InnerChildMain

< /div>

Inner Child Work

Hope Forus is a survivor of childhood physical, sexual, emotional and ritualistic abuse. She is currently writing a book on the subject that will include other self-help ideas like this. You can contact her at:

hope4us61@msn.com To be kept informed as to the publication of her book, please sign the guest book.

Hope Forus is not a medical or mental health professional. She is a survivor of childhood sexual, physical, emotional and ritualistic abuse. This article is provided for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. You should not use the information in this article for diagnosing or treating a medical or mental health condition. If you have or suspect you have a medical problem, promptly contact your professional healthcare provider. If at any time you feel the urge to hurt yourself or someone else as a result of emotions or reactions to any descriptions related herein, promptly contact your mental health provider, your local suicide prevention hotline or 911.

Click here to return to the Healing main page.

You've probably heard the phrase, "Rescuing Your Inner Child," but you might not understand what it really means. In terms of psychology and psychotherapy, techniques for working with your inner child is a relatively new subject. One thing I want to make clear is that references to your "inner child" have NOTHING to do with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), or what some people call "multiple personalities" or "split personalities." If you suspect you may have DID or another dissociative disorder, please visit www.sidran.org/didbr for more information.

You inner child is more accurately described as the childlike aspect of a person's psyche (the original Greek = conception of the self). Every person has a psyche or concept of what they comprehend as their SELF. So, the inner child is that part of your inner self that is still in childhood.

All of us feel childlike at times. We all want to play and have fun sometimes. The child in us may come out and become more obvious to those around us when we participate in activities that let our inner child come out and play...like riding a roller coaster, swinging on a swing set, playing with puppies, walking through crunchy fall leaves or dancing barefoot in the rain.

Our inner child gets wounded and lost when we are traumatized as children. According to John Bradshaw, "When a child is abandoned through neglect or abuse...there is outrage over the hurt and pain. Children need their pain validated." In most dysfunctional, abusive families, a child's pain is not validated and we were not supported, encouraged or taught how to safely release these painful feelings. During extreme forms of abuse and neglect, the child learns psychological defenses that help him survive. Bradshaw says, "Paradoxically, the very defenses which allowed us to survive our childhood trauma have now become barriers to our growth." Often survival strategies like memory loss, emotion blocking, numbing, etc. serve to deny our original feelings of hurt, pain, rage and grief and therefore, we deny the very existence of our own inner child. So, how do we find this lost part of our selves? How do we rescue our inner child and help them heal?

In recent psychotherapy history, Charles Whitfield, M.D. led the way with his book, Healing the Child Within, published in 1987. He was one of the first to acknowledge the role the inner child plays in recovery of adult children of dysfunctional families.

Shortly thereafter, John Bradshaw published his book, Healing the Shame that Binds You, in 1988. Although, as the title implies, Bradshaw focuses on the process of healing shame (a topic I will cover in my book and on future healing pages), he also explains how the development of dysfunctional or "toxic" shame can lead our inner child into hiding. The sixth chapter of his book does an excellent job of walking you through the steps of "Liberating Your Lost Inner Child."

Many therapists today believe it is impossible to end the cycle of child abuse in your own family and in culture in general without healing the wounds of our own inner child.

Almost all of us would benefit from some inner child healing. There are many strategies for tackling the process of inner child work. This is the process and order in which I found most successful:

Please click on "Meeting Your Inner Child(ren)" to get started

"We will never cure the epidemic of child abuse in our outer world until we stop abusing the child in our inner world."

Lucia Capacchione, Ph.D.

Author of "Recovery of Your Inner Child"