2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
YOURSELF A PARENT
“Everyone does this to himself,
as they once did with him."
There is a lot of writing now about the "inner child." And this is certainly an important topic. I also wrote about this phenomenon. And also I regularly work with this Ego-state with my clients. It was the experience of my work that led me to one therapeutic discovery, namely: the working out and transformation of the client's state of "Inner Child" occurs more intensively when in therapy you work in parallel with his state of "Inner Parent".
How does the Inner Parent ego state come about?
The Inner Parent state, like the Inner Child state, is the result of the child's life experience, and to a greater extent, the experience of his relationship with his parents.
In therapy, it is quite easy to restore the specificity of this experience without even resorting to taking anamnesis. This experience will clearly "show through" "here and now" in real relationships that the client builds with the world, with himself, with other people. The therapist will be no exception. By the nature of the contact that the client will build with the therapist, it is easy to reconstruct the experience of his early relationships with people who are significant to him.
The thought I have expressed by no means pretends to be new, this is a classic of psychoanalysis. At one time, it was beautifully expressed by John Bowlby, who stated the following: "Each of us is inclined to go with others, just as they did before."
However, let's go further. John Boyleby's words "Each of us is inclined to do with others the same way as before," can be paraphrased as follows: "Everyone does with himself as they did with him before." And these are the ideas of the theory of object relations. It was within the framework of this theory that such phenomena as internal objects were "discovered", which then massively "multiplied": an internal child, an internal parent, an internal adult, an internal old woman, an internal sadist, an internal coward, etc.
So, the Inner Parent is an ego state that has arisen as a result of real experience with real parental figures. As a result of this experience, real parental figures were introjected and assimilated (swallowed and appropriated) in the I and became a part of this I, actively influencing all manifestations of a person.
How does the Inner Parent manifest?
The functions of the Inner Parent are varied. They are the same as the functions of a real parent: support, assessment, control. The only difference is that in this case a particle is added - "self" - self-support, self-esteem, self-control. And that's okay. An adult, healthy person is capable of various kinds of self-influence and self-influence on himself. In speech, this is manifested by the presence of reflexive pronouns - oneself.
With all the individual diversity of this instance, if we simplify greatly, we can say that the Inner parent can be dysfunctional and harmoniously functioning (hereinafter bad and good. problems.
When working with clients with this part of their Self, I ask them to name this part. The most common definitions are: Internal Controller, Strict Teacher, Cruel Tyrant, Internal Gendarme. These are examples of a bad inner parent.
What is this “bad” inner parent like?
Psychological portrait of a person with a bad Inner Parent:
In relation to significant figures that arise on their path in life, they instantly form a transference. It automatically includes everyone who fits into this parental image. In this case, there is no need to talk about real contact with such an Other. Here there is an interaction not with a real person, but with his image. A number of qualities and expectations are immediately hung on such a person before experience.
The Bad Inner Parent is one-sided. It includes only limiting, controlling, functions. The circle of his usual actions includes the following: scold, criticize, shame, accuse, reproach …
The second edge - permitting - is "not activated" here. Such important functions for a person as support, protection, praise, sympathy, pity, encouragement, reassurance are not provided.
A bad inner parent automatically reproduces a negative attitude towards your self. You want admiration, approval, support, but this is impossible to get.
You cannot ask, much less demand. The automatic settings of the previous experience are activated:
But control, negative assessments, and restrictions are abundant. And all this with the "self" particle, which is the saddest thing. You can run away from a real bad parent, somehow try to defend yourself, hide, deceive …
You cannot run away from your inner bad parent, you cannot hide, you cannot deceive him … He is always with you. It's like living with your camcorder all the time.
This way of relating to yourself can lead to achievements in life, but certainly not to joy.
It is not surprising that with such an Inner Parent, the Inner Child is uncomfortable.
Therapeutic strategies for dealing with the Inner Parent
I will outline very schematically the main strategies of work.
The main therapeutic task when working with the Inner Parent is its reconstruction and harmonization. This happens through the restoration in the content of the Inner parent of the unactivated facet - the good Inner parent with its functions of self-support, self-acceptance, positive self-assessment.
In therapy, work is going on in parallel in two directions: work on the border of contact and work with internal phenomenology.
Work at the contact boundary.
Here we adhere to the following idea: the therapist in the process of work becomes for the client that good parent, which he lacked in his childhood experience. In the therapeutic situation he has created, there is a place for non-judgmental acceptance, support, safety, compassion, the ability to rely on someone - those parenting functions that were in short supply in his parent-child relationship. Thanks to this, the client completes the missing facets of the parent's internal image, reconstructing his Inner parent towards greater integrity. Having carried out such work in the course of therapy, the client in the future gains greater stability in the ability to support himself independently.
Working with the client's internal phenomenology
Within the framework of this strategy, a number of stages can be distinguished:
1. Finding and getting to know your Inner Parent. What is he? What can you call it? How does it manifest itself? When does it appear? What are its manifestations in relation to the Inner Child?
At this stage, you can use different means of designating and manifesting this inner instance - to compose psychological portraits of your Inner parent, draw him, sculpt, play … It is important that the same thing has already been done with the Inner Child state before.
2. Establishing contact between the Inner Parent and the Inner Child.
At this stage, we are trying to carry out a dialogue between these states of I. For this, the techniques of "empty chair", "conversation of two subpersonalities", correspondence are suitable. The main task of this stage is to organize a meeting of the Inner Adult and Inner Child with the opportunity to hear each other.
3. Gaining experience in caring for your Inner Child.
If at the previous stage you managed to meet and hear your Inner Child, then you can try various ways to satisfy his needs, which, as a rule, will be the need for unconditional acceptance and support. For this, it is important to realize and stop the habitual automatic ways of turning on the "bad inner parent" and in these pauses try to turn on the "good inner parent" with his new attitude to his own actions, deeds, and behavior. Together with a psychologist, you can develop a program for the implementation of such a new attitude towards your Inner Child. If there are real children, then there is a great opportunity to try the experience of a positive attitude initially on them. And then transfer it to yourself.
The above two therapeutic strategies of work are carried out in parallel. More precisely, the first strategy is the foundation on which the second is built - this is the "broth in which a new dish is prepared." Building a therapeutic relationship with a high level of support and acceptance is a prerequisite for the client to experiment and gain new experiences.
I have described only one type of "bad inner parent" - overly controlling, certainly not accepting. And this is not the worst option yet. More complex is the situation of using, rejecting and ignoring. In this case, even more destructive strategies are carried out in relation to one's self.
Love yourself!
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