Inner Child Therapy

If we are unfortunate enough to find ourselves experiencing ongoing hurt or pain, it is likely that its origins lie in childhood experience, when we are most open, sensitive and vunerable. Naturally, we are least able to deal with difficulty during our early years, but we are all given protective mechanisms which will usually enable us to cope. The price is usually high but we pay it because we feel that our survival is at stake. Coping strategies may involve blocking off the pain, disowning the trauma or denying the abuse. As a consequence, there become parts of ourselves that we're no longer in touch with on a day to day basis. As children, we are close to our essential selves; we are spontaneous, play, laugh, sing, dance, cry, care, live in the moment. When, to some degree, we lose contact with these essential elements of our being, we tend to feel, as adults, flat, bored and empty; we tend towards unhealthy preoccupations as we unconsciously attempt to fill the hole. And yet, those qualities we miss are attempting to find their way back into being and expression. When we are prepared to stop, turn within, locate, heal and release our original pain, these essential aspects of ourselves can be rediscovered, embraced and brought out into our lives.

Healing is not just about giving healing energy - it's also about being open to receive it. Further, it's about opening to, and releasing, whatever is found within that limits our wholeness. The effects of our responses to any unpleasant experience are held within, creating blocks, tensions, limitations and emotional discomfort - often overlaid with a coating of denial - as we strive to continue with our lives. During healing it is possible to go within and allow these inner states of being to reveal themselves; then, using the natural energy of the out breath, we can gently release, little by little, that which has been found. There is profound relief in letting go of states of limitation that we may have been carrying for many years. When events are seen from a higher perspective, forgiveness becomes easy and desirable; it is followed by a sense of expansion, release and a returning sense of who you really are. When we take this process of releasing and opening into the heart area, we can eventually move into a profound sense of ourselves and experience our connection with the world around us, to life itself.

In severe cases, where a profound separation has taken place, a session of Soul retrieval therapy may be the most appropriate way of 'bringing yourself back home'.

I would like to quote from 'The Trauma of Childhood', an article by Alice Miller - a world authority on child abuse and mistreatment, and author of twelve books on the subject.

"We do not arrive in this world with a clean slate. Every new baby comes with a history of its own, the history of the nine months between conception and birth. In addition, children have the genetic blueprint they inherit from their parents. These factors may help determine what kind of temperament a child will have, what inclinations, gifts and predispositions.

But character depends crucially upon whether a person is given love, protection, tenderness and understanding or exposed to rejection, coldness, indifference and cruelty in the early formative years. The stimulus indispensable for developing the capacity for empathy, say, is the experience of loving care. In the absence of such care, when a child is forced to grow up neglected, emotionally starved and subjected to physical abuse, he or she will forfeit this innate capacity....."

"We know today that the brain we are born with is not the finished product it was once thought to be. The structuring of the brain depends very much on the experiences of the first hours, days and weeks of a person's life. In the last few years, scientific studies led by neurologist and child psychiatrist Dr Bruce Perry have further established that traumatized and neglected children display severe lesions affecting up to 30% of those areas of the brain that control our emotions...."

For a wealth of further information, I recommend visiting her website - www.alice-miller.com.