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 Post subject: Inner Child Work ?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:02 pm 
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I was introduced to inner child work in therapy over 25 years ago with my first T who was helping me thru a very deep depression. While at the time I did not really 'get' inner child work, it was very obvious that he was asking me to dig in and find the child (and nuture it). He was asking me to reach in and find something, or the things, which I had surpressed.

In my more recent therapy my T's also refer to the inner child and it has always been in relation - again - to nuturing; to finding joy and comfort.

So I've always seen the inner child as a positive, encouraging, nuturing, aspect of a being that needs to be discovered and unleashed (in a sense).

Last year what I discovered is that when I was going thru some really deep grief it was more effective and productive to offer myself support; empathy to try to get past the initial feelings and dig a little deeper by acknowledging what was going on vs denying and stuffing and pushing all those feelings away. I find some calm in that like I had not ever before.

This to me felt as if I was finally reaching one aspect of my inner child that I had not before. The other side I see is the side that needs ot play and have fun and let go- vs following form and protocoll and right and responsibility.

Would like to hear others versions of what their inner child is and when they best feel connected to it.


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 6:00 pm 
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when i feel best connected to my inner child is when i watch my grandkids. we play, we laugh, we look under rocks and watch birds. we have FUN. life is free again, joyous, and i see what they see. just life, with no worries and strings attached and adult problems. here is this 55 yr old woman with too much fat swinging on a swing or digging in the sand!

my inner child is part of me. who i was back then as a child. "she" altho i think this gives some others a idea she is separate, and she isnt, she is a "side" of me. that might be better to explain it. we all have sides, and inner child is a side we have. as we grow, each stage leaves itself in our personalities.. a baby, a child, a teen, young adult, etc etc. thus, we all would have these sides since we have grown to x age or y age. each side is made up of the developmental age of that. not until we are in our 20's do we actually grow up enough to be considered capable of mature choices and thinking.

however, this child side learned some negative things to cope or behave. those are more ingrained than adult things and so when im stressed, those type of behaviors will override my better sense and i will behave as immature rather than mature. that is when im feeling as a child would. how to heal that is reparent those feelings so they can become developmentally appropriate. soothe and fill in the blanks i never got filled as a child so those needs will not be there anymore.

if a child doesnt get safety and comfort and love, that need will never go away until its given. unmet needs will always come out until they are met. they must so we can move on to the next developmental level. thats why they come out. how to fix them? love ourselves. our child, or just call it ourself. whatever works for each of us. once those child level needs are met, we can move on to the next level.

i think some have the mistaken idea this "entity" must take over or something. inner child is not a entity, a personality, or a excuse. it is a part of who we are. a part that can be integrated or a part that is stuck in unfulfilled needs. it can be changed by fulfilling the needs that werent met back then.

as we reach stages, we have certain needs. as each is met, we grow. we dont need the behaviors we learned back then, and they leave us.

or so i see it...,my view only*****

ty for beginning this, smiling:)

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 8:02 pm 
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Smilin~

Hi there! Yes, like you, I learned of inner child work a couple of decades ago. It was an experience to nurture, accept that "inner child".

The reason? Because I had not ever known it (or rarely had) as a baby, toddler, child and teen. I did know corporal punishment, physical abuse, self abuse and self defeat when I was first introduced.

And how odd it was then when first introduced. How abnormal and contrary to my fast held "core beliefs" taught to me by my family of origin.

Slowly, it began to make a lot of sense. To be able to give myself what my parents weren't quite capable of giving. They just weren't able (for many reasons). And they couldn't teach me and my siblings how to. We all had to find our own paths. Some of my siblings have not.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 8:55 pm 
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Yeah same here. The inner child for me is my genuine self who was never given an opportunity to grow and to self-actualise into a healthy human being because of the environment I grew up in.

Inner child work has been about unlocking, then nurturing and accepting that genuine self and incorporating her personality & her likes, needs, etc into my adult self.


