What is “Inner Child” work, actually?
As I write this, I’m sitting at my desk, facing an open window, and a broad, lush, lawn beyond. A breeze brings the second day of rain-cooled air to my face, and I can see parent robins flying in and out of a nest barely 10 feet away. The little nestlings are finally big enough to pop their heads out of the nest to receive breakfast, lunch, dinner, and copious snacks throughout the day. As I pause periodically to take in their happenings, I think about the inherent trust these babies clearly feel. They get hungry, chirp faintly, open their mouths widely, and within minutes, are fed juicy morsels plucked from just beneath the surface of the saturated ground. This call and response is instinctive to the flock; each feathered friend knows what to do, what role to play. It’s rarely, if ever, that straight forward in human relationships. Let’s get into it!
The phrase “Inner Child” can be polarizing, either receiving emphatic nods beneath flower-crowned conversations or eye-rolls from those who scoff at such scenes. Sound familiar? Today, we’re going to explore the origins of “Inner Child” work, how to view it from a new perspective, and some ways to begin addressing needs that may have surfaced during earlier phases of life.
“Inner Child” work pulls from some of the heaviest mental health hitters of the 19th and 20th centuries, bridging concepts and modalities from Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Jeffery Young, and Karen Horney. Beginning with the psychoanalytic school of thought, Freud posited that childhood experiences can impact behaviors later in life. Progressively, Carl Jung took and shape-shifted the baton radically as the father of analytic psychology. Among many paradigm-defining concepts that Jung contributed to the world, “Archetypes,” including the core four child archetypes - “The Divine Child,” “The Abandoned Child,” “The Invincible Child,” and “The Child Hero,” - were chief ideas he brought to the mental health landscape. In this realm of work, Jung supported clients in examining how childhood experiences informed portions of their identities that lasted into adulthood. Jung noted that like dominos, personas developed and masks worn in childhood, had the potential to inform decisions, behaviors, strengths, and deficiencies folks experienced and participated in later in life. Further, Jung championed the concept of individuation in which people participate vigorously in their work towards self-actualization which is a result of self-understanding and the cultivation of psychological balance. Rounding out the psychological backbone of the “Inner Child” skeleton, and the true seed from which modern day “Inner Child” work has sprung, is Jeffery Young and his modality of “Schema Work,” which deposited the the highly controversial technique of “Limited Reparenting,” into the therapeutic setting. In his work, Young braided together elements of cognitive behavioral practice, attachment theory, and emotionally focused therapy. With the aim of addressing and treating psychological suffering, Young’s approach doggedly surfaced core unmet childhood needs.
When you boil it down, the throughline of this therapeutic lineage is that childhood experiences - glimmering, harrowing, and spanning the gamut in-between - pave the way for conscious or unconscious functioning down the road. Humans are resourceful and will find myriad ways to survive their circumstances. Enter the concept of “with,” “toward,” and “away” behaviors, memorialized by Karen Horney’s psychoanalytic interpersonal theory, which she detailed in her seminal work, Our Inner Conflicts: A Constructive Theory of Neurosis. Here, Horney offers that people adapt to move with, toward, or away from behaviors or environments as a means of tending to fundamental needs. In many instances, these adaptations can go into overdrive when we experience significant lack in certain arenas of life. If left undealt with beyond the point of their necessity, those behaviors can take over and derail entire relationships in the gardens of our lives. While we develop behaviors that might serve a purpose at one point, once we evolve and engage in more constructive relationships or are immersed in more fruitfully-aligned environments, the adaptations are no longer necessary and can ultimately tank or cause harm to ourselves or others in the present-day. On the flip side of the coin, we can be magnetized to people and behaviors that play out past relational patterns, in the hopes of mending or rectifying historic harms. Neither are optimal ways of operating and this is where “Inner Child” work comes in. It’s here that we address the times in life when there was a need to lean toward, join with, or run from others or environments as a means of survival; then challenge ourselves to look at what no longer serves us; which endows us with nuanced perspectives on more collaborative or self-championing ways of operating.
How brilliant is the human drive to survive?! And further, how incredible is it to notice that what once met an irrefutable purpose no longer does? Finally, the grit and determination required to forge new neural pathways as we engage in behavior-change is nothing if not admirable. Miraculous and courageous are two words I often use to describe the process of diving into meaningful “Inner Child” work.
How we apply it now
By navigating what’s happened in the past, we can acknowledge the needs our childhood selves had; explore how we tended to those needs through “with,” “toward,” and “away” behaviors; connect the dots to present-day comportment; and make intentional strides forward through altered actions.
As you begin contemplating your inner child, give yourself some time with the following questions or consider bringing them into your next therapy session:
Are there people, places, and things you used to feel motivated to move closer towards, align with, or bend away from?
Dig deeper and consider if these motivations came from a desire to have a particular need met
Do you know what that need was?
Are any emotions tied to these ingrained relationally-driven decisions?
How does it feel in your body to revisit these memories?
Are these memories tied to any particular places or environments? Who else is there? Who isn’t there?
What did ‘little you’ accomplish by behaving in these ways?
Next, we explore how our conditioned behaviors might be playing out in real time. Here, we ask:
“What are the outcomes I am seeking now through use of these behaviors? What’re the end goals that my behaviors are chasing or provoking?
“Are there behaviors that I am engaging in now that ultimately end with an unsatisfying outcome?”
“How am I behaving currently that’s not warranted by the present situation?”
“In an optimal world, how would I like to operate and how can I make behavioral adjustments to align my actual self with my idealized self?”
“Are there things that I needed before that I no longer do?”
Again, let’s be clear, we’re not on a mission to criticize our behaviors or tear ourselves down! We’re here to understand how our behaviors came to exist; acknowledge what worked, how, with whom, where, and why; sturdy ourselves with fortitude to address what’s no longer working; envision a different quality of life for ourselves; and proactively engage in new actions and thoughts moving forward!
To learn more about my work and offerings, you can always email me at arielle@ariellefriedmanlcsw.com to set up a consultation, or check out my IG: @ariellefriedmanlcsw.
Resources
