[Restin]

It seems to be all the rage and has such a healthy ring: "Learn how to be a good parent to your own inner child." There is web page after web page and book after book on this topic that sounds like such a fine solution to inner conflict. But I have something I believe is important to say about this. Even though this inner child work is a great idea to some extent, someone like me who has an Attachment Disorder, or lives in Omnipotent Denial, is eager as a beaver to leap on that do-it-yourself wagon and make a major defense and cop out from therapy.

I found myself doing this right in front of my therapist. I dreaded the positive transference, where a patient needs to face his/her relationship problems by having a relationship. I went to therapy with this "parent my own inner child" project and in a few weeks had completely cut my therapist out of the therapy! My motto being, "thank you very much but I can take things over from here" when I haven't even broached a relationship with my therapist yet, whether negative or positive. I became depressed and deadened inside. I have bonding and relationship issues that are deep and I need a therapist to help me feel and work through feelings with a real person, not a mechanical concept.
So, I just want to point this out and bring this defensive maneuver to everyone's attention that might be concerned with this.

[HazelGirl]

This is extremely true. I tried this for several years before therapy. I didn't understand that you actually need another person to go through this stuff with you. I thought if I knew all the right things, I could skip the whole therapy thing. I was definitely wrong. The knowledge helped, but it definitely didn't heal me. It just made it easier for me to pretend to be normal, all while falling apart inside.

[tooski]

I find the relationship with the T the most difficult part of therapy ---BY FAR. I too am trying to do therapy on my own. Yeah, you're right - it doesn't really work. I'm making progress in other areas and things are improving, but the T r/l is absolute torture. Thanks for this thread. I feel better knowing I'm not the only one saying "Stay back! I can do it myself!!!!"

[feralkittymom]

Not a fan of anything "inner child." But I think the fallacy is that if you have an attachment disorder, how would you know how to have such a relationship with yourself that wasn't disordered? I remember when this labelled approach first became popular in the 80's; honestly, unless one is involved in IFS, I thought the concept was sort of passe now.

[Favorite Jeans]

Yeah. You have to learn to be a good parent (to your inner child or to your actual child) from somewhere. I don't think that's something most people can fully figure out through a book. If you didn't learn it from your parents, you most likely need to learn it from another relationship. It can be kind of a bummer if you're usually an independent learner who does well with books.

My relationship with my T is totally kicking my arse right now. Brutal.

[blur]

restin, i can see how if you were resistant to the therapeutic relationship that you found something to provide a reason to avoid forming that therapeutic bond, but i do think that could happened for T clients with any therapeutic technique such as changing your thoughts in CBT or going overboard on setting boundaries or with owning your power, etc.. inner child work is just one more tool in the tool box of techniques that can be used in a variety of settings like individual therapy, a 12-step group, group therapy or on one's own. some types of treatment are better suited to particular disorders but the books i have on inner child work all discuss the great benefits of getting help from others through therapy or commonly 12-step groups. i have not heard any recommendation to do inner child work instead of therapy but just as another method of help. there are even therapies such as IFS or ego state therapy that utilize the concepts but it is all within–rather than separate to–the therapeutic relationship. what i am saying is that i don't think there is any inherent danger in inner child work but rather that it just wasn't the right method for you in your particular situation and this is common with all types of therapy for particular individuals.

[kororain]

I don't really understand why you would need a particular relationship with T in order to have healthy relationships with others.

I don't view T that way. She's somebody to bounce things off of, but not someone I'm particularly attached to. She's a professional. Like a Doctor or Dentist. She's not my boyfriend.

I truly don't get the whole thing where you're supposed to have some intimate relationship. Do. Not. Get. It.

[JustShakey]

Yeah. This. And it just s****. I know exactly what you mean about dreading the positive transference. I went through the attachment wars with previous T. I still don't know if she really did lose her s*** and succumb to countertransference, as she and current T claim (I find it very hard to believe honestly), or if she was pulling some pshrinkish crap on me.

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Originally Posted by kororain

I don't really understand why you would need a particular relationship with T in order to have healthy relationships with others.

I don't view T that way. She's somebody to bounce things off of, but not someone I'm particularly attached to. She's a professional. Like a Doctor or Dentist. She's not my boyfriend.

I truly don't get the whole thing where you're supposed to have some intimate relationship. Do. Not. Get. It.

There is no "supposed to". What you describe is how therapy works for thousands of people. Thousands of other people have other experiences. None of them are better or worse, or more or less valid.

[Favorite Jeans]

Originally Posted by kororain

I don't really understand why you would need a particular relationship with T in order to have healthy relationships with others.

I don't view T that way. She's somebody to bounce things off of, but not someone I'm particularly attached to. She's a professional. Like a Doctor or Dentist. She's not my boyfriend.

