Stop There, Therapist!! Are you taking good care of yourself?

By Aiala

When speaking about giving to others for countless of hours, sometimes even prioritizing their needs before mine, I can say I used to be a winner. Sounds familiar? I didn't realize how bad this was, until one day I started feeling resented towards my closest friends. Deep inside I felt that I couldn't deny any favor, or even say that this wasn't the right time to talk. I would push tons of my personal needs just to attend everyone else’s, including my family's. 

And when I became a therapist, this issue obviously burst into my clinic. Patients would come late, or wanted to stay longer; or didn't want to leave at all! They would call at any time or asked me for personal favors; the case is that I found myself struggling for the sake of therapeutic boundaries and keeping a setting. The issue kept popping up, and took tons of my energy and concentration that should be focused on the patients and their therapies. This, plus my self-criticizing habit was an exiting receipt for self-discouragement (thoughts of: this is not for me, I’m a terrible professional, I’ll never succeed before going mad etc.) and obviously working tons of extra hours just to put everything together. I felt exhausted; physically and emotionally.

Then, one amazing day, a Jewish statement got into my life and definitely changed it for good:

"He [Hillel] used to say, if I am not for me who is for me, if I am not for myself what am I, and if not now, when." (Ethics of the Fathers, 1:14).

Well, as a person that believes in Divine Providence, I thought that this might have something to do with my issue and hoped that one day I would have the time to investigate about the topic. But in the meantime, while I was still so busy, I would just leave it in my “yet to do box” at the basement of my unconscious mind.

After some time, I happened to mention the statement above en passant in a supervision session, and we started to talk about how overwhelmed I was feeling. I even started to resent some of my patients, and this was obviously affecting the quality of my job. I thought the conversation was going to turn over to the “counter-transference” style and meeting the shadow story, when out of the blues my supervisor asked me: are you taking good care of yourself?

Excuse me? – I asked. (I thought I didn’t understand the question). She repeated it, stared at me and then repeated the question one more time, adding some “you know…taking care of yourself. Exercising, therapy, having fun sometimes…” well, I obviously wasn’t. And then it all sunk in: if I am not there for me who is? Meaning, that I can give to others, real giving, only after my own vessel is full.  

Reading different articles on the subject, I came to realize that many therapists find themselves in the same boat, ending up totally burned out specially the fresh ones.

Click here to read more about the hazards of the profession to the therapist (including emotional depletion, depression and helplessness), and here to read about the hazards to the therapist’s family (including emotional drain, jealous and treating family as patients). You will realize that YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!

Below are some things I have tried and found helpful to improve my self-care as a therapist and as a human being. Hope they are of some help to you too.

Praying

I pray or practice a short meditation before starting my day, and when I get to the clinic. It helps me feeling reassured, guided and secure.

Exercising

I have found exercising an amazing source of renewal and re-energizing! Whatever works for you is good. I walk (it helps me clear my mind) and dance zumba! Its tons of fun J

 Therapy and Supervision

I believe both are a must. About therapy, there might be times you are in need of a rest and I believe that’s ok too. Still, it’s something that should be around. About supervision, I believe that for the first five years it’s mandatory and responsible to get it. After that, you will become a supervisor yourself J

Keeping a Journal

I love keeping a journal made of white, plain papers where I can write and draw, all at the same time if necessary. I take it with me mostly everywhere; so whenever I feel overwhelmed or just like expressing or ventilating, I can do it! Lucia Cappachione talks a lot about it (see video below).

 Join a group of colleagues and/or forums on psychotherapy

Researchers [i] have found that most feelings of incompetence, stress, depression and drop – out of the therapy career in novice therapists emerge from their lack of “community” support, over - exigency and unrealistic expectations about their selves and their work. Joining a group has helped me to feel supported and confident about my work, while sharing my doubts and distress with colleagues that also share similar experiences and distresses and are willing to talk about it in a non-judgmental environment.

Hope these helped a bit. If you have your own trade-mark tips, please share them with us! We’ll all gain tons of it!

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[i] Feelings of Incompetence in Novice Therapists: Consequences, Coping and Correctives.

