Your views on reparenting in therapy

What do you think, is this something that you've experienced, did you like it, do you feel it's needed, or are you against it?

I think for people who experienced difficult childhoods this is necessary. To try to heal those wounds. But then again, how can you go back in time, and how is therapy like childhood environment? Years ago I "accidentally" called one of my therapists "mom" a few different times. Each time I was embarrassed so much, especially because the woman was quite young and I thought she might be offended, not to mention the humiliation of a guy in his 20s calling a stranger mom.

But she did not react at all any of those times, never followed up on it, to the point that later I started to doubt my memory. I also felt more embarrassed, thinking she thoughts those slips for so bad she'd never want to point them out. But I had wondered later what if she could be my mom, what if it were possible she could fix the bad times in past, maybe then I would not be so anxious about being rejected or abandoned, having trust issues. I mean of course not all of it goes back to mom, there is some related to dad and some just me being neurotic myself, personality wise and experiences in the outside world shaping that. But still, I been thinking about this again now, but maybe this is more fantasy on my part.

But for some weird reason it reminds me of The Great Gatsby, where in a very different context (of romance), this happens:

"I wouldn’t ask too much of her," I [I is the narrator, Nick] ventured. "You can’t repeat the past."
"Can’t repeat the past?" he [he is Gatsby, who wants a woman - whom he was in love with years ago when he was poor - Daisy, who is now married ] cried incredulously.
"Why of course you can!"
He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand....

I'm really interested to see how people respond to this question. Like you, I also feel that reparenting might be helpful. I haven't experienced it, but I have experienced feelings of feeling like a child with a T.

I like it, enjoy it, but fear it.
In the hands of a bad therapist, it is a dangerous strategy. In skilled hands, it can be life saving.

I had never considered that there was a child-like side to me that was separate from the adult side until my T brought it up one day. She said something along the lines of "It almost seems as if little laxer12 wants someone to notice her, validate her, and care for her." I didn't quite get it at the time so we both just sat with that statement.

After thinking about it, it made a lot more sense. I started to notice that some of the things I say or think while with T are very "child-like" things. I guess I just want to be able to trust her and know that she cares about me which are things I didn't feel like I had with my parents.

I don't necessarily want my T to "reparent" me, but I do want to be able to learn how to trust people again through my relationship with her.

my therapist and I have done some re parenting and I do think it is life saving for me. We have given the child side of me a nickname and if I want I can request things in her little bay"'s name. Like "I'm OK with you going on vacation but little bay is worried". On her last trip she took a stuffed animal of mine with her to comfort "little bay". I share things like pictures of my horses and pets, things I've done and she comments. I get good night texts every night right now.
Usually in session the first 45 minutes we spend talking and stuff and the last 15 minutes are "llittle bay"'s time. I can ask for hugs or snuggles or to have my neck scratched, or to play a game or look at a book. If the adult part of me has more pressing needs I can Also skip it and talk or sometimes we do yoga poses.
For me it has helped to have a specific time and place where those needs are ok. Ive often felt like a giant ball of need for love and touch and affirmation because of my childhood abuse and negLect. Those needs are out of place in adult friendships and with my partner the sexual component and fact that I am the primary bread winner cloud things. ( ie am i loved or just needed). And even a romantic partner of. Many years can't bear up under the need for that kind of love. So it's like a relief valve. For the first time I don't feel ready to.exploDe with pain and need constantly. There is somewhere safe to contain, express and explore those needs. And I am learning from my T's example to comfort "little bay" when my T is not around. It hasn't been an easy process but it's getting easier and it really has probably saved my life.

I am VERY against it. I think it is extremely harmful to many people and I think it is unethical. It's useless. You can't fix the past and you can't make up for what your parents lacked and especially not with a therapist. UGH. No, just no, no, no.

I mean, what happens when the therapy is over? I am not putting down anyone who is doing this, but I think it is really irresponsible of a therapist to engage in this type of therapy. Most people who think it works are still in it and the therapy hasn't ended. What happens then? It scares me for those people, the potential pain and harm and damage it can cause.

Puzzle Bug, I sense a kind of anger and hurt behind your response. Did a therapist tried to do this with you once and resulted in traumatizing you (for ending too early or not doing it right?) If so, I'm sorry you experienced that, I can not imagine how painful that must have been, given the kind of regression that probably must occur for reparenting to become the central part of therapy.

And that's one of the real dangers. Assuming reparenting works, at least to some extent, for people who have had difficult childhood, what could be worse than bringing all those emotions and thoughts to the surface only for the therapist to cause more damage or abandon person in this state of mind?

What do you mean specifically, by reaparenting therapy?

Thank you for the question, I realized I'm not completely sure. But just to make the distinction, I did not say "reparenting therapy", I said "reparenting in therapy", as in being part of therapy not the name of a particular therapy.

