The Inner Child Healing Your Inner Child With Therapy

Each of us has an inner child living in our subconscious mind. That child is intelligent, playful, curious, spontaneous, and expressive. It is also emotionally sensitive, and very vulnerable in early life.

Positive messages of encouragement and praise nourish the inner child and help it form healthy self-esteem and a positive self-image. These messages are expressed in words, from parents and caretakers, family friends, teachers, coaches, etc. They also are conveyed in body language: smiles, hugs, and pats on the back, also contribute favourably.

In contrast, negative messages that harshly criticize and berate are wounding. The words used are often loud or even yelled. Sometimes the tone of voice is sarcastic or derisive.

Often, the child infers non-verbal negative messages from the absence or inadequacy of parental involvement and caretakers’ attention. When those others ignore the needs that the child can’t meet for him/herself, the inner child feels abandoned and neglected.

Impact of Negative Messages on the Inner Child

It is not surprising that negative experiences, especially those in early childhood when protective mechanisms only begin to take shape, affect the inner child adversely. The child who repeatedly suffers from any or all of the behaviours discussed typically develops fear and mistrust of others, as well as negative beliefs about and attitudes towards him/herself. From these come problems and disorders that include social anxiety, panic, stress, nervousness, low self-esteem, self-image, and self-sabotage.

Inner child hypnosis uses a variety of tools and techniques to access, communicate with, calm, and heal a client’s inner child. Hypnotherapy to heal the inner child can create positive changes in the adult who seeks greater self-worth and self-acceptance. It can help them to overcome self-sabotaging behaviour that their inner child learned to cope with dysfunctionality. But to achieve these goals requires the full cooperation of the client who must really want to heal and make the changes, must believe that they can heal and make positive changes, and must be open to using the tools and techniques provided.

Some of the therapeutic processes take place in conscious cognitive dialogue. I ask the client questions to gain a general understanding of their childhood and family of origin and to identify the specific childhood incidents that harmed them. I learn how they tried to cope and what self-sabotaging behaviour developed which impedes them as adults.

Because it is important to develop a positive and trusting relationship with the client before meeting their inner child, the first one or two hypnotic sessions are spent creating a peaceful, calm state in which the client learns how to let go of fear, anxiety, and worry.

I first induce the client to deep relaxation and inward focus. This calms their emotions and allows access to their subconscious mind. Then I present a variety of hypnotic suggestions, visualizations, and other techniques to replace negative emotions with positive feelings, attitudes, and beliefs.

Hypnotherapy: the fast track to communication with the inner child

Regression Hypnotherapy can be a very fast and effective way to identify the child parts that need reparenting. Further, it can be used to set up communication between the conscious adult self and those parts, so that reparenting can take place.