Posted by daisym on October 12, 2004, at 19:24:15
In reply to So what's all this 'inner child' stuff? ;), posted by shrinking violet on October 12, 2004, at 17:31:26
Sometimes inner child work is also referred to as regression and it is mostly done by therapists who are psychodynamically oriented, vs. CBT. The idea here is to go back and try to heal what happened at a particular point in the past.
Other folks, like me, find that they have disassociated parts at different age states. These ego-states actually are "stuck" in the age where they were shunted off. They often hold the memories and the feelings of trauma and neglect. They can be accessed at times, with voices completely of their own. Typically these are younger parts of yourself that had to be dissociated because the emotional impact of what was happening was too huge to understand or cope with.
This is different from more extreme cases of DID, where personalities actually take over the body or are experienced as very separate entities. This use to be called multi-personality disorder and happens when the abuse is severe and happens when a child is very young, and/or over a long period of time and there are no redeeming factors in the child's life.
Some people have separated their emotional state (which could be younger) and their more practical sides. And other people experience trauma and never have this happen to them.
You didn't ask this but I want to throw in here that I was absolutely shocked to find this out about myself. I resisted admitting to feeling younger for months, even though my therapist would notice and ask questions or label the emotions for me. In a particularly emotional session, he asked to talk to her. And she talked back! I was aware of what was happening but I felt her need to talk and couldn't stop her. I have to tell you I was really upset that he "did this to me." I asked him why he started talking to her and his answer was that he could feel her in the room with us, that she was right there and needed to have her say. It has taken me months to get use to this concept but I'm trying to not resist it too much. It is still hard for me to talk about her, me, us, and our's. :)
Not all therapist believe in this or want to work this way. One of the best exercises we did was the two-voice writing. You let your adult talk to your child. And you just free flow write, don't edit yourself. See what comes up. It might surprise you.
poster:daisym
thread:402277
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041002/msgs/402338.html