Our core childhood needs are: Attachment Freedom to be yourself and to have your emotions and needs validated Appropriate limits so you learn self-control Independence, competence and self-identity Play When triggered by one of these needs not being met, you …
Tag: inner child work
Understanding Needs in Relationships
Attempting to get all our needs met through one person is often a subconscious pattern. We all have the need to be loved, and accepted, for play, for trust and connection. Some of these needs can only be met interpersonally, …
Core Childhood Needs
When attuned parents raise children, they develop a healthy attachment style of relating in intimate relationships. When a child’s needs are not met, the child will develop ‘early maladaptive schemas’ (EMS). This term is used in Schema Therapy, one of …
What is Self-Acceptance?
Self-acceptance is a deep awareness of your strengths and weaknesses and a feeling of satisfaction despite past behaviours, choices and areas where you feel you are lacking. It is about embracing ALL parts of self and accepting self unconditionally.When we …
Grieving Your Childhood
So many people have a childhood that needs to be grieved for. It is appropriate to grieve your childhood if: You were parentified You were bullied by a sibling There was a lot of violence There was a lot of …
Creativity and the Inner Child
This painting is Claude Monet’s ‘The Artist’s Garden at Vetheuil’. It happened to be hanging in a place we stayed in a few years ago, and I spent a good hour lying on the sofa, drinking chai tea and thinking …
Using the Inner Child to work with Emotions
I like to think of emotions as messengers. They are there to tell me that something is not right. There are LOTS of ways to work with emotions in psychotherapy. One way to do it is with the transactional analysis …
Validation
The inner child needs to be validated. They need to have THEIR version of reality validated by you. Suppose your inner child has been told for years that she is ‘too sensitive’ to all the fighting that went on in …
Getting to Know Your Inner Child
When I first met my inner child doing an inner child meditation similar to the one in the ‘Meet your Inner Child’ short course, she was about 16, sitting on a wall, wearing knee-length leather boots, smoking a cigarette with …
Things Our Inner Child Likes To Hear:
Part of the re-parenting process is the process of shifting our self-talk. I like to imagine that whenever I think something in my head, I am talking to myself and my inner child. I have a rule: If I wouldn’t …