Healing your inner child is a psychologically appropriate strategy, but I suggest you read about what is an inner child and how it forms, initially before delving into how inner child healing works. Various methods of psychoanalysis have been unofficially labeled, such as Inner Child Healing, Shadow work, etc as practitioners have exercised these techniques. However, these methods are essentially psychoanalytic approaches to dealing with mental issues, Inner Child Healing being one of them.
Inner Child Healing specifically addresses trauma responses, attachment issues, painful memories, unhealthy worldviews, and perceptions that individuals carry from childhood experiences. These elements often become prominent causes of the problems faced in adulthood, influencing interpersonal relationships from parenting (your way of caregiving) to perceptions of one’s own parents, romantic relationship pursuits, approaches to friendship, workplace boundary maintenance, and much more.
These maladaptive approaches often manifest unconsciously, rooted in behavioral patterns absorbed during childhood. When these worldviews and behavioral patterns are unhealthy, they are usually said to stem from a “wounded inner child”, indicating difficult or traumatic experiences during years of development that distorted the individual’s worldview. This wounded inner child often leads to self-jeopardizing behaviors in adulthood, chaotic relationships, and a tendency to bond with those who hurt you.
Inner child work involves the process of reparenting the neglected, abused, abandoned, or traumatized aspects of our childhood selves. Let me tell you something interesting there’s a book by Sudhir Kakar (an Indian Psychoanalyst) ‘Shamans, Mystics, and Doctors‘ which discusses an aspect of the Guru-follower culture, particularly in India, plays a huge role in reparenting. When we choose a guru and become disciples, it’s actually like chosen parents, following their instructions to aid in reparenting the inner child within us.
Signs of a wounded inner child
It’s essential to recognize that these problems are coping strategies learned through harsh experiences that aren’t actually helpful. While they serve as coping mechanisms, their use can be harmful and unhealthy. There are numerous other psychological signs, such as emotional sensitivity, repeated patterns, and even narcissism(which is actually a compensatory trait for a deeply seated inferiority complex), each of which warrants a dedicated article due to the multifaceted nature of this psychological phenomenon that’s why I’m not explaining them in this article. Anyway, I’m listing down some important signs to consider and self-reflect upon
Fear of Abandonment: It’s a constant fear of being left or rejected, leading to clinginess with people around you. There’s hyper-sensitivity towards criticism, as the fear of rejection often accompanies this fear, also hindering the formation of deep relationships because of the fear of losing them.
Perfectionism: As mentioned earlier, the fear of criticism often leads to the development of perfectionism as a defense mechanism. Criticism can trigger a fear of rejection ingrained in their unconscious conscience, which drives individuals to be a perfectionists it usually stems from childhood pressures to excel or meet high expectations and low self-esteem is also a contributing factor. Perfectionism is not actually perfect it can lead to Procrastination or intellectualization of doing nothing.
Self-Sabotage: This involves engaging in behaviors that hinder personal growth. It’s as if something inside you doesn’t see yourself as worthy enough. There’s a book by Brianna West, ‘101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think,’ notes that ‘Happiness can be uncomfortable and when happiness exceeds one’s accustomed comfort zone, there’s a tendency to self-sabotage and revert to the familiar baseline of emotion. ‘ and I totally agree with her, We all have an inclination towards familiarity over happiness, a point I’ve frequently addressed in my articles.
Avoidance or Escapism: Individuals may resort to behaviors like excessive drinking, emotional overeating, or other addictions to cope with emotional pain and trauma.
Difficulty in Setting Boundaries: There’s a struggle in establishing healthy boundaries, often stemming from blurred boundaries during childhood. For instance, individuals who have experienced childhood sexual abuse may find it challenging to understand when or how to set boundaries. Their familiarity with healthy boundaries may be lacking, and they might not realize they have the right to reinforce them.
