Healing the inner child: how to prevent childhood traumas from ruining adulthood

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Perhaps the roots of your problems lie in the distant past.

What is the inner child

This concept means any emotional and psychological baggage that a person carries from the first years of life.

The first to talk about the inner child was the psychiatrist What is the “Inner Child”? Carl Jung. According to his theory, the “inner child” archetype helps a person to reconnect with the past, because he remembers his childhood emotions and experiences. This makes it easier for him to grow up and understand what he wants from the future.

The concept became popular after the release of 3 Therapies to Heal Your Wounded Inner Child by John Bradshaw's bestseller, Coming Home: Rebirth and Protecting the Inner Child in 1990. Modern psychological research Health throughout the lifespan: The phenomenon of the inner child reflected in events during childhood experienced by older persons confirms that early experiences are well remembered. They affect people in different ways. For example, for some, eternally critical parents became an occasion to cultivate fortitude, for others it is a trauma for life.

Why look for an inner child

Diana Raab, Ph. D., in a commentary to Healthline

We all have an inner child Finding and Getting to Know Your Inner Child. Communication with him can make your life more prosperous and bring lightness into it.

When the inner child is “healthy,” it usually does not cause anxiety in adulthood. But if he is "wounded" 3 Therapies to Heal Your Wounded Inner Child, the person may repeat the wrong behaviors instilled in childhood. For example, a little girl who saw her mother being abused by her father might contact the abuser herself in adulthood.

Communication with the inner child allows you to find the roots of the current problems in childhood and get rid of them. Some people in the process get the following What is the “Inner Child”?:

• release suppressed emotions;
• recognize unmet needs;
• change the wrong patterns of behavior;
• to be liberated;
• increase self-esteem.

Finding your inner child

Anyone can contact him and benefit from it. But sometimes disbelief and resistance become obstacles.

If skepticism is there, that's okay. Just try to see your inner child not as a separate person, but as your past experience. This will help you approach your searches with curiosity.

There are several Finding and Getting to Know Your Inner Child ways to find your inner child.

Spend time with children

Games with them will help you remember pleasant events from the past, learn to enjoy the little things, live in the moment, relax and feel happier. Try hide and seek, for example.

Children's fantasies sometimes surface through imaginative games. Maybe before you imagined some scenarios, thanks to which you can easily get through difficult moments.

If your child is not yet, you can stay with the children of your friends or relatives.

Remember your childhood

Try flipping through photo albums, re-reading books, and revisiting films you once liked. If you've kept a diary, take a look at it too. Ask family members to share their memories of you. All this helps to return to the child's emotional state and connect with the inner child.

Another way to plunge into the past is with visualization exercises. If you find it difficult to remember what you looked like as a child, look at old photographs first. Then close your eyes and imagine yourself as a child. The image must be detailed. Think about what you are wearing, where you are, if there is someone nearby. How are you feeling? A child can be lost, lonely, insecure, content, strong.

During the exercise, it sometimes turns out that the inner child feels good, gives you strength, optimism. If he is suffering, you need to help him.

Do what you liked before

Think about what you loved to do as a child. Maybe they cycled to the stream every summer, swam, went fishing, read in a dusty attic, or roller-skated. You may not have much fun right now that just brings happiness.

Drawing and coloring can help too. During these activities, the active mind is resting, so emotions that you are not paying attention to will show up on paper. Some of them may be related to the inner child.

Write a letter to your inner child

It is a powerful tool for connecting with your inner child. Writing can help you deal with childhood experiences and emotions. There are no restrictions on the form of the exercise. You can talk about something specific or state any thoughts that come to mind.

Diana Raab

If you have wounds or injuries, write about them. This will help connect with your inner child. During reunification with him, you can find the reasons for adult phobias, fears and life stereotypes. Perhaps you realize why you became the way you are.

Another way to get the inner child to talk is to ask him questions from the adult self, then let him answer and analyze the result. It's okay to be nervous about what your child might say. Especially if you experienced difficult emotions or had negative experiences as a child.

If you don't like the format of the letter, try talking to your inner child out loud.

See a psychotherapist

If you suspect that the connection with your inner child will trigger bad memories or feelings of fear, it is best to see a therapist. The specialist will support you and suggest strategies to help you cope with emotions and trauma.

It is best if you find a therapist who has experience with the inner child. The expert must know how to contact him and understand if he is suffering. If it turns out that the client had traumas in childhood that are now causing problems, the specialist will offer psychotherapy.

How psychotherapists heal the inner child

Childhood injuries have long-term consequences. Therefore, if, while communicating with the inner child, you realize that he is hurt or hurt, he needs to be healed. This can be done with a psychotherapist. Therapists have several techniques 3 Therapies to Heal Your Wounded Inner Child to help.

Empty chair technique

The therapist asks the client to sit in front of an empty chair and imagine that someone is sitting on it. For example, a parent or other relative. This person needs to tell about his feelings and thoughts, explain what he lacked in childhood. Also, a specialist may suggest changing places with an imaginary character. For example, imagine yourself as your grandmother and listen to your inner child.

In therapy, you can learn more about feelings from the past and understand how they affect adulthood. Some patients get to know aspects of character that they tried to deny.

Schematic therapy

People who grew up in a hostile environment often exhibit maladaptive (incorrect) behaviors. They can lead to relationship difficulties or self-control.

Schematic therapy helps to get rid of problems that appeared in childhood. The key to success is that the therapist uses re-education techniques and satisfies the emotional needs of the person. For example, praises him. As a result, the patient changes his mind about himself and learns new patterns of behavior.

Desensitization and re-treatment with eye movement

This type of therapy helps to cope with anxiety attacks, stress, painful memories and obsessive thoughts that have arisen from childhood traumas.

During the session, the person focuses on bad thoughts, emotions, or sensations. The psychotherapist begins to move the arm left and right, and the patient follows the movement. Depending on which way the eyes are looking, the left or right hemisphere is activated. At this point, the brain begins to process negative information.

How to help your inner child on your own

Visualization is a Healing Your Inner Child way of healing that you can try yourself. The method is based on the fact that when we think about an action, the same parts of the brain begin to work as during execution.

Use your imagination and imagine yourself as a child at any stage of development, where you have experienced stress or abuse. This could be your 5-year-old self or a teenager. If necessary, consider that the child is a foster child.

Visualize another inner self that will help heal the child. For example, a parent, advocate, compassionate, or therapist. Who exactly it will be, you decide.

The method is that you have to re-educate yourself. Everything must be done to make the child feel safe and develop resilience. Let the second inner "I" take care of it, approve, satisfy needs.