What is the Inner Child? Inner Child Therapy with Samantha Lee | Inner Child Therapy Online
You may be familiar with the term ‘inner child’ and perhaps wondered what it is.
The inner child can be that playful, innocent and mischievous part of ourselves that comes out in our behaviour sometimes.
Like when we’re out with friends - we can reminisce and find ourselves repeating old thoughts and behaviours that remind us of our youth. We can behave in a carefree way, abandoning our adult worries and responsibilities for a while to “play” and let our hair down.
We might also feel this way when entertaining our kids. We can thoroughly enjoy ourselves running around a park, climbing trees, going on the swings and feeling the utter joy of being free to play.
These times can be a lovely reminder of childhood.
But for many of us, we can have a part of us that also feels childlike, but not in a good way and this is where therapy can help.
The inner child can be that playful, innocent and mischievous part of ourselves that comes out in our behaviour sometimes.
Like when we’re out with friends - we can reminisce and find ourselves repeating old thoughts and behaviours that remind us of our youth. We can behave in a carefree way, abandoning our adult worries and responsibilities for a while to “play” and let our hair down.
We might also feel this way when entertaining our kids. We can thoroughly enjoy ourselves running around a park, climbing trees, going on the swings and feeling the utter joy of being free to play.
These times can be a lovely reminder of childhood.
But for many of us, we can have a part of us that also feels childlike, but not in a good way and this is where therapy can help.
The Wounded Inner Child
Have you ever experienced moments where you’ve either made a reckless decision or used behaviour that has left you thinking “what on earth did I do that for??”
Do you sometimes experience overwhelming emotions and confusing behaviour over seemingly minor incidents?
Have you got “form” when it comes to disastrous relationships - finding yourself attracted to toxic people like a moth to a flame and then getting trapped, unable to leave?
Perhaps you often feel sheer frustration that once again, you feel completely stuck, unable to make even simple decisions and procrastinate to the nth degree?
Maybe sometimes you feel like you could cry like a baby over a seemingly innocent comment, wanting to shut yourself away and sleep for a week?
Or perhaps you’ve experienced explosions of anger over the slightest thing, using behaviours that put yourself or someone else at risk?
Do you have anxiety, panic attacks? Do you find yourself feeling vulnerable and overwhelmed by life and wishing there was an Adult more grown up than you who could take over and manage things so that you don’t have to?
Or maybe you have a difficult relationship with alcohol, drugs, eating or self-harm? Even though you know it’s hurting you and your loved ones, you can feel quite helpless to stop.
Any of these things can leave you feeling just awful. Confused, mortified that you’ve acted like that in front of others, feeling anger and shame that you then turn inwards, hating yourself for being that way.
You can often end up feeling lost, lonely and quite alone in the world.
The fact is that all of these behaviours can be the result of living through experiences that adversely affected you as a child.
Experiences that you may have found overwhelming, confusing, scary, dangerous, painful, sad but as a child, you just didn’t have the emotional intelligence to fully understand them or were not given the help and support you needed to process your feelings and comfort you at the time.
All of these experiences are ways in which the wounded part of our Inner Child may influence our Adult beliefs and behaviour without us realising it.
Or perhaps you’ve experienced explosions of anger over the slightest thing, using behaviours that put yourself or someone else at risk?
Do you have anxiety, panic attacks? Do you find yourself feeling vulnerable and overwhelmed by life and wishing there was an Adult more grown up than you who could take over and manage things so that you don’t have to?
Or maybe you have a difficult relationship with alcohol, drugs, eating or self-harm? Even though you know it’s hurting you and your loved ones, you can feel quite helpless to stop.
Any of these things can leave you feeling just awful. Confused, mortified that you’ve acted like that in front of others, feeling anger and shame that you then turn inwards, hating yourself for being that way.
You can often end up feeling lost, lonely and quite alone in the world.
The fact is that all of these behaviours can be the result of living through experiences that adversely affected you as a child.
Experiences that you may have found overwhelming, confusing, scary, dangerous, painful, sad but as a child, you just didn’t have the emotional intelligence to fully understand them or were not given the help and support you needed to process your feelings and comfort you at the time.
All of these experiences are ways in which the wounded part of our Inner Child may influence our Adult beliefs and behaviour without us realising it.
