It may seem easier to use drugs as a substitute for change. Self-medication with alcohol or nicotine, or prescribed anti-depressants and stimulants, may seem easier than transforming emotions or changing relationships. Also, drugs are more profitable for health professionals.

Part 1: Coaching an Inner Child
Part 3: Types of Inner Children & Emotional First Aid

A healthy relationship with yourself is a foundation to sustainable living.

Around one in every four people will experience an emotional or relationship challenge this year, perhaps due to the economy, to work-related stress or to a partnership crisis. Many of these will involve adults who express age-regressed or childish emotions, illogical ideas and impulsive behavior. We help people resolve these and similar emotional and relationship problems.

Although friends or family may encourage you to find help, only you can decide to change. Then, you can seek someone who addresses your needs and goals, with a practical approach that you can enjoy rather than some philosophy that you have to believe.

Perhaps find someone who can support your values and your dreams, someone who's not just a person you talk at ... rather a person you can work with and learn from, to gain useful perspectives. Perhaps someone who can also help you build better relationships with your family and friends.

If you want to relax about confidentiality, a good choice might be someone outside your local area. Perhaps you prefer to change slowly and gently ... or perhaps you just want to finish the work and move on with your life. If price is an issue, consider what it will cost if you don't solve your problems.

What is an 'Inner Child'?

Inner Child is a term commonly used to describe age-regressed, childish motivations. Carl Jung talked about a 'Divine Child'. Emmet Fox referred to a 'Wonder Child'. Charles Whitfield described a 'Child Within'. Sigmund Freud called them 'complexes', in psychosynthesis they are called 'ego states' and some therapists call them 'true selves'. If the split-off parts are disliked or accompany unpleasant emotions, they may be called entities or even demons!

We find that these terms often describe parts of a person that were split-off during some crisis ... and that, without integration, they remain split-off for the rest of that person's life. These parts may be experienced as inappropriate emotions and motivations ... or as obsessions and compulsions.

Inner Child work was popularized by John Bradshaw in his book Homecoming (1990). He wrote that children of dysfunctional families lose their I AM-ness: their assurance that their parents or guardians are healthy, competent and loving caregivers. Bradshaw suggested that victims of this loss can reclaim an inner child by reliving their developmental stages and finishing unfinished business.

Our personalities appear to emerge as a combination of inherited characteristics and the environments in which we grew up. Many of our human issues seem to originate in childhood experiences. Are you a child at heart, searching for some childish meaning in life? Does some inner child run your life?

Adults who let children control their lives will likely live in chaos!

Inner Child ... and Inner Babysitter

Many adults feel and act like children in times of stress, age regressing to some childhood crisis. Abused, stressed or traumatized children may be unable to deal with their emotions, and disconnect from them. The result is a split-off inner child - a split-off part of self that feels stuck in the unpleasant emotions. Until this is resolved, a childhood crisis has not ended.

The relief of dissociating problematic emotions can feel wonderful, and is a basis for many short-term therapies. However, people seem to unconsciously compensate for this loss of personal identity with undesirable adult habits. (These adult habits will make sense in the context of the original stress).

Occasionally we find people with an inner child who seemed to be split-off before birth - an inner fetus! We assume that if a pregnant mother was in deep stress, neurotransmitters can transmit intense emotions to the fetus through the umbilical cord. Also, a fetus may be aware of the mothers heart rate, breathing and overall body tension. (See Vanishing Twin).

Many people may (unconsciously) try to grow up an inner child by attempting to give their own children whatever they felt was missing in their own childhood. However, if parents are immature, resourceful and skilled, they may neglect their parental responsibilities. Immature parents may react childishly to the challenges of raising children, repeating their own drama with their own children.

Inner children, like real children, need ...

1. Rest, exercise and play
2. Shelter - a safe place called home
3. Stimulation - fun, adventure and excitement
4. Love - attention and affection (many children spell LOVE as T.I.M.E)

The consequences of childhood trauma can include an inability to make decisions; shame, guilt, self-blame; and a sense of being different (feeling special or rejected). Ignoring these consequences of can lead to toxic bonds, learning disabilities, depression and bipolar disorder. We coach people to recover, nurture and integrate lost or childish parts.

Our inner child coaching can benefit people who suffered childhood trauma or abuse, and disassociated to cope with the experience. We coach people understand their emotions; this may reduce nightmares, diminish panic attacks and help control eating and learning problems.

Part 3: Common Types of Inner Children & Emotional First Aid