[purplemoon]

Does everyone have an inner child? Do all T's do inner child work?

[WinterRose]

Hmm - Well, we've talked about something like that, but not using those words. It was about how I treat myself and the need to be nice to my little child and how I needed to find a nuturing parent inside me instead of just the other one. Other than that, we haven't done any 'work' focusing on it. Just came up once or twice. I'm not sure if all Ts use this concept.

[Gracey]

I don't know about all of us but my T seems to THRIVE on getting me to "connect with" my inner child.

:::sits back, crosses arms, pouts::::

[sunrise]

I have a variety of ego states. Some are children, some teens, some adults. A prominent ego state of mine is a little girl and has come to therapy with me. She is from a very traumatic time in my childhood and so wasn't integrated very well. So no, I don't talk about "my inner child", but I definitely have ego states of various ages and themes (e.g. little girl of 6 who always experienced Dad's anger, or whatever).

[dreamrunner]

My T once started talking about the inner child (listening to her),and I could tell he was trying to start with that process and Ive never felt soooooo uncomfortable in my life .
The look of horror on my face must of been apparent because he quit right there.For months I couldnt understand what shook me so much.....
Every once in awhile after that T would try again but to no avail.
It really bothered me.....one night journaling,after a night of sh, I concluded that I didnt have an inner child,I didnt have one cause I killed her to shut her up. How sad is that.

[Gracey]

You know, once I was doing some imagery work, and I was asked to imagine her playing on a beach. I walk up to her, we have a conversation, and then. . .what? So, I imagined this. . .the whole thing, and after the conversation was over, I stood up to leave, she reached up for my hand and I just recoiled in terror. I left her. Left her sitting on a beach somewhere.

[amuseable]

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....one night journaling,after a night of sh, I concluded that I didnt have an inner child,I didnt have one cause I killed her to shut her up. How sad is that.

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Oh Dreamrunner my heart is breaking for you though I can so relate to your words. I want to hug you to death and tell you the truth ... that you have a child within as we all do ... that you are a beautiful child, precious, special, etc.... I want to rent a billboard with the message "Dreamrunner you are, among many wondrous things, also a beautiful child!"
It has been so damn tough for me to learn that but so important. ((((((((DREAMRUNNER)))))))))

[amuseable]

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I imagined this. . .the whole thing, and after the conversation was over, I stood up to leave, she reached up for my hand and I just recoiled in terror. I left her. Left her sitting on a beach somewhere.

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(((((((((GRACEY)))))))) Oh my gosh. You must've heard terrible lies about yourself to believe you are anything but wonderful and amazing and loveable. I do not know you and even I can tell this about you. How is it that we turn our backs on ourselves just because others have done so often? We come to believe the lies that we are worth nothing to anyone. It is very sad but not hopeless. One day you will learn to even play with the child on the beach. I did. It took many years and I'm still working on it but where there is life there is hope.

[MissCharlotte]

(((dreamrunner))) (((gracey)))

I rememer having that feeling that I murdered myself. I think it was because of trauma I had experienced and didn't wish to revisit.

I now have a sense of my inner child. I don't always have her with me, though and when I don't bring her to therapy I have a hard time connecting with T. I suppose those times I am less integrated.

I am trying hard to love my little girl inside. It's very hard. I got a doll and put it on my dresser. One she never had as a little girl.

I do believe we all have an inner child.

Sunny, I'm not sure what you mean by ego states, but I think it's the same thing we are talking about.

((((((((((all the inner children)))))))))))))

We need to love you!!!!!!

Peace

[sunrise]

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sister said:
Sunny, I'm not sure what you mean by ego states, but I think it's the same thing we are talking about.

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Hi sister. Ego states are pretty cool. Ego states are organized around different ages or themes. They don't have to be children. I picture my "self" as a room full of all my different ego states. The more prominent (or less integrated) ones stand at the front of the room and are distinct with details to their features, and light upon them. The more integrated ones are further back and in shadow. They are more integrated into my dominant or controlling ego state, who I consider to be "me." I have a fairly prominent ego state who is a little girl of age 4-6. Ego states are often organized around themes. One theme can be age. This particular little girl ego state of mine suffered abuse/trauma at that age and that is her theme. I did not even know this ego state existed because due to the trauma ,I had really dissociated her. When I recovered my repressed memories of those experiences, I became aware of this ego state. She came to me first in dreams and then later she came with me to therapy. But I have many other ego states too, but not all are prominent. Another prominent ego state I have is a young adult me, again organized around a run of traumatic experiences. I also have another one that is an older girl than 4-6, maybe age 10-11 or so. I have not worked with these ego states in therapy yet, but they are both important ones.

