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Inner Child

The idea of the Inner Child has been around for a long time in western psychology, and serves a useful purpose in helping emotionally troubled adults resolve personal struggles. Working with the inner child is seen as a vital step by some professionals to aid psychological growth, and enhance the mental and spiritual health of adults.

Who is your Inner Child?

In popular psychology, the Inner Child concept – also called the Divine Child, Wonder Child, the True Self, or simply, the Child Within – refers to a part of the adult personality that houses child-like and adolescent behaviours, memories, emotions, habits, attitudes, and thought patterns. It’s generally seen as an autonomous sub-personality with its own needs, desires, issues and goals. In this sense, the inner child functions independently, and sometimes in opposition to, the more mature parts of the adult personality.

It would probably be more accurate to describe the inner child construct itself as being made up of various parts, so as not to give the impression that the term refers to a single entity. Thus, we can talk of the Abandoned child, as well as the Playful, Spoiled, Neglected, Discounted, Disconnected and Fearful parts of the child.

You might feel you have one or more of the following inner child characteristics:

• The Abandoned Child- feels very lonely, insecure and unwanted, and craves attention and safety; fears of abandonment accompany the adult person, even in marriage. Busy, divorced or separated parents are often the main reason for the child feeling unwanted and struggling with issues of abandonment.
• The Neglected Child – shows itself in depressed, lonesome and withdrawn adults. Not having experienced much love and nurturing during childhood, the person doesn’t know how to express it, and believes that they are unworthy of being loved.
• The Playful Child – an often forgotten, healthy part of the creative adult personality that knows how to have spontaneous fun, and is relatively free of guilt and anxiety.
• The Spoiled Child – shows up as impatient adults that tend to throw temper tantrums when immediate gratification of needs and wants isn’t readily forthcoming.
• The Fearful Child – needs to hear continuous affirmation and encouragement otherwise the adult is nearly always filled with anxiety and panic. As a child, the person received a lot of criticism from caregivers.
• The Disconnected Child – manifests in the adult that cannot trust easily, and stays isolated and uninvolved; intimacy is a fearful and foreign experience, because the developing child never had the opportunity to learn what it means to be close to someone.
• The Discounted Child –this child was treated as if they didn’t exist and was made to feel invisible and generally ignored; in adulthood, self-belief and positive valuation is virtually absent, and the adult needs consistent loving attention and support to feel validated.

When listening to your inner child, remember:

• Accept, validate and value all the difficult feelings that emerge.
• Trust yourself, and allow the adult to be guided by the inner child’s voice.
• Still the critical voice within, and say or do whatever is important to the relationship (if prompted to hum a lullaby, then do so).
• Continue to engage the inner child daily or regularly, as it might take a while for her to trust you completely.

Fonte:http://healthpsychologyconsultancy.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/who-is-your-inner-child/