Anne Therialult, Nicole Gazzola and Brian Richardson (University of Ottawa).

Canadian Journal of Counseling, 2009.

What is Counter-Transference in Psychotherapy?

Countertransference refers to the range of reactions and responses that the counselor has toward clients (including the clients' transference reactions) based on the counselor's own background and personal issues. Although countertransference occurs in all therapy and can be a useful tool, an unhealthy countertransference occurs when the counselor projects onto clients her own unresolved feelings or issues that may be stirred up in the course of working with the client. If the counselor's own boundaries are not firm, she is more likely to have difficulty remaining objective and may respond to a client's transference reaction with countertransference. This is not the same thing as the counselor's subjective feelings toward the client, which may be positive (if the client is a friendly and attractive person) or negative (if the client has an unpleasant appearance and temperament). For example, if clients act seductively, the counselor may feel uncomfortable or threatened. Counselors must pay close attention to their own feelings to protect their clients and to learn more about them. At the same time, the counselor should keep in mind that the feelings clients evoke in a counselor are likely to be feelings that clients are evoking in their daily interactions with others.

Countertransference occurs when the counselor loses her objectivity and becomes overwhelmed, angry, or bereft when hearing a client's story. In such a situation, the counselor may push a client to deal with childhood abuse or neglect issues before the client is ready--out of the counselor's own emotional needs. For the same reason, a counselor might discourage the client from talking about abuse issues, saying it is not the right time. However, it is very important to let the client determine when and at what pace to work on the issues, especially when dealing with child abuse and neglect. Effective treatment will be severely diminished if the counselor is unaware of her countertransference feelings toward a client. In these cases, the counselor should be closely supervised, or the client may need to be referred to another counselor.

Counselors must also be cautious not to see signs of childhood abuse in every symptom. Because of the high incidence of childhood abuse and neglect among clients in substance abuse treatment and many counselors' earnest desire to help, there is a danger of overinterpreting nonspecific sequelae. Not everyone in treatment has been abused, and counselors should be aware of the possibility of clients recovering nonexistent repressed memories, especially from clients who are eager to please their counselor. (See also the section below, "Avoiding the 'Rescuer' Role.")

It is important for counselors to have a general awareness of these transference and countertransference issues and to be as knowledgeable as possible about their own areas of emotional vulnerability and unresolved emotional issues. This is especially important for counselors who are themselves survivors of childhood abuse or neglect.

Reference:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK64902/

What is Transference in Psychotherapy?

Transference generally refers to feelings and issues from the past that clients transfer or project onto the counselor in the current relationship. When clients interact with other persons, they are likely to respond in ways that repeat old patterns from their past. Clients bring the everyday responses and distortions of life into the relationship with the counselor, who, as a professional, can recognize these problems that are interfering with clients' daily functioning (Kahn, 1991). These transference reactions have specific implications for survivors of childhood abuse, who may perceive the counselor as threatening or abandoning in the same way as the perpetrator of the abuse. Conversely, clients may idealize the counselor, seeing him as the warm and loving parent they always wanted.

Examples of Transference

In an attempt to demystify transference, here are some very simple examples:

• You meet someone at a party who reminds you of a favorite aunt and you find yourself feeling warmly towards this new acquaintance.
• A client who has difficulty depending on others may find themselves feeling resentful, jealous, or angry towards their therapist without realizing there is a connection between these feelings and the therapist's upcoming vacation.
• A client who fears disapproval and rejection notices that they suddenly find themselves worried about judgment or criticism from their therapist when they start to talk about a certain topic or feel a particular feeling.
• A perpetually single client prone to distrusting people may begin to view the therapist with suspicion as their relationship deepens.
• A client who struggles with anger and hostility may find themselves similarly struggling with anger and hostility toward the therapist.

References:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK64902/

http://cbtvspsychodynamic.com/transferenceexamples.html

On Burnout

Burnout is a result of job stress stemming from the numerous hazards of the profession described in the preceding sections. At different periods of their careers, it affects all psychotherapists to some degree. Unlike the commonly held belief that burnout is experienced primarily by seasoned therapists, research has shown its frequent occurrence with neophyte therapists as well. Maslach, who wrote the important book Burnout - The Cost of Caring, states "It is a response to the chronic emotional strain of dealing extensively with other human beings, particularly when they are troubled or having problems."

