Rainbow,

I'm sorry you had a T who brought your diagnosis into things when it came to boundaries and hugging.

As far as I know, the concept of 'inner child' comes from Transactional Analysis (nothing to do with psychoanalysis). Maybe try looking this up. I used to see a psychiatrist who also was a transactional analyst (a type of therapy) and he did once explain a little of the theory to me - I only saw him for meds though and I didn't really feel a click with him.

Like people have said, psychodynamic/psychoanalytic therapies generally involve (or encourage) looking into your past to understand underlying problems and how they emerge (I do psychoanalytic psychotherapy - I have worked a lot through my past and it's helped me a lot - I haven't dont 'inner child' work though as such). There is also 'Transference Focused Therapy' which is psychoanalytic/psychodynamic in origin but specially developed for patients with personality-based problems (personality disorders).

Onzi