You may have heard the term “inner child” before, but don’t know what that means, especially
when it pertains to therapy and improving oneself. Inner child is a common idea that is used
regularly in therapy to help identify different areas of yourself, areas where you may be hiding
your feelings, or not even aware that you aren’t allowing yourself to be fully authentic. Inner
child is very powerful work that has the capability to alter your life for the better and can be
utilized as a tool in most areas of therapy. You could be dealing with depression, anxiety,
relationship issues, self -esteem, burnout, perfectionism, just to name a few. Let me further
explain this concept.
Each one of us has a “inner child” inside of us; parts of ourself that we carry from our childhood
years. Examples could be: habits, coping mechanisms, detailed memories, pain, and/or needs that
weren’t provided or healed from our past. It’s vastly important in this work to pay close attention
to one’s emotional memories from childhood. For most people, we are unaware of our “inner
child,” due to it coming from our subconscious. Not only is it looking back on our childhood
memories, it is realizing the power of fully understanding the depth our childhood has on our
adult life through behaviors, responses, actions, and thoughts, especially pertaining to
relationships in our life.
Even though we can’t go back and change our past, we can learn how
the past still impacts our present and future, providing empowerment, which is exactly what
“inner child” work will provide. While our parents did the best they could with the resources
they had, even the best parents cause wounds. After all, they are only human. Working with a
therapist on healing your unmet needs of comfort, emotional or physical affection, emotional
support, connection, shame, emotional and/or physical safety aligns with “inner child” work.
An example of an “inner child” wound, could be feeling the necessity to regulate parents’ or
siblings’ emotions in your household growing up. Feeling as if you were in charge of another’s
feelings, as if the mood in the room depended on if you could manage their emotions are not.
You had to grow up to fast and almost learn to parent your mother or father by managing
emotions. You learned to disregard your own and focus on others to make the environment safer
and calmer.
No one should have to regulate another’s emotions, especially a child to a parent.
Through therapy, you can begin to heal your “inner child” by first identifying unmet needs in
your childhood. After you are aware of the unmet need or needs, you can become aware of
patterns and emotional responds that pertain to childhood. You will then learn skills on re-
parenting yourself, in order to provide comfort and support in areas that were lacking in
childhood, creating self-compassion, love, and understanding of yourself, past, present, and
future.
If this concept intrigues you, don’t hesitate to reach out and schedule a session today.
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