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While doing inner child work with clients, I often run them through a guided visualisation where they meet and greet a younger version of themselves. It is mostly an incredibly emotional experience but also gleans insight into how really connected they are with their past and subsequently, the emotions attached to it. At the end of the visualisation, clients are asked to hold an image of them and the child sitting on a bench and then draw it with the non-dominant hand.

I have been offering online therapy for over 10 years. During that time, I have built up a speciality in many areas of psychology (especially Codependency) and helped many clients move forward. Contact me for a free consultation. I engage fully with my clients to ensure the best possible chance of recovery. I firmly believe that awareness is important but action is the decisive element of recovery. I accompany my clients along that road not only by offering sessions focusing on their issues but as a resource between sessions too.

I have had various reactions to the process of meeting the younger self. There is very often crying and a release of pent-up emotion but also some rather surprising results. Here are a few:

“I want to slap her”

“She is unclean, unwashed and dirty”

“I cannot and will not see him”

“I felt huge sadness because I know whats coming for that little girl”

Inner Child Therapy is for me one of the most powerful experiences one can go through in therapy. When it is combined with Internal Family Systems Therapy  the notion that we have an internal family of “thinking parts” that determine our view of ourselves), it can be life-changing. Once contact is made, then work can be done.

The younger self represents the part that carries childhood trauma and many clients are understandably reluctant sometimes to delve into this murky area. They are never quite sure what will come up. You might suggest that things should be left as they are. However, the influence of that trauma appears frequently on a day to day basis in relationships and a generally held view of self and the world. It also signifies how detached a client is to emotions and gives a clue to how powerful the internal family of thinking parts are.