The mention of Inner Child healing
work is enough to make grown men…and women, cry. Literally.
What is it about this subject
matter that produces an instant dread in people and keeps a major segment of
adults from investigating what’s in their past that might be affecting their
future?
In popular and analytical
psychology, the “inner child “is our childlike aspect that includes all that we
learned and experienced before puberty. John Bradshaw, a U.S. educator,
psychologist and self-help movement leader famously used “inner child” to point
to unresolved childhood experiences and the lingering effects of this
dysfunction. In this way, “inner child”
refers to the sum of mental-emotional memories stored in the sub-conscious from
conception through pre-puberty.
The Twelve-Step recovery program
considers healing the inner child to be one of the essential stages in recovery
from addiction, abuse, trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder.
Carl Jung is often referenced as
the originator of the concept in his Divine Child archetype and has led to the
characterization of it being a sub-personality that lives within each psyche.
There are three ways that
therapists can understand and define the inner child:
1) The
Magical Child: Playful, fun, spontaneous, full or wonder and magic. This is the
part of the child who has never been wounded or damaged.
2) The
Adapted Child: In order to survive, a child trying to be a grown-up. Adaptive
behaviors, sub personalities, are aspects. “Good Girl” and “Bad Girl” may both
be adapted children. It’s the way we learned to survive and receive approval as
children.
3) The
Wounded Child: A metaphor for the wounded parts of our childhood which have not
completed the developmental tasks of that period. The memories of a particular
time of childhood may be suppressed due to emotional pain, but that “child”
lives on within the subconscious, waiting to be cared for and nurtured, waiting
to get its needs met. But not every child archetype is that of the Wounded
Child, you may have aspects of the Adapted Child and hopefully some of the
Magical Child.
David Quigley, creator of Alchemical
Hypnotherapy described this modality as follows: The metaphor of the Inner Child is a tool
through which we can identify and heal those wounded places within ourselves
where early needs have been unmet and feelings denied. It provides us with the
opportunity to re-live our childhoods in a new way that meets these needs of
those repressed parts of ourselves and restore us to wholeness.
It is in the Wounded Child syndrome
that the pieces that are waiting to be cared for and nurtured often show up in
our adult lives. Look at a typical day at the office and you’ll see many “children”
running around trying to be seen, heard and praised, sometimes rather loudly.
Going back and rescuing the child is a wonderful, healing experience and can
make a dramatic difference in your life. Through the use of Alchemical
Hypnosis, it is possible to revisit the childhood events, clear the trauma,
change the events and rescue the child, facilitating integration to take place.
If you are having issues , most likely they are linked to a
childhood dysfunction. Contact me for a session in Alchemical Hypnotherapy and
begin the clearing process. People who have been my clients claim more work is
done in a 2-3 hour session than they have accomplished through years of
therapy. After experiencing multiple inner child healing modalities, this is
the most expedient and successful one I have found. The process works, don’t
put it off any longer!!
Join in this upcoming workshop
to learn excellent tools for finding and nurturing your child.
Care and Feeding of Your Inner
Child
Saturday September 21st 10:00-12:00
Cost $20
Phoenix and Dragon Bookstore 404-255-5207 to secure your spot
We all have issues from the past
that still seem to plague us in the present. Often these date back to something
that occurred in our childhood. The mere act of growing up was enough for many
of us to deny the joy of our Inner Child. Most of us don’t know where to begin
to look for answers or to recapture that feeling of wonderment. For many this
can take a life-time of therapy, but Spiritual Counselor, Hypnotherapist and
Channel Becky Arrington has developed innovative techniques to help the healing
begin in an experiential workshop.
·
Understand patterns of behavior you have created
over and over since childhood.
·
Communicate with your Inner Child through
exercises that allow you to access your Subconscious and Higher Self
·
Travel back in time to find and integrate your
Child through a guided meditation that will begin the healing process.
·
Ideas of how to nurture your child in the
future…have fun!!
This workshop is highly
interactive, fun and nurturing, giving you concrete tools to continue the
healing process once you return home. Exploring the past does not have to be an
emotional roller coaster, especially when using these tools that help you get
above pain of the past. So leave the tissues behind, but don’t forget your
teddy bear!
Suggested materials: Journaling
supplies, stuffed animal
