I believe that there is no such thing as compassion without truth. If someone tells you to be yourself and express your feelings and then gets angry because you've expressed your feelings, is that love? If a parent tells you they love you but have never been affectionate with you till you were a teenager, is that love really? If a person intends fully to love you but fails to fulfill basic emotional needs, is that really love? In terms of need fulfillment, how could feeling love for someone but not giving them what they need, no matter the reason, actually, in fact, be love.
The men and adolescents that come to therapy usually describe one of three kinds of upbringings. The first group don't recall any sustained, emotionally bonded relationship with their fathers. It doesn't matter if the father was just not around very much, just let mom handle all the affection, was so different from the son that he just didn't know what to do, or if he was a complete narcissistic jerk who was loud, shaming and authoritarian. The point is there was simply no real bond between father and son. (Neglect is much harder to recognize than overt abuse.)
