Anxiety, panic attacks, OCD, depression and many other disorders have often been put down to experiences in early life. In last decade or so more and more psychological research has suggested that dealing with the past is unlikely to change the future or present situation in terms of anxiety levels or low self-esteem. The traditional psychoanalysis and regression based approaches have been replaced with faster and more topical CBT.
As was discussed in this blog some time ago though, CBT is only half the picture. It’s fine for relatively simple phobias but when a client has multiple phobias, low self esteem and depression it is often necessary to treat more than just the symptom (although CBT is likely to be of benefit here to).
Making a connection with the inner child and working with it, re-parenting it, is one technique that many have found useful (although I should point out that this based on anecdotal evidence, not peer-reviewed science). How does one start to contact the inner child and re-parent him? There are several approaches:
- Through art
- Through meditation
- Through writing
The artistic approach, at it’s most basic level, consists of drawing scenes of your youth, showing your emotions and what was going on. Then perhaps drawing pictures of you giving the inner child what it lacked. For more information on this approach refer to Recovery of Your Inner Child by Lucia Capacchione available from the book shop (Search for it!).
To use the meditation approach I recommend Homecoming by John Bradshaw. The word meditation often scares people as they think it will be too hard, but actually the process is very easy and Bradshaw sets everything out marvelously.
Both of these books deal with the writing method, as I am sure to many others that I haven’t read. Shortly I will have an area of Anxiety 2 Calm dedicated to Inner Child Healing where I will detail my own experiences.
