top of page

Inner Child Therapy

 

An Inner Child resides in every adult. Our Inner Child is our emotional memories of past experiences, from our earliest memory and throughout our childhood.  Inflictions suffered by a child have an enormous impact on the adult they become.

​

Throughout our childhood, at each stage of our personal growth and development we are faced with all kinds of situations. The traumas that some of these situations inflict on us can cause recurring actions and reactions that keep us from resolving any emotional issues associated with the situation. We therefore carry the issues with us, in our subconscious, throughout our adult life. These unresolved issues are then reflected subconsciously in our actions, reactions and interactions with others and are expressed subconsciously in various other situations we, as an adult find ourselves in. Strong and/or recurring reactions to certain or specific situations are triggered by our subconscious memory of an experience or experiences in childhood and the pain of the past surfaces.

​

​

 

 

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

Some people may feel that obtaining fulfilment in life is barriered because often times achievements they made as a child were ‘made wrong’.

​​

For example; a child may have got an 'A' for an essay they completed in school and proudly showed it to their parent, but all the parent said was ‘What terrible hand writing you’ve got’. Therefore, the accomplishment that the child was so proud of was 'made wrong'.

​

Anything that brings down something we feel proud of or feel we have done well, in turn brings us down and we carry that feeling with us in our subconscious. It therefore has a detrimental affect on allowing us to fully become who we truly are and can result in the harbouring of feelings of not being worthy or not being good enough.

​

​

Negative experiences as a child can manifest in many ways in an adult.

 

  • An inexplicable need for attention, affection, company, reassurance and involvement

  • A need for security and acceptance either from a partner, best friend, group of friends

  • Being unable to form lasting relationships

  • Feelings or belief of not being lovable or worthy of being loved

 

Can stem from:

 

  • Lack of attention, affection, encouragement and support

  • Another sibling seeming to be favoured over you

  • Parents arguing

  • Parents divorcing

  • Finding out you were adopted

  • Being brought up in foster care

These inflictions result in feelings of abandonment and neglect, which then develops into feelings of loneliness and unworthiness, lack of self-belief and an underlying insecurity of being abandoned again as an adult. On the flip side, the adult may not know how to accept love or affection or how to love and show affection back. Some may find it hard to integrate with others because of a low self-esteem. Coming across overly needy and insecure often times results in dysfunctional relationships or 'looking for love in all, the wrong places'. Expressions of love and emotion may seem alien, so too can emotional conversations involving the feelings and emotions of others.

  •     Outbreaks of violence or aggression

  •     Antisocial behaviour

  •     Not being able to hold down a job

  •     Weight challenges / eating disorders

  •     Lack of self-esteem

​​Can stem from:

​

  •     Abuse - emotional, physical, sexual or psychological

  •     Lack of the correct amount of love and affection

  •     Having been bullied

  •     Having been overly criticised

 

These inflictions can result in the adult that the child becomes being introverted, to one degree or another and some may isolate or disassociate themselves from, situations, people and places. They may self-harm or turn to drink or drugs to help 'numb the pain'. Intimacy can be frightening and being able to trust can be unlikely.

​

The core of all these issues is past events. We are an accumulation of everything that has or indeed hasn't happened to us in our life.  It makes us who we are, but we don't have to let it continue to affect who we become.

​

Inner Child Therapy is a healing process that enables you to connect with your Inner Child, with love and inner wisdom in order to identify with the core of your issue, become the nurturing 'parent' to your Inner Child, replace self criticism with self nurturing and recognise and heal self destructive thoughts. Thereby healing the emotions related to the circumstances that created the issues and healing the emotional part of your being, your Inner Child.

bottom of page