Burnout manifests primarily as the therapists' emotional exhaustion and depersonalization of both their patients and themselves. It has also been called "emotional fatigue" or "emotional overload," when the therapist feels drained, depleted, all used up, with nothing else to give out. The depersonalization aspect of burnout manifests through general dislike of, and a detached and callous even dehumanized attitude towards the people served. The burned-out therapist experiences low energy, reduced interest and satisfaction, and often dreads work. Burnout in beginning therapists is linked closely to emotional overload and a sense of inefficacy.

Burnout is the leading cause of psychotherapists' high rate of depression, drug and alcohol abuse, and suicide. Due to the myth of care-giver invulnerability, psychotherapists are susceptible to burnout. Research has shown that psychotherapists are more prone to becoming depressed, substance abusing, or suicidal than any other comparable profession, such as physicians, attorneys, accountants, and dentists. 

Reference: http://www.zurinstitute.com/burnout.html

HAZARDS TO THE THERAPIST'S FAMILY

1. Emotional Drain: Listening all day to people in pain depletes the therapist. At the end of the day

the skillful listener may be exhausted. Home problems seem minor, dull, and insignificant compared to the horrendous stories patients have shared. Many therapists prefer to be left alone at home, while others see homecoming as their first opportunity of the day to unburden themselves and stop the flow of other people's complaints.

2. Interpretation: The psychotherapist's most pervasive intrusion on the psychic lives of their family members is interpretation. Interpretation of dreams, slips of the tongue, or unconscious behavior, whether correct or incorrect, is harmful. Interpretations foster distrust, foment a sense of exposure, and may create excessive self-consciousness in those being interpreted.

3. Questioning and Inquiry: Psychotherapists are trained to ask questions or to reflect back in a way that facilitates better understanding. Many children and spouses respond poorly to continuing questioning, such as "Why do you feel that?" or "Did you consider the consequences?" Lengthy interrogations (which may last 50 minutes and during which the therapist-parent is totally rational and composed) confuse kids, who appropriately expect their parents to sometimes lose their professional composure, become more engaged, and display a normal range of human behavior rather than use the interpretive "Freudian whip."

4. Distancing and Use of Jargon: Another common complaint among the psychotherapist's family members is their parent's or spouse's ability to distance themselves from the emotional realities of the domestic scene. This dispassionate aura, while an important therapeutic mode for some clinicians, is also characteristic of many therapists' intimate interactions. The use of jargon as a means of distancing is usually used as a counter attack when the therapist feels defensive or uninvolved. Often the therapist lashes out with, "you are projecting," meaning, "your anger has nothing to do with me."

5. Total and Uncritical Understanding: Children of psychotherapists often say that whatever they did, their parents always accepted and understood it. In the psychotherapist's words, they were "just going through a phase." Different versions of this theme are expressed in statements like "Oh, he's such a pre-teen," or "How typically adolescent," or "It is just your middle age crisis." These demeaning and discounting comments hurt loved ones even if accurate. The "total understanding" syndrome often manifests to the extent that therapists will excuse all behavior. In their mind the bully is insecure, the wimp has abusive parents, and the thief comes from a poor family. It may be difficult for children to share their frustrations and anger in the light of their therapist-parent's infinite ability to "understand."

6. Labeling and Diagnosing: These therapeutic techniques pose similar problems to those of interpretation and total understanding. Children and partners of therapists are labeled narcissistic, passive-aggressive, borderline, and many other DSM III-R diagnostic categories by their therapist-parents or spouses. Labeling is extremely injurious. Calling children "hyperactive" or "accident prone" is likely to encourage hyperactivity and accidents. Children learn who they are largely from their parents. If they are called offensive names, too often they will internalize and incorporate these labels as part of their identity.

7. Anonymity and Confidentiality in Family Life: The commitment to keep patients' identities anonymous prevents many therapists from sharing their professional lives with the rest of the family. This results in a wide gap between therapists and their families, as the rest of the family is neither aware of nor included in the therapists' professional struggles, pains, wonders, and joys.