So I did a little search and I think a good way to explain maybe use one kind of therapy that makes some uses of reparenting, such as schema therapy, and here's an article on this site, from which I quoted the relevant part:

New Therapy Shows Promise for Personality Disorders | Psych Central News

My T and I do not do re-parenting, but my relationship with her is definitely "maternal" and it is central to our work together. I don't have an inner child, we keep all of the traditional therapy boundariws in place, etc-- but I definitely feel as though my relationship with my T provides a kind of corrective experience for my childhood. My T isn't my mom, but she is probably the closest thing I have ever had to a "mom." She does say she loves me, she gives hugs, and she has discussed that, after therapy ends, I will be allowed to give her e-mail updates or schedule a one-off session when I am in town (we know I will be moving in the future). For me, this experience has been phenomenal.

My 1st therapist as a young adult also did some of this with me. Although losing her was painful, I felt like giving me some light in all the darkness in my life was still worth it. Perhaps it's different because she got sick and died, she didn't voluntarily abandon me. I felt able to take the good I received with me through life.

My current therapist at least is clear on that we aren't fixing the past or anything. She is clear that I need to grieve my past and accept I will never have a real mother. She doesn't want to be my replacement mom or something or to have me think of her that way. However there are basic things that happen in a healthy parent child relationship that play huge roles in the formation of a healthy positive sense of self. Touch, acceptance and validation of needs, responsiveness to physical and emotional pain, mutual joy--- these things form the basis of core self worth. If you didn't experience significant abuse and neglect in early childhood you may not be able to understand what life is like when you didn't get any of those things or how much it helps to be taught that those strong primal desires for love and touch and approval are normal for some one who did not get them. I dont need to redo my childhood because I am an adust with adult thinking and insight. But I do need a place where I can learn to not be constantly ashamed of who I am and part of that is experiencing some of that validation, comfort and love.

It might depend what you mean by "reparenting". I think there is maybe more than one kind of "reparenting" therapy. For my T, I am expected to be a functional independent adult who also has a very needy small child inside myself. I think if she thought it would destabilize me my T would never have gone there. But for me the deep inner pain and wounds and need was constantly destabilizing and since we gave the child part of me room to exist I am much more stable.

True if she rejected me right now it would be awful but my therapy has changed my view of MYSELF just as that love in early childhood shapes a small child's view of themselves. she has been very slow and careful with it. I also don't get anything I am not able tof ask for. So my T wasn't all "i think your inner child needs love". She waited until I was strong enough and secure enough in our relationship to say " there is this very child like part of me with very powerful needs and I need help to manage that. These are things I think might help. Can we do x, y or z?"
Which i think is very different therapeutically from a T swooping in to "rescue" someone which often ends in disaster....

Is there a real definition of reparenting? I mean in textbooks that therapists in training use. I guess when I hear the term I think of really hardcore reparenting, but maybe that is not what is meant in the OP.

This resonates for me. My T isn't my mom or trying to be my mom. But she IS the closest thing to a loving parent I am ever going to get. My in-lwas are nice people but they are very religious and aren't fully accepting of their own gay daughter, never mind ME. It close and for me it's working. My friends my age ( 40) still text or call their Mom or Dad when things are going poorly at work or they have a decision to make or are ill or injured. I have my T. After I broke my leg I texted my partner, then my best friend ( the two people stuck with driving me aroubd, etc) and then my T. It works for me.

i agree with this so much

I so agree with this. I had one T refer me after a few months when I was already attached and it sucked so much. The second T stuck it out and knew how to keep things manageable. I still see her sometimes but I don't need much "reparenting" from her anymore. I still have a slight ache over what I missed but it's not a giant gaping wound anymore.

If I had a client in the future who was in need of reparenting I would try to help them do as much as possible for themselves, or get their intimate partner involved also if possible. I just think it's really painful to be dependent for that on a professional. Sometimes it can be the best option to do that in a limited way but I wouldn't do it lightly. Not because it's bad or because I don't want to but because it can actually be quite hard on the client.

My T does IFS, which is similar to schema therapy. We isolate the parts of my personality and have talked to the child parts often. The goal is for ME to reparent those needy parts by myself, and that starts by having compassion for them. It also includes reparenting by my T, because she is there with the child parts too.

Holding hands is a type of reparenting because my T says she is changing my nervous system to give me what I never had. I think of it as refueling my gas tank with a more calming kind of fuel than my mother gave me. I think it is working. It is NOT reparenting therapy, though. The most extreme reparenting I read about years ago was when Ts actually gave clients baby bottles! I have no idea if that strategy was ever successful, but it sets off many red flags to me!

my goal is to internalize my therapist within myself. he is my role model for what a healthy parent looks like. some of this has already happened, i can tell myself things that i know he would tell me. like if im upset, i can talk to myself and help myself to feel better and manage. i think, to me, this is the goal of therapy. yes it will end someday. its inevitable. but i think what needs to happen is the end should be gradual, agreed upon, and at a time when i feel healthy enough to be able to parent myself, keeping my T with me in my mind and heart, and feeling secure with our relationship and with how it has ended.

