Healing your inner child: How does inner child therapy work?

When clients present in therapy sessions with a variety of issues like anxiety, stress, depression and many more related problems, it can sometimes mask a deeper traumatic event from childhood. 

Children need basic physical and emotional support, with love, nurturing, and a sense of safety and security to develop into well-rounded, happy individuals. But for a child who has experienced or witnessed abuse, neglect, drug and alcohol addiction or severe mental health issues from their parents or caregivers, who they have naturally trusted, it leaves an invisible scar, impacting their social development and psychological needs.

To survive, they use coping mechanisms which transfer into adulthood and at some point, it may develop into unhealthy patterns of behaviour, formed from a lack of positive learned social skills and a negative environment. 

How can inner child therapy help?

Adults of abusive environments often form conflicting thoughts about themselves, feeling like they are 'never good enough', believing 'they aren't deserving' or 'it is their fault', acting and behaving from their 'inner child' through fear, confusion and a lack of communicative skills. Rescuing the inner child requires a solid, trusting alliance between client and therapist, with a clear understanding of inner child therapy and the healing process.

Firstly, allow clients to note down their harmful feelings from their perpetrators, supporting them to build a safe space without judgement or criticism, and reflect on the words and where they came from. It can be painful to address the words they feel about themselves, like shame, dirty, failure, unwanted, etc, however, this is a beneficial part of healing as they begin to understand the words belong to the person who said it to them. Clients are asked to write letters to their child form to nurture, love and support them, facilitating a sense of right and wrong and how they should have been treated. 

The next stage is a visualisation technique moving towards facing their abuser but placing a boundary of safety between them, like a protector, and imagining they are behind bars or trapped in some way. The inner child can begin to rip the labels off and free themselves from the negative, harmful feelings and words they have carried for years, throwing them back onto the abuser and where they belong. This offers an empowering moment for the victims to acknowledge the control they now have as an adult.

Finally, they can imagine a perfect happy place where they want the inner child to play in with a new clean outfit of their choice and without words and feelings stuck on them. They can see the abuser locked up, someone close by guarding them, which can be an animal or a fictional character and the adult form can enter the visualisation and safely rescue and walk away holding the child's hand.

After therapy, whenever the client is feeling anxious or frightened, they can use this imaginary scenario to empower them to feel safe and act from the adult form to reassure the inner child.

Inner child therapy has been beneficial for many clients who have been abused as children, and certain techniques can also be used for bullying, abusive relationships and wherever else the theory would work. This enables clients to build their self-esteem, confidence and worth and act from their adult form instead of their inner child and the best version of themselves.