The Stages of Inner Child Healing
By: Dr. Denise Renye
Over the decades of working with people in a variety of capacities, I’ve noticed among clients, students, and patients there are stages of inner child healing. First, sometimes people are reluctant to even believe in the inner child. They may scoff and call it b.s. thinking it’s a made-up psychological concept. They try to distance themselves from the tender, vulnerable parts inside and proclaim, “I’m an adult. There’s no inner child or children here.” It’s even harder to believe there’s an inner infant that’s pre-verbal. This part cannot be reached with the intellect because words don’t make as much sense to this inner one. The inner infant is more somatic, more in the body, and the hurt this part may have experienced can be even more confusing to an adult to decipher.
Then what may happen is a situation or event occurs that puts the person in touch with that small one (or ones). Maybe they get fired, break up with someone, or move to a new city. All of a sudden, the person starts to feel vulnerable, uncomfortable, and realizes, “I don’t always feel like an adult. Sometimes I do feel an overwhelming or out of control sense of anger or fear within. Perhaps there is a scared/sad/angry child part of me. Maybe there’s something to this inner child thing after all.”
When a person comes to that place, they are ready to befriend the inner child and establish a relationship with the long-alienated parts of themselves that have been waiting to be seen and validated. One way to access the inner child is to simply draw, play, and otherwise engage in activities that give voice to their little ones. When a person is able to do that, oftentimes they may start to view their childhood differently and enter a new stage of inner child healing: blame.
Blaming parents and caregivers
When the inner children start talking, something happens wherein folx blame the parents or caregivers they grew up with. “I’m messed up/depressed/anxious because of my dysfunctional childhood.” Or “It’s all my parents’ fault I am the way I am.” The person is moving out of denial about what happened to them. They very clearly see the dysfunction or trauma they grew up with. It’s easy to get stuck here, to stay in this stage. Having a target for these messy feelings may feel good because it lets a person off the hook for their own healing. It may allow them to feel better about the state of their mental health or their lives because they aren’t to blame; their parents or caregivers are. They don’t have to look within. They can point the finger somewhere out there. And, they wouldn’t be wholly incorrect. There most likely were some inconsistencies, lack of reliabilities, and inability to depend upon the parental figures.
I understand the impulse to blame someone else, but if you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you’re an adult who has inner children, yes, but you’re not legally a child. As an adult, you play a role in your life and what happens to you. Your parents may have primed the pump, so to speak, but who is currently keeping the engine of your life running? When people make the realization that they can change the course of their lives, they enter a new stage of inner child healing: feeling.
Expressing the unexpressed
When people are ready to take responsibility for themselves and their lives, when they’re ready to stop blaming their parents and caregivers, then they may start feeling their feelings. They may start to express what they didn’t feel safe expressing before. That could be anything, including anger and grief.
It’s not uncommon for people to feel angry about what happened to them in their childhood as they start to heal. They (rightfully) express anger about crossed boundaries, abuse, and negligence. As a child, it isn’t safe to think there’s something wrong with the adults at home, or to feel the feelings that may stimulate, but as an adult, there’s enough space and safety to do so. At this point, clients and patients write angry letters they never send, punch pillows, and yell at empty chairs that represent the adults in their lives. They say all the things they couldn’t say before.
After the anger abets, a new emotion may show up: grief. The person is no longer angry about what happened to them and now they’re sad. They may cry about the relationship they had or (didn’t have) with their parents. They may let themselves feel all the disappointments they didn’t before. They may cry about the missed soccer games or lack of emotional attunement. They let themselves grieve over what happened and what didn’t happen. And when they’ve cried all their tears (and remember healing is not linear, so more tears may come again), the person may move to another stage: acceptance
Accepting the parents you have
When a person has felt their emotions around their rearing environment and not only befriended their inner children but started the process of reparenting themselves, or in other words being the parent they wish they had, they may start to accept the parents they do have because the person no longer asks their parents to fulfill the parent role. Instead, the person may release their parents from that responsibility because they recognize they can be their own inner loving parent. In that way, parents are accepted for the flawed people they are. Limitations are understood and accepted.
People who enter this stage may start to relate to their parents as peers or even friends. They may forgive past hurts and shortcomings because they understand their parents did the best they could, even if their best was terrible. The person is able to see their parents with more compassion and when compassion arises, so too does forgiveness. At that point, the person may surrender to the process of healing.
Dr. Harry Tiebout defines surrender in the therapeutic process and writes about it in relation to alcoholism. However, the quote applies to this process too:
“We can now be more precise in our definition of an act of surrender. It is to be viewed as a moment when the unconscious forces of defiance and grandiosity actually cease to function effectively. When that happens, the individual is wide open to reality; he or she can listen and learn without conflict and fighting back. He or she is receptive to life, not antagonistic. The person senses a feeling of relatedness and at-oneness that becomes the source of an inner peace and serenity, the possession of which frees the individual from the compulsion to drink. In other words, an act of surrender is an occasion wherein the individual no longer fights life, but accepts it.”
People in the process of healing their inner children may undergo this acceptance process as well. They may no longer fight life but accept it as it is. They may also start to trust the process and themselves, knowing it will lead to somewhere new, more integrated, and more whole.
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References
Tiebout, Harry. “The act of surrender in the therapeutic process, with special reference to alcoholism.” Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 1949;10:48-58. http://www.williamwhitepapers.com/pr/dlm_uploads/1949-Tiebout-Surrender-in-Alcoholism-Recovery.pdf