Dobson’s Legacy: Trauma, Attachment & Shame (#348)

2025-09-08

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I sit down with licensed therapist Emily Maynard—herself a product of Dobson-influenced parenting—to unpack what I'm calling one of the most consequential psychological disasters of the last fifty years. While James Dobson's death a few weeks ago has evangelicals reflecting on his legacy, Emily and I dig into the wreckage his teachings left in therapy offices across America. We explore how his "loving discipline" and will-breaking methods created attachment wounds, spiritual abuse, and shame cycles that adults are still untangling decades late...

We explore how his "loving discipline" and will-breaking methods created attachment wounds, spiritual abuse, and shame cycles that adults are still untangling decades later—and why parents who would never have hit their children became convinced it was the most loving thing they could do.

Emily brings both clinical expertise and personal experience to bear on questions that hit close to home: How do you heal from authoritarian parenting that was sold as godly love? What happens when the very people meant to be your safe harbor become sources of fear? And perhaps most importantly—what do we carry forward, and what do we finally have permission to leave behind?

Emily's Website | ⁠Emilymaynardtherapy.com⁠

Emily's Instagram | ⁠@Emilymaynardlmft⁠

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