Childhood Needs: The Roots of Trust, Shame, and Self-Worth

The Good Love with Steph & Jonah · Sep 29, 2026 · 1h 4m

As a child, Steph was “screaming ouch” at the top of her lungs. It was sometimes referred to as drama. Her son Jonah grew up expecting that people would show up for him. In this episode, Steph and Jonah ask how two generations of the same family learned such different things about trust. Jonah starts with Erik Erikson’s model of childhood development from his psychology class, then brings the question home: what happens when a child’s needs are, ignored, or mistaken for bad behavior? Steph grew up amid her mother’s severe mental illness, learning to pretend she needed nothing, and trying to…