Growing up with narcissistic and enabling parents creates a great woundedness to a child’s psyche and soul due to the child’s needs not being met. These aspects of our psyche are childlike in their nature.
Our inner child behaviour arises from old wounds and conditioning from childhood. When a past hurt is triggered, then our inner child arises. Our reactions are often disproportionate to the hurt due to the build up of unresolved hurts. We can therefore transfer our hurt to others, who are unrelated to the original events. Their personalities may remind us of a parent or perpetrator from past negative experiences.
Reparenting the Inner Child
Inner child work is often a result of current dysfunction in life, which arises from childhood/past wounds. Through a process of exploring our childhood through therapeutic processes including hypnotherapy, we can work towards resolving past hurts and abuse. This process assists us in releasing unhealthy childhood conditioning, and we take on the reparenting role ourselves. This is empowering as we take responsibility for our own lives rather than giving our power away through blaming others for our present state.
The inner child process also assists in identifying your true self, which can be creatively supported by artwork or dance processes, for example. Once difficult emotions resurface, the client may find they aren’t as intense or as difficult as they imagined.
The inner child may have personalities which can include the Shameful, Serious, Neglected, Fearful or Abandoned child. If you currently identify with one or more of these (or other) inner child(ren), explore what type of behaviour you exhibit now. In each of these scenarios, there may be a stage of life or isolated incident, which led to the particular inner child association.
There are also a lot of inner child meditations online, you can also journal or write a letter to your parents/others explaining how you feel (please do NOT send it). Burn it or rip it up and get rid of it afterwards to symbolise release. If you can find a therapist you can trust, speak to them about your feelings, or if not, speak to an empty chair. Sit across from the chair and visualise the person who hurt you sitting in the chair. Speak out loud to the chair, again telling the person how you feel. (This is a popular technique in Gestalt therapy). This will help in owning your feelings and letting go of others’ wrongdoing. You can also find a photo of yourself at a young age and speak to the photo as a loving parent would, if you feel comfortable doing so.
Please note: If the trauma is significant, inner child reparenting may not be appropriate due to potential re-traumatisation.
Book recommendations: Recovery of Your Inner Child by Lucia Capacchione Ph.D Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child by John Bradshaw The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self by Alice Miller
The above books also offer practical aids for healing your inner child, along with valuable insights.