Low Self-Esteem: Feelings of inadequacy or unworthiness often stem from childhood experiences of criticism or neglect. Sometimes, parents project their own self-esteem issues and insecurities onto their children, and their children end up identifying with those issues and insecurities for example mom who herself has anger issues projecting this on her child that she has anger issues and her child legitimately ends up developing anger issues which were actually not there, it’s called ‘Projective Identification’ term given by psychoanalyst Melanie Klein whom I greatly admire when it comes to the contribution in psychoanalysis.
Lying: If you look closely this behavior is often linked to people-pleasing tendencies and fear of rejection. When lying, one tries to present oneself as someone they’re not, often stemming from a lack of acceptance in childhood. This could be due to rejection by friends or parents, leading to lying as a coping strategy.
So, there’s much more to it, there are many unhealthy defense mechanisms apart from them, these are just to give you an idea, these issues and manifestation of different mental issues and maladjustments because of these underlying mechanisms is precisely where Inner child healing works.
How Inner Child healing Works
There are various approaches and steps to heal your inner child, and it can be quite painful and unsettling. This pain often stems from traumatic and distressing experiences. As a result, it can be highly beneficial to seek out a therapist experienced in inner child work. When we attempt to self-treat, our efforts become biased. Our “self-awareness” is confined by our self-perception, biases, and cognitive distortions, which can hinder genuine self-awareness and recognition of the true self and impede the healing journey. This is why guidance, particularly from a therapist, becomes crucial.
I’ll outline some initial steps to connect with your inner child. However, it’s crucial to note that the effects can vary for each person, and the process might evoke strong emotions. It’s essential to approach this with patience, self-care, and ideally, with the support of a therapist. There are various methods like “mirror work”, “infant meditation” and “self-hugging”, but I’ll list what I consider to be crucial initial steps. Nevertheless, I highly recommend seeking a therapist’s assistance.
Identifying your emotional trigger: Your triggers are your responsibility. It’s on you to identify, track, and understand their root causes. Even acknowledging a trigger within the context of external actions diffuses the responsibility of dealing with it. What makes a trigger? let’s take a quick example I’ll write another article for it but For instance, if your mom frequently ignored you during childhood and now, at random hours of the day, suppose your partner is too occupied to pay attention, it can induce an unusual emotional peak and burst out at them, or feeling of intense hurt, that’s “trigger”.
Understanding and taking responsibility for your triggers not only improves yourself but could prevent conflicts with others as well. It’s the initial step in changing the impact of your childhood triggers. You can even hold someone responsible by simply acknowledging, or avoiding this, for example, “Hey, what you did just triggered me, but it’s okay—I take responsibility for my reactions.” By saying so you’ve established unsaid expectations of the world to tiptoe around you, therefore even such acknowledgments stem from a resistance to dealing with your triggers because it’s not that easy and comfortable to deal with.
Write a letter: Composing a letter from your adult self to your child self is an effective and self-compassionate practice. It allows you to reframe past experiences in a more positive light and understand how they shape your current feelings. Additionally, your inner child or younger self can also write a letter to your adult self. There’s an interesting concept called the non-dominant hand technique, suggesting using your non-dominant hand (e.g., if you’re right-handed, use your left hand) to let your inner child express concept given by
Identify unhealthy coping strategies: The term itself, “coping,” hints at its purpose: seeking relief. To pinpoint coping mechanisms, observe your physical actions and thought processes when distress arises, paying attention to what brings relief. Could it involve lying, self-deception, excessive conformity, people-pleasing, intellectualizing, isolation, or escapism? Take a close look at your actions, reactions, and thoughts during moments of discomfort or distress. Become aware of these processes and intentionally steer clear of them.
Conclusion
In your adulthood, there are many coping mechanisms that aren’t helpful as mentioned above; in fact, they are counterproductive and stem from hampered physical and emotional needs during childhood. It’s feasible to heal the inner child by showing yourself love, and compassion, and practicing activities that support emotional development and psychological awareness. Seeking guidance from a trained therapist might enhance the effectiveness of this process.
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