Thanks for this, Anne.

Perhaps part of what's always felt off-putting to me about the whole "parts/inner child" approach to therapy (besides the fact that intuitively it didn't reflect my self-perception) is that it so often is reduced, probably unfairly, to child=need, adult=mastery. As you say, that really is a fallacy.

Of course, babies and young children are bundles of needs--that's their job. And when caretakers can't rise to the challenge of meeting a "good enough" number of those needs, for whatever reasons, the child doesn't get what is needed for healthy development.

But so often it's assumed from this that those deficits simply mount up like bad debts. That's not always the case: some deficits remain unaddressed, some are overcome, and some are the impetus for the development of other coping skills and talents. And it all begins in childhood.

Certainly, those injuries sustained as a child which resulted in needs that remained unaddressed, can be met--but I think only by me, with the temporary help of another person. But they can't only be met by another person; without the goal of becoming able to meet my own needs in the forefront, that feels more like dependency.