I truly don't get the whole thing where you're supposed to have some intimate relationship. Do. Not. Get. It.

Your therapy might not require a particular relationship. Some people use their therapists as a sounding board or for advice and strategies on particular issues. Other people require something else. If your issue (or one of them) is that you have not experienced a secure enough attachment early on, then the attachment becomes your focus and the relationship pretty much is the therapy while whatever content you discuss is secondary.

[AllyIsHopeful]

I agree with the concept of parenting one's inner child. It's not as easy as it sounds and if it were, therapy would be unnecessary for many people. All of the "parenting" skills we have are learned from mirroring our caretakers and a small part is instinctual (eating, hygiene, sleeping, etc.). So if our parents did a crappy job at raising us (abuse, neglect, abandonment), how much do we really have to go by?

A good Therapist, along with a healthy therapeutic relationship, is necessary to learn how to be a nurturing, caring, loving, and attuned parent to a clients deprived inner child.

In my experience, my Therapist always threw the "be your own mother" crap at me and finally realized I was never really grasping the concept. She then proceeded to consistently validate my successes and strength and was very generous with compliments. She did many other things that essentially demonstrated how I should be treating myself and that I was worth the care and concern.

[AllyIsHopeful]

Originally Posted by kororain

I don't really understand why you would need a particular relationship with T in order to have healthy relationships with others.

I don't view T that way. She's somebody to bounce things off of, but not someone I'm particularly attached to. She's a professional. Like a Doctor or Dentist. She's not my boyfriend.

I truly don't get the whole thing where you're supposed to have some intimate relationship. Do. Not. Get. It.

Those examples are a bit extreme. Sharing feelings and past experiences, traumas, and current insecurities is a form of intimacy and many people struggle with trust and vulnerability, which most definitely affects other relationships. And the intimacy you experience with a significant other is entirely different than the intimacy involved in a therapeutic relationship or any other relationship, for that matter.

The client does not *need* to have a particular relationship with their Therapist, nor are they *supposed* to.

If you are personally in Therapy to "bounce things off of" your Therapist, perhaps you are not one who requires a bond with your T. For many people, however, it is absolutely necessary.

[stopdog]

I am in the therapist is like a dentist category. And I don't really get the whole intimate relationship with a therapist idea either or the inner child parenting notion.

[boredporcupine]

For me it's not an either/or thing. Working on my relationship with myself and my relationship with my T both complement each other.

Also, actually having an IFS therapist is a little different than doing "inner child" work on yourself, IMO, because you have another person there actually guiding you through the process. I think when "inner child" work fails it's because there are other "parts" of ourselves that get in the way. For example, there might be a part of you that desperately wants to not be needy so it tries to get all the "needy" parts to shut up and be quiet. The expertise of an IFS therapist is helping people to untangle these kinds of conflicts. Also, I don't think a good IFS therapist would consider the work to be complete if the client was still unable to form intimate relationships or to trust and rely on other people.

I am one of the relationship with t is important people. I recently realized that in the therapeutic relationship we have, she is modeling the kind of relationship I should have with myself, among other things. For me, personally, the relationship is the therapy.

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[Restin]

I appreciate all the comments on this topic I started. Each is a somewhat different slant, but has helped me greatly to understand what goes on in therapy. I still believe that another person is important in the healing relationship, yet I've see here different ways to look at it. Thanks

[Depletion]

I'm an expert at shutting out T's and acting like I have it all figured out. I have a journal that I write and send to T every week. I try to be as honest as possible in the journal so I don't end up shutting her out. So far its helping.

[ThisWayOut]

I've found I rely on t a lot, but I dislike it greatly most of the time. Definitely in the camp of "relationship with t is important to healing"... just had a conversation with my mom the other night where she admitted her own issues with asking anyone figure anything, and how she tried to instill that "independence" in my brother and I from an early age. While a good message to get down the line, it kinda sucks at 1... so there's a lot of conflict for me with the whole "it's ok to trust someone else, rely on someone else, ask for help" concept, but at the same time I really wish I could for a lot of things.

[Krayzee]

Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans

Your therapy might not require a particular relationship. Some people use their therapists as a sounding board or for advice and strategies on particular issues. Other people require something else. If your issue (or one of them) is that you have not experienced a secure enough attachment early on, then the attachment becomes your focus and the relationship pretty much is the therapy while whatever content you discuss is secondary.

I had been in and out of therapy for years. The sounding board kind of therapy. I never did "heal" from it, but got some insight. I have an extensive trauma background and did not experience secure attachments. My relationship with my current T, as you have stated IS the therapy. I do have the whole transference thing going on (positive father-figure) and it is brutal, but SO beneficial. I guess it all depends on the therapist and what you're looking to get out of therapy.

This stuff is nearly impossible to translate on paper.
It's got to be experienced. We have to experience being cared about, to be able to care about.