Traumatized Inner Child. The Path To Healing

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

What if the connection with the Inner Child is lost so much that it begins to seem as if he is no longer alive? Can the Inner Child actually die?

The state of the Inner Child is always a consequence of how a person's childhood went, how his parents treated him, what instructions he received from them in one form or another, what decisions he unconsciously made on the basis of these instructions (for example, the child was very difficult, and he made an inner decision: “It's better not to feel, so that it doesn't hurt unbearably.” It is impossible to forbid oneself to feel only bad, this prohibition applies to all feelings. That is, his Inner Child is deprived of its main essence - the ability to experience vivid emotions).

This state is transferred into adulthood as a personal attitude “you cannot feel it - it is very painful and dangerous” and determines the behavior and further life of a person.

The inner child is the source of our energy, desires, joy, and creative activity. And when he is traumatized, he begins to behave like a real little sick child, who is capricious, offended and unhappy with everything. He reacts to many life events from there - from the state of trauma.

It often happens that a child who has received severe psychological trauma from parental aggression finds it difficult to withstand his anger at the parent, so he identifies with the aggressor: the parent remains “good” for him, and the child lets parental aggression inside and begins to hate himself. In such cases, we can talk about auto-aggression - aggression directed at oneself.

For many people, the Inner Child needs sensitive attention and support. Few people had a truly happy childhood, where they loved unconditionally, allowed themselves to express themselves, fully satisfied their emotional needs. However, not everyone has received deep trauma that interferes with life - it all depends on the degree of exposure to negative factors, the structure of the psyche, and individual sensitivity.

It is often difficult for a person who has lost touch with his Inner Child to answer the questions: "What do I really want?", "What gives me joy?" It is difficult to build full-fledged adult relationships, because the traumatized part seeks to relive the childhood traumatic experience in its various manifestations over and over again, as if trying to change it through this repeated experience. It is also very likely that a person will seek to compensate in these relationships for an internal deficit that was formed in childhood.

I work primarily with emotional imagery therapy and see how different the image of the traumatized Inner Child is. It can be a small hunched-over old man, a dirty and unhappy little housewife Kuzya, a brazen with frightened eyes, a homeless kitten numb from the cold, a soft toy, and even a deflated ball. But he is always ALIVE, and no matter how sick and traumatized he is, it is possible to heal him. Although it is not always quick and easy.

The main essence of working with the Inner Child is to learn from the point of the present to give him what he received less in childhood, and to reveal the resources that will feed him in the future.

As an independent exercise, you can do the following.

It is necessary to recall a traumatic episode from childhood, imagine yourself at that time and, turning to yourself, say: “You are the most important and valuable thing that I have! I love you very much and from now on I will always be by your side, whatever / whatever you are / may be. I will never again reject you, punish, beat, scold you (depending on what actions of adults the child suffered at that time). I allow you to again experience all the emotions inherent in you (in case there was an internal prohibition on the expression of emotions). I promise myself / myself to protect you, to take care of you."

We say all this from the role of our Inner Parent, thereby changing his appearance from criticizing and punishing to accepting and approving.

This way you can work consistently with all traumatic episodes.

If there is an assumption that the Inner Child is traumatized from birth, the following technique described by J. Graham can be applied.

1) Imagine that you are present at your own birth. Direct all your feelings to the baby, shake him in your arms, kiss, hug, gently looking into his eyes. Greet him, tell him that you are very happy about his birth.

2) When you understand that the baby sees you, turn to your Inner Child and say that you love and understand that you will help him grow up and become an adult.

3) Convince the Inner Child that he has come to a safe world, that you can provide him with protection and help, help him overcome any obstacles.

4) Promise your child that he will never feel lonely and hurt again, tell him that he does not need to deserve love, because you love him unconditionally and give him as much praise and support as he needs.

5) Reassure your Inner Child that he no longer needs to resort to trying to get your attention (which are fixed in the form of neurotic and psychosomatic symptoms - sometimes this is the only way to "reach out" to our consciousness), because you will always listen to him, his desires and needs.