My T does Schema stuff. I didn't know what it was at first. Over time we explored some of the lacking elements in my childhood and mainly the fact that my Mom was severly depressed most of my life. This led to some lack of emotional support and allowed the internalization of uglier stuff, self-loathing, anxiety, co-dependencies, etc.

I've always known I've had a "childish" side of myself that I express when I'm feeling vulnerable in my relationships. I can say when I'm therapy I get very 'little' at times - I don't act like a child but I didn't know it until I read about reaparting, that this was basically my needy kid coming out.

So My T does a practice where I voice the role of these self-loathing thoughts and fears and then afterwards speak back to them. It's typical therapy stuff I guess, but the first time my T said, "My job during this practice is to 'be the Mom' -and tell (these voices) to leave you alone. You're safe, you're okay and you're good (etc)." Basically she played out how a Mother should be- so I could understand what it was that I lacked growing up. It wierded me out a bit at first but it did somehow click. I got it. I realized what was missing and how it played into my core issues. She doesn't do this so literally everytime - but on occasion when I am really suffering or anxious she'll subtley point out that there's a core part of me that needed that 'mothering' and she offers that role for that moment in time. Other times she can be very explicit about it, "I'll play the Mom here... " and I think she does this so there's no confusion about her own motivations when she's offering any kind of physical support.

The technique has allowed me to recognize what was missing (things my Mom couldn't do or didn't know how), how I'v sought to replicate this in some of my relationships and the unintentional consequences of that lack as the central source of a lot of my core issues.

I do not see my T as "my Mom", exactly, because I actually do get along well enough with my own that I don't have that need. I do see her as "A Mom" who can help me understand what that role is about and how mine affected me.

I'll add that I have always had a voice in my mind who is more like a big brother/sister to me. I talk to myself all the time. When I'm in a bad space, I forget that voice or lose it, for long periods of time. When I'm in a good space, I talk to myself in a supportive way. I can rely on this voice talk me down from my anxieties, to stop the negative rumination and redirect my thoughts.

I didn't realize, until I was in therapy, that this is basically a version of "supporting the inner child" and it's a skill I developed because of the lack of strong emotional support in my childhood.

Wow, I can imagine that could be quite powerful emotionally, especially if you have a strong relationship.
Haha, Rainbow8 that made me chuckle.

I don't think technically my T reparented me. But under his wings my core changed. He provided the safe environment I never had as a child, so that I could grow into a strong, confident woman.

My parents didn't have the skills to do that. They weren't emotionally available. My T did and was. He did what my parents had to do years ago.

I'm personally really skeptical of it. I guess if it works for some people, okay, but I feel like it splits a person further than where they are (or so it feels when I read about people's experiences). I see myself as just me - an accumulation of experiences up to this point. I am wholly me. There is no "child me" within me. There is just and only me and I am an adult. If I feel frightened or insecure about something, it's an emotion I am experiencing and it's giving me information.

Idk. I experienced what I experienced and those experiences conditioned my current responses. So, I accept what happened and I look to changing my responses through the learning of healthy skills - learn and practice, practice, practice.

I do something similar. Since I was a little kid i have had a wolf that visits me in my head and talks to me about thingS. Despite an emotionally barren childhood with a mentally ill and abusive mother and absent father, she would come to me and tell me I was strong and loved and would get out of that home eventually. As I grew I internalized her voice so i.often hear "my wolf"'s voice in my head. Since I am a writer this never disturbed me. It was different in intensity than a character i.am writing talking to me but not different enough to feel crazy to me. She has supported me throughout my life and my T thinks it is almost like a bizarre highly functional form of DID without the memory loss. I basically took a part of myself and protected it from the horrible influences of my childhood. That part then came back and nurtured the rest of me. It's sort of wild. Her voice is like a bug sisters voice. Or at least that is how I perceive it, maybe In part because the idea of a mother in my head is very very disturbing to.me and makes me feel. Very uNsafe.

I agree with this. I am not into all the "inner child" stuff.

The bottle feeding you mention wasn't that unusual as a part of reparenting therapy and was extremely controversial. Regression is encouraged and in even weirder cases therapists held clients to their chests to mimic the bonding/attachment in nursing. This style doesn't resonate well with me because I feel like it infantilizes people and takes away their dignity. I know this extreme isn't what you're all talking about but is how it originated )combined with something called transactional analysis). I have heard some of this attachment parenting still done with children and it is very controversial.

Like Nowhere, I accept my past for what it is and see myself as he sum of my experiences. The bonding I missed out on is not going to be recreated now, I just want to build off of what I have. If it's your thing and you feel it works then there's no harm, but I would be aware of the the power differential in the relationship and take care not to let a T get too caught up in their parental role.