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 10:32 pm 
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Posting with my new username here. :)

For me, I had enough dissociation that for me the ideas connected, as far as my own experience. It's like, this little girl part of me was first suppressed, then tended to exist dissociated. Sometimes more disssociated than other times. But it was in that dissociated separateness that I came to first see and understand and related to this part of myself.

While the concept of inner child was not created to describe anything dissociative (as I understand it from what I read once upon a time), I think it fits to apply it. Not that I've much used the term. But sometimes in conversations here where the topic of inner child has come up I talked about my inner child, associating the term with that part of me that I saw as little girl.

Now that this part of me is pretty much integrated I can understand the inner child idea as far as how it applies to a part of the self in a non-dissociative sense. Like, we still have that child part, even if it's well-connected to the rest of us.

My inner child likes music. It's interesting... two local musicians. One brought out the inner child in a quite disconnected way. I had to learn to move beyond that. The other brought out that same part, but in a rather integrated way. This latter musician, I remember a few years ago, when I was a new fan, and not so far along on the personal growth journey, being very aware, at least at times, of that child part of me. But not disconnected from the rest of me. Like, a bit of the little girl identity, but not in a disconnected way. Now, I don't feel that. It's just a part of me. Yet, the inner child is still there. The inner child likes people, she likes music, and she likes to dance. And she likes having a place where she can come out, have fun, be herself, and feel safe. Or, rather, I like having a place where those parts of me that used to be the wounded hurt part of me can feel safe and secure, free to be herself, and knowing the me as a whole can look out for boundaries and who to trust.

The inner child is a part of me that was wounded, hurt, but those wounds have healed.

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:17 am 
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heya ellen! cool new nick.

just adding this...everyone has a inner child because everyone was a child at one time.

its a developmental stage. as is others. eventually and hopefully, all our stages come together and integrate into a adult. when these stages are not integrated, we find the dissociation and acting out.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:43 pm 
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Finding it interesting that most identify inner child with the nuturing/growing/self-actualizing.

Thing is most of you also related the inner child to the hurting child too- relating to the counter side. This isn't something I really identify with. Do most of you view the inner child (what you comprehend/relate to of it) as both good/bad ? See them as one? can you deal with/talk of one without the other?


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PostPosted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 11:22 pm 
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Hurting isn't bad. Just because the inner child hurts, is wounded, doesn't make her bad. She was hurt. She found healing.

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Ellen K.


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 3:14 am 
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The inner child to me is the authentic self that has been abandoned. For me, the "real me" went into hiding real early in life to be protected from the hurts on the outside. What I became as a child (and is the cause of unhealthy behaviours/defences in adulthood) is an adaptation.

Not sure if any of you have done any transactional analysis work but their are 3 different child parts. One is our authentic child (non-wounded) and this is the one I call "inner child" and then, if we've been raised in an unhealthy environment, we have a child that becomes an adaptation to the abusive environment that we grow up in. I call this the "outer child" (but in T/A it is called adapted child) and it can take the form of either being "compliant" or "rebellious."

We adapt into a child that is the total opposite from our true self to cope with our situation. I became a "yes, maam" totally compliant, perfectionistic child. Others and I see a lot of it here with BPD - is the opposite extreme - the rebellion, the anger, the hostility, the fight back against what was done. These child based reactions/defences are not who we really are - they are adaptations to our environment.

So for me the inner child, is a beautiful, joyful happy child who's only pain has been the one of abandonment and the key to recovery is to allow her to be free and to never abandon her again. In order to do that we have to break down the defences and adaptations of the "outer child." This is the stuff (the unhealthy child-based defences) that we continue to display; that cause us issues in adulthood. When we feel that we are fighting our "inner child", it's actually the "adapted child" child that we are fighting. Neither are bad. Wounded, abandoned and hurt, but not bad.

This is just my take on things.

I posted an outer child inventory on the board once before. I found the thread: http://www.bpdrecovery.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=6428


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