The Concept Of An Inner Child... Not Really Buying It

[therapybankrupt]

Nobody, and I mean nobody, should be trying to assist you in recovering any traumatic memories.

Thank you Anthony for your response. Isn't this what my EMDR is all about? We are exposing the trauma? In my case two forgotten additional trauma memories have been recovered. I relive the trauma memories like a story. Exposure. My inner children are the ones who show up when I process a forgotten or amnesia related trauma. It is as though they are showing me what has happened. I am really confused. I read the post traumatic memory wiki. I will be reading the additional information suggested. Thanks

tb

 

[anthony]

Memories don't just appear in therapy... and if your therapist is leading you towards answers, and even suggesting possible outcomes, then this is memory implantation. Memory recovery happens by itself, not before.

EMDR is not about recovering repressed memory, far from it. I would be asking the EMDR institute if I was, and see if your therapist is licensed through them. Memory recovery is not part of EMDR... memory processing is part of EMDR. IF, and a big IF, a memory appears that you had repressed, then that would typically come out after therapy, not during it.

EMDR is about piecing together what you have, not what isn't there, to fill in the blanks.

Exposure therapy does it a different way, but the principle is identical, being you write a memory down, read over it, add to it what has just jolted to your mind, read over it, add or subtract fact or fiction, read over it, and continue until all the pieces of the memory are complete. Exposure uses SUDS to monitor you... EMDR often uses body sensations and tapping to distract and focus you, whilst trying to calm you.

At no stage though, do you create memories in that process... you've already got the memory of the traumatic event, you're merely adding some minor missing pieces of the event by jolting your memory as to if anything else exists.

What you're talking about... amnesia memories... that cannot be fixed in therapy, and again, if your therapist is citing otherwise, I would be asking more questions from independent governing bodies. That is unethical, IF that is the case.

 

[Hashi]

I don't agree that the inner child concept is a general manipulation. If it's sometimes used in this way, and used in order to perpetuate therapy, then I imagine that's in the same way that an unethical therapist can misuse anything. There's always a risk of a therapist acting unethically, whether they're misusing inner child work, misdiagnosing a personality disorder or using any other method.

I'm personally much more wary of the risk of what I see as "therapy by numbers" techniques (therapy using the same set steps for everyone in the style of a sausage factory) than by something like this. Ultimately, I think we have to choose and vet a therapist as wisely as we can, be alert to any yellow or red flags, and beyond that we have to trust in the process and get on with it.

I don't see a risk of inner child work leading to dissociative identity disorder (DID), or to a mistaken idea that a client has DID. Reading this thread, there's an overwhelming sense that inner child work has helped people to feel more integrated and whole.

The more I read this thread, the more I think it's purely a concept, a model, rather than a phenomenon. It's only a way of looking at things. Other people may not agree, of course, but that's what I'm increasingly feeling.

Some models are useful for some people (therapists and clients), and not for others. It's like any model - you use it when it makes sense to. There are different models for physics, for example, which say different things but co-exist and are used as and when needed. If you're building a bridge, then Newtonian-based physics (gravity, shearing force, bending moment) is the best model to use. If you're building a space station then a relativity-based model is going to work better. You use what works in the situation.

I'm not sure it's a useful model for me, but I want to investigate why so many people find it helpful because they clearly do. There might be something I can take from that. I may well decide that inner child work isn't for me, but I'm getting a lot from this thread, and it's helping me understand things about how I do want to work with childhood history/issues.

 

[rainy_daze]

The more I read this thread, the more I think it's purely a concept, a model, rather than a phenomenon...

Some models are useful for some people (therapists and clients), and not for others. It's like any model - you use it when it makes sense to. There are different models for physics, for example, which say different things but co-exist and are used as and when needed.

That is the most important thing. It's like if someone swore by a certain shampoo and told you it makes your hair so shiny, and you use it but it leaves your hair dull - it works for some, but not for others. Once you've tried it nd don't like it, there is no need to keep using it, just because someone else told you how great it was.

Personally, I do like the inner child idea as a creative outlet or, as you mentioned Hashi, a metaphor. I think it can be a helpful concept in that way. I don't think my therapy is based on an inner child ideology (does anyone know which branch of Psychology this theory came from?), it is based on the thoughts and behaviours that stem from experiences... so far.

I'm not sure it's a useful model for me, but I want to investigate why so many people find it helpful because they clearly do. There might be something I can take from that. I may well decide that inner child work isn't for me, but I'm getting a lot from this thread, and it's helping me understand things about how I do want to work with childhood history/issues.

I don't know if you were given any literature as part of therapy on this topic hashi, but I found an interesting webite about "healing the inner child", that looks like something I imagine Ts would give their clients. I think a couple of the steps seem helpful, although I do find the idea that you learn to parent your inner child and have a relatiosnhip between your adult self and your inner child self is bordering on creating two identities - I prefer it as a concept, as opposed to the inner child actually exisiting inside me in the present day. The article may upset some, so you are going there with the full knowledge that I warned you, as the article is aimed at survivors of childhood abuse: Link Removed (Moderator: I hope it was ok to post a link to an outside website in this thread)

 

[Eleanor]

I agree with Anthony's cautions - and would say that I think inner child work is a good technique for doing exposure and reprocessing. I think it can also be helpful in, and I'm not sure this is the right way to say what I mean, restoring links that either got broken or never got made between our cognitive/autobiographical selves (the model of "Self" that is us as a character existing in time) and our more automatic or instinctive self (the pre or potentially conscious.) The specific reason the technique is helpful is that it helps us invoke the states that occurred in the past and are unresolved, and links them to a different outcome. The older parts of the brain (reptilian and mammalian) don't have the kind of consciousness of time that the "higher" or conscious or most human part does. Like our animal friends, for those parts of the brain it is always RIGHT NOW. So if we exercise in some very robust imagination, we can resolve or reprogram old traumatic patterns of response. We can "unstick" the cognitive/emotional loop.

