction can feel like your very presence was an inconvenience. Perhaps you were unplanned, or simply didn’t fit into your parents’ lives in the way they’d imagined. There might have been a sense of being hurried away, or of not quite being wanted. In adulthood, this can show up as being incredibly hard on yourself, neglecting your own basic needs, or feeling a quiet but persistent urge to shrink, to take up less space, to make yourself smaller somehow.
Don’t be you
This one often appears when parents viewed their child as an extension of themselves rather than a separate person. You might have been moulded into what was convenient or appropriate for them, perhaps there was even a sense that you weren’t the gender they would have preferred, stories of always wanting a boy, or wanting a girl to dress a certain way. You were an accessory rather than a person. In adulthood, this can leave you unsure of who you actually are, what you genuinely think or want, separate from what you were shaped to be.
Don’t be a child
Often given to eldest children asked to help raise younger siblings, or to take on household responsibilities early. There may not have been much space for play, silliness, or just being young. Sometimes this shows up in parentified children who took on an adult role long before they were ready. As adults, these clients often struggle to relax, to be playful, or to give themselves permission to simply enjoy something without it needing to be productive.
Don’t grow up
This injunction tends to appear in only children, youngest children, or children who felt responsible for holding a strained relationship together. Parents might have suggested things were too dangerous, or quietly communicated that you weren’t really capable on your own. There may have been encouragement of childlike dependence, a reluctance to let you develop autonomy. In adulthood, you might find yourself questioning your own capability, or struggling to trust yourself to make decisions independently.
Don’t make it
A message that success isn’t for you. Perhaps the bar was set unreasonably high, so that achievement always felt out of reach. Or perhaps anyone who did well was quietly badmouthed, so doing well felt unsafe or wrong. In adulthood this can show up as a dread of achievement, a tendency to self-sabotage just before something goes well, or a difficulty allowing yourself to have ambitions or goals at all.
Don’t
Just, don’t. Don’t take action. Don’t start things. Don’t move towards anything. This injunction often shows up as a kind of frozen quality, a feeling of being stuck, unable to begin. It might have looked like constant questioning of your ideas as a child, judgement of your initiatives, a lack of encouragement in your own abilities. In adulthood it can feel like perpetual procrastination, or an inability to take the first step towards something even when you really want to.
Don’t be important
This teaches you that your needs, wants, dreams and achievements shouldn’t take up space. It might have looked like a lack of praise, always being compared to others, being told to be quiet, or someone else always taking the spotlight. In adulthood, you might find yourself reluctant to voice a need, worried about coming across as selfish even when your request is entirely reasonable, or feeling like it simply isn’t okay to take centre stage.
Don’t belong
A feeling of being an outsider, even when you are welcome. In a CEN household this might have looked like being discouraged from joining clubs or having friends, parents who didn’t model healthy friendships or social lives, a household that wasn’t particularly connected or warm. As an adult you might struggle to feel part of groups or communities, carrying a sense of being on the outside of things even when there’s no real reason to feel that way.
Don’t be close
This is a particularly painful injunction, and it carries the message that emotional or physical intimacy leads to hurt, loss or pain. As a child you might have witnessed a lack of affection between your parents, been warned away from people, or seen cold, distant or even abusive behaviour modelled. As an adult, closeness might feel genuinely dangerous. You may keep people at arm’s length, find affection difficult, or notice a lack of real warmth and intimacy in your relationships even when you long for it.
Don’t be well
This is often a subconscious one. It carries the belief that love, attention or care are only really available when you are sick, struggling or in crisis. In CEN households where warmth isn’t given consistently, being unwell might have been the one time you received special attention or closeness. As an adult this can result in a pattern of becoming unwell in order to access care, or a deep, quiet belief that love is only available in those moments.
Don’t think
The message that your thoughts aren’t worthy, are stupid, invalid, or perhaps even dangerous. In adulthood this might show up as mental blanking under pressure, a reluctance to share opinions, difficulty contributing to discussions, or a persistent sense of doubting your own knowledge. You might feel nervous in situations that require you to voice what you think, as though what you have to say simply isn’t worth hearing.
Don’t feel
A suppression of emotions, or at least the ones that weren’t considered acceptable. Depending on your household, that might have been anger, sadness, fear, or any feeling that felt inconvenient to your parents. Phrases like “don’t make a fuss” or “boys don’t cry” are classic markers of this injunction. In adulthood it might mean holding grief or sadness tightly inside, or finding it incredibly uncomfortable when your own children are upset, moving quickly to distract or cajole them away from anything that represents unhappiness, often without realising you’re doing it.
Where do these messages come from?
It’s worth sitting with the fact that the parents who passed these messages on were often carrying their own. They weren’t necessarily trying to cause harm. They were doing what they knew, shaped by their own childhoods, their own injunctions, their own unmet needs. Exploring this in therapy isn’t about finding someone to blame. It’s about awareness. And awareness is what moves us towards acceptance, and eventually towards the possibility of doing something different.
What shifts when you start to see them?
The biggest change is often a moving away from self-blame, and a dropping of shame. When you understand that these feelings and patterns aren’t a fault or a flaw, but an internalised message or story that you absorbed very early on, there’s a weight that lifts. That in itself can be incredibly freeing.
From there, there’s the possibility of writing a new story. Shifting a belief system. Discovering that when you think about something differently, you often start to feel differently too. And then there are new behaviours: taking small steps towards vulnerability. Allowing yourself to voice a need. Trusting that the people who care about you actually want to hear what you think.
These are deeply empowering things. And they are possible.
If you’re curious about exploring your own story further, you might find it helpful to read more about childhood emotional neglect and how it shows up in adult life. You can read more about that here.
A note, if you recognise yourself here
Even if you’ve spent years living with some of these injunctions, even if you can see them in your relationships, your work, or maybe even your own parenting, there is scope for change. You can approach this with curiosity rather than criticism. Starting to wonder how these messages began, and where they came from for you, can lead you somewhere really valuable. Therapy or even just your own curiosity can be the start of a journey towards understanding what your needs were, what they are now, and how you might start to meet them differently.
If you’d like to explore this further, I offer a free 15-minute discovery call. No pressure, just a conversation to see if we’re a good fit. You can book here.