So I haven't really worked with an inner child, as that sounds like a concrete way of visualizing/imagining one's childish aspect. And it sounds like each person only has one inner child. Ego states seem more specific to me; they have "themes" rather than just age, and there are multiple ego states. It was a very powerful moment for me to visualize all my ego states in the imaginary room and see the less integrated ones at the front. I really want to do more ego state work when I return to therapy after dealing with my marriage issues.

[MissCharlotte]

Hey Sunny,

The ego state work sounds fascinating. However, I don't think that the inner child is one specific age. I know mine is many different ages, and can appear at different ages, like you often surrounding trauma at the given age. Hmmm. I have many different little girls inside me. There is a 12 year old, whose face I couldn't see for a long time and a 5 year old who i take to the beach. There is a rebellious adolescent as well.

(:0)

[sunrise]

sister, maybe all the children you have are ego states and we are indeed talking about the same thing. Although ego states usually have a theme, not just an age.

It was interesting to me when I recovered the little girl ego state who had suffered abuse that there were certainly other ego states of that same age but they didn't have those particular memories. That wasn't their "theme." It's not like I blanked out that entire period of my life from my memory, just a piece of it centered on those experiences, but I remembered other things fine, such as school, from the same period. Also interesting was that some memories that went with that particular ego state were not related, I don't think, to the theme (e.g. a particular sequence of abuse experiences) but somehow randomly got bundled into that ego state. For example, this ego state also had the memories of many hours I would spend building houses of cards by myself. I recovered these memories along with the abuse memories. I have no idea why the card memories segregated with the abuse memories and became repressed, but they did. Isn't the mind fascinating?

[MissCharlotte]

Oh gosh, yes, beyond fascinating.

I have lost huge chunks of childhood memories. I don't remember any of my teachers after first grade until 7th or 8th grade. Those were very grim years in my family. I think my injured inner child is hiding still from the stress of those years and I have yet to encounter her.

Did you do specific work to recapture lost memories? When i first started seeing T, I became retraumatized a couple of times so now we take it really slow.

[Caramee]

My T has done inner child work from the beginning. We have a "meeting" in a kind of hypnotic state at the beginning where some of my conflicting ego states meet and talk and try to get along and not screw up the session

Why do you ask? Is this something you're interested in? There are a lot of books on the subject.

[sunrise]

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sister said:
Did you do specific work to recapture lost memories? When i first started seeing T, I became retraumatized a couple of times so now we take it really slow.

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No, absolutely not. We do no work to recover lost memories. It would have been hard for me to do that anyway, because I was unaware I had lost any memories. Shortly after I started therapy with T, these memories came to me, all at once, in a flash, one evening when I was watching TV. I had not recalled these events for 40 years nor been aware these events had happened. It was very strange. T told me this often happens in therapy. We were doing EMDR, and he said especially when you begin to relieve past trauma with EMDR, the other traumatic incidents from your past will just line up--they want to be dealt with too!

Even after I recovered the memories, it took me a long time before I could share them with T (maybe that is the retraumatizing you refer to). He was my new T and we did not have the relationship or trust such that I could share. But later, I was able to.

not all therapists do inner child stuff, neither of the ones i have seen have even brought it up.

i don't disagree with anyone, i mean, %#@&#!, what do i know right? i just have a hard time believing in the "inner child" at all. i feel i am more fluid than that. i can be an adult with connection to the feelings i had as a child without having an inner child. Does that make sense? i can feel old feelings as the same without a separate entity.

i don't know. maybe i'm stupid.

[sunrise]

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gerber said:
not all therapists do inner child stuff, neither of the ones i have seen have even brought it up.

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My T doesn't do it either. It's OK, gerber, not everyone's therapist has the same toolbox. There are many routes to effective therapy. My first counselor practiced cognitive behavioral therapy. My current therapist is eclectic: family systems-humanistic-psychodynamic-gestalt-EMDR-TheKitchenSink. I find it interesting to read about the different therapeutic approaches in this forum.