This makes memory implantation or creation very very possible and a real danger. Anthony is correct - therapists should never offer or suggest anything that might have happened, or add or embellish or even ask leading questions. And patients should understand that memory is often partial and incomplete - and it doesn't matter. You'll get enough to heal with. As a "completeness" freak myself, I find this most frustrating. (WHY can't I see their faces? What happened next?) but... like rain and 107 degree days, it is just something one learns to live with.

I was hoping to say something kind of simple, but I'm afraid I only achieved Murk.

 

[therapybankrupt]

Ok I agree with you all! This is a personal selection for therapy surrounding the inner child.I am not trying to push my experience only share it. My therapist is highly qualified and works with a team. I checked her credentials out on line. Although it sounds crazy and for a second I questioned the legitimacy of me being hurt more by now having these fragmental children. No one has forced or lead me to the new or extended parts of old trauma memory. They just happen like a story. I may be going in to work on something totally unrelated and a piece of a vision appears. Say a belly button. Makes no sense at all and then it turns into an abuse I had forgotten or buried.

My therapist says" tell me what you have now." "Go back and start from here." "Pick up where you left off." She might even gasp. Or once she said "oh my god." "Do you want to leave the children here for the week?" "Thank your mind for the hard work it has done." When I thought about it in depth the therapist never once said leading things. She sees me being done with this in a year or so. I will be having a normal life one with controlled or no PSTD symptoms. I have trouble seeing that. I have to trust her. It gives me hope.

I actually visualize the children during EMDR and sleep and I identify with them occasionally in my every day life. They will draw me towards toy departments! Very frustrating at times. Think what you will. I am told this is excellent work. I also need to re-parent the children. Not let them be driving the bus so to speak. At the stores I can't buy everything they want and In some situations I find I am reacting like that hurt little child. Afterwards I realise it may have been an over reaction to what some of you identify as a trigger. I go back to a reaction of the child.

This is only a small piece of my therapy. To think I am constantly enthralled about the inner child would be crazy. Its something I have found helpful in healing my trauma. I would like to have this my last entry here and come back to it in a year to comment. I do not have an answer to how it will turn out at this point. My inner child is just something I found along the way to healing.

tb

 

[Pencil]

I'm not sure it's a useful model for me, but I want to investigate why so many people find it helpful because they clearly do. There might be something I can take from that.

it works for some, but not for others.

I think there is confusion here - some people experience 'inner children' as separate identities, and others don't. If you don't, drop it. If you had a separate identity, you would know it, like you would know whether you have a pet, or a car , or a grandmother. If in doubt, you don't.

 

[Hashi]

Pencil, are you talking about dissociative identity disorder (DID)?

I'm not sure I need to see a part of me as a separate identity in order to work with it. Archetypes for example, are not separate identities to me and nothing like having a pet or grandmother. They're identities of a kind, but I wouldn't say separate.

Very confused now.

 

[I Can Do This]

I agree with you Hashi - that is how I view it.

 

[Hashi]

OK, this is bothering me:

If you don't, drop it.

I need to ask you to clarify this too, because the only way I'm understanding it is that you're telling me to stop discussing something in a thread I started, because you don't see or don't agree with my point of view. Please tell me if you meant something else.

 

[therapybankrupt]

Very confused now.

Hi Hashi! No need to be confused. After reading Pencil's post I did not get anything about DID? She said separate entities. I know it as having inner child fragmentation and it is not the same as DID. I can see how you might get that impression from posts in this thread. There is a difference. My t assured me of this. Some on this thread do not get it. And thats totally ok. We all learn from and are open to different types of therapies. Until someone open's up to the inner child theory and experience it. It is hard to understand. I think its innovative and yet feared. What will others think or say? Are the children alters? Without a experienced and trusted therapist with the training in inner child work how do you know these answers?

I realize there is frustration on both sides of the inner child theory. I wasn't close to grasping this concept when my t first spoke of it. I thought she was nuts and I was afraid of it. Then I thought what do I have to lose. I have someone that has expertise in this and thinks it will help. So, I think Pencil was making a point. Iif you can't buy it with all the explanations in this thread and elsewhere then let it go. Its not for you at this time. Maybe never will be. Thats fine we all travel our own paths. We have our own different trauma or trauma's. Sometimes we have a set idea of what we can and can't do or accept. All with good reason. I hope this helps. I am wishing you healing in your personal journey!

tb

 

[therapybankrupt]

Oh my! I hope I am not in trouble. I did not see your last post Hashi. I was typing. I hope Pencil answers your question. I know I am not asking you to abandon your thread. It is very good. I am saying why beat your head against a wall trying to understand something that makes no sense to you at all. I am going to leave now. Sorry if anyone is offended it was not my intention.

tb