Posted by Tabitha on October 5, 2011, at 4:18:40
In reply to Inner child work, posted by yellowbird01 on September 27, 2011, at 15:37:01
I tried and never got the hang of it. We did dialogues, visualizations, protocols. She'd drag me through these things in session. I was generally skeptical and reluctant. I kind of enjoyed the ones where we included visualizing my mom (who's deceased) since I miss her.
Overall, lots of time and money spent on it. Sometimes it felt like "something" was happening, sometimes it just felt like nothing. I never really took to it enough to do it on my own outside the sessions. I think I tried many times, and for something to do when I was really distressed, it was a bit helpful. I also tried it for procrastination, with no luck. In fact with that one, I was miffed to discover the anti-coddling approach worked for me (i.e. just forcing myself to do the tasks, and intentionally paying little or no attention to my emotions. All this time I'd been trying to adjust my emotions!)
So to me it was a dead end. It felt freeing when I decided that connecting with my inner child (whatever that means) is not something I have to keep trying to do.
In short, didn't seem effective and I didn't find the exploration itself meaningful or enjoyable. I regret that I let my therapist's faith in it (and assessment of my results) keep me trying something that didn't really click with me at all.
poster:Tabitha
thread:998057
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20110823/msgs/998788.html