Recognising the Wounded Inner Child
The thing is, we’re not always conscious that we ARE being influenced in this way. See if anything in this list resonates……
- I can get really angry over seemingly nothing
- I'm ultra sensitive to other people's moods, often worrying I've done something to upset them
- I can feel really sad / lonely sometimes, even though I have a partner, friends, family
- I can shut myself away and sleep a lot
- I can have emotional meltdowns though I'm not always sure why
- I can have trouble controlling my drinking / drug use / eating / gambling
- I often unwittingly choose really crap partners and settle for scraps of love, always fearful they will ultimately leave me
- I often distance myself from people I like / love
- I regularly put up with people treating me badly
- I can feel like I don’t really belong in my friendship group
- I sometimes pretend to like something when I don’t, just to please other people
- I have a problem saying no
- I often think others are better than me
- I avoid conflict
If any of this sounds uncomfortably familiar, then using therapy to explore these issues can help.
The Inner Child Approach in Therapy
There is a stereotypical thought around counselling that your Therapist is always going to say “Tell me about your childhood”.
Not every Therapist will do that.
We all use different ways of helping our clients, but as a therapist who uses the Inner Child approach in my work, I do invite my clients to re-visit parts of their childhood if I feel it could be relevant.
Why?
Because the fact is that so much of who we are and how we live our lives as an Adult can be the result of our childhood experiences.
It can therefore be insightful to look back on things that you’ve lived through as a child to help you understand why you might act or think in certain ways that prove unhelpful and ineffective in different areas of your life.
There are many things we experience as children that can be defined as traumatic, yet when people hear the word ‘trauma’, they often associate it with the more shocking and taboo end of the scale - areas that often make news headlines such as sexual abuse, child neglect or domestic violence.
Whilst I do help clients who have experienced all of those issues, there are so many other events and experiences that could be a part of a child's “normal” daily life but which can also have a devastating psychological effect on us.
You might have experienced any one of the following during your childhood:-
And many more….
Our parents have their own wounds from childhood and these can unconsciously be passed down to us in many ways. Having prolonged exposure to certain behaviours and beliefs that we are too young to understand can badly affect our self-esteem, self-worth and our way of viewing the world.
We can also be influenced by the beliefs and behaviours of our primary care givers and other authoritative figures such as religious figures, teachers, extended family and even the media.
So if you suspect that there may be aspects of your childhood that could still be having a negative effect in how you live your life as an Adult, then I would love to help you connect to your past so that you can move forward with your future.
Just scroll to the bottom of the page to email me.
If you are a Therapist and would like to learn more about the Inner Child approach as a way of exploring your own past and enhancing your work with clients, then you might like to try my online experiential CPD courses 'Me, Myself & I - An Introduction to the Inner Child Approach', 'Me, Myself & I - Experiencing the world of the Inner Child' and my brand new course 'Me, Myself & I - Relationships & the Inner Child.
Not every Therapist will do that.
We all use different ways of helping our clients, but as a therapist who uses the Inner Child approach in my work, I do invite my clients to re-visit parts of their childhood if I feel it could be relevant.
Why?
Because the fact is that so much of who we are and how we live our lives as an Adult can be the result of our childhood experiences.
It can therefore be insightful to look back on things that you’ve lived through as a child to help you understand why you might act or think in certain ways that prove unhelpful and ineffective in different areas of your life.
There are many things we experience as children that can be defined as traumatic, yet when people hear the word ‘trauma’, they often associate it with the more shocking and taboo end of the scale - areas that often make news headlines such as sexual abuse, child neglect or domestic violence.
Whilst I do help clients who have experienced all of those issues, there are so many other events and experiences that could be a part of a child's “normal” daily life but which can also have a devastating psychological effect on us.
You might have experienced any one of the following during your childhood:-
- The death of a family member
- Separation / Divorce
- Responsibilities that were too much for a child to manage (perhaps having to look after themselves or siblings if a parent was absent through work, illness, addiction etc)
- Bullying at school
- Serious illness (of the child or a family member)
- Chronic health condition / disability (of the child or a family member)
- Being a Young Carer
- Strict religious upbringing
- Being poor
- Moving
- Displacement
- Attending Boarding School
And many more….
Our parents have their own wounds from childhood and these can unconsciously be passed down to us in many ways. Having prolonged exposure to certain behaviours and beliefs that we are too young to understand can badly affect our self-esteem, self-worth and our way of viewing the world.
We can also be influenced by the beliefs and behaviours of our primary care givers and other authoritative figures such as religious figures, teachers, extended family and even the media.
So if you suspect that there may be aspects of your childhood that could still be having a negative effect in how you live your life as an Adult, then I would love to help you connect to your past so that you can move forward with your future.
Just scroll to the bottom of the page to email me.
If you are a Therapist and would like to learn more about the Inner Child approach as a way of exploring your own past and enhancing your work with clients, then you might like to try my online experiential CPD courses 'Me, Myself & I - An Introduction to the Inner Child Approach', 'Me, Myself & I - Experiencing the world of the Inner Child' and my brand new course 'Me, Myself & I - Relationships & the Inner Child.