8. The Public and Personal Split: The need of many therapists to keep their personal lives completely concealed from their patients often places psychotherapists and their families in difficult, stressful, and awkward situations. Many therapists avoid going to certain parties or joining health clubs, determined not be seen by their patients out of the office. This rigid split isolates and alienates not only the therapists, but their families as well.

9. Jealousy: Family members also may experience jealousy of the psychotherapist's patients. Clients who are anonymous and mysterious to the family have uninterrupted weekly time with the parent/spouse, share their most intimate secrets, and call the therapist at all hours of the day or night. Regardless of how demanding or disturbed they are, these clients are fully accepted by the therapist-parents. Many therapists' children and spouses feel neglected and deprived. Some therapists' children report that they want to grow up to be patients.

10. Responding only to Crisis: One of the most successful means of getting a psychotherapist's attention is to create a crisis situation. Psychotherapists are usually at their best in an emergency in which people are clearly in need of support. This skill is easily transferable from the therapy room to the home. After hours of listening to bizarre and dramatic stories, many psychotherapists are not eager to be ardent listeners to complaints about homework assignments or the car's funny noise. Physical illness, accidents, and other crises often provide, albeit dangerously, the attention that children or spouses of psychotherapists are missing.

11. The Home Office: Working out of the home office adds another dimension to the psychotherapist's already complex family dynamics. The home office can offer advantageous possibilities for therapists and patients. However, it becomes a liability if therapists enforce a rigid separation between patients and family members, and especially if this restricts children's freedom and spontaneity. Children whose parents work out of a home office seem to be much more resentful of their parents' profession due to the added limitations on space, time, noise levels, and general playfulness imposed by the home-office arrangement.

12. Resistance in Therapy: When the family dynamic has deteriorated to the point where outside help is sought, the therapist-spouse/parent may further complicate matters by creating obstacles to the healing process. Resistance to family therapy or marriage counseling is often an attempt to avoid negative exposure. It manifests through initial denial of the problem. Once in therapy there is reluctance to cooperate with the hired therapist. Competition, shame, or becoming a co-therapist are common ways to interfere with therapy. Many patient-therapists use sophisticated jargon during family therapy sessions, clearly an attempt to ally with the hired therapist. These un-constructive gestures support the original mistrust the therapist has evoked in the other family members.

13. Demeaning Tales: Sharing stories and tales about patients at the dinner table is a common activity in psychotherapists' homes. When the stories are not respectful of the patients or when ridicule is prevalent the potential of adverse effects on other family members, especially children, is great. Demeaning stories are not only a reflection of a failed alliance between therapist and patient, but also an alarming warning to the children about their parents' ability to demean others-including their own children.

14. Treating Family Members as Patients: The line between being an involved and loving spouse or parent and a therapist is often very thin. It should be walked very carefully. The danger of treating family members as patients is an over-arching concern and often the context for the many hazards mentioned above. If the therapist-parent takes on the role of therapist in the home, the spouse or child will most likely assume the role of patient and lean towards self-defeating and self-destructive behavior and attitudes. 

Reference: http://www.zurinstitute.com/burnout.html

HAZARDS OF THE PROFESSION TO THE THERAPIST

1. Emotional Depletion: The psychotherapy profession consists mainly of working long hours in isolation. Therapists deal primarily with people in crisis and pain. They are supposed to offer these people support, empathy, interpretation, explanation, direction, or advice. They are expected to give endlessly while expecting nothing in return, except the fee. Not surprisingly, this results in practitioners' emotional depletion, in the therapists' sense that there is nothing more they can give to themselves or to anyone else.

2. Isolation: Not only do therapists work mostly in private settings, but also a growing number of laws, codes, and regulations concerning confidentiality and anonymity exacerbate the therapists' sense of loneliness and isolation. In addition therapists work when most people are off work. Their free time frequently arises during mornings and afternoons when friends or spouses are often busy.

3. Helplessness and Sense of Inefficiency: Unlike carpenters, gardeners, or surgeons, psychotherapists rarely see immediate, profound, or tangible results from their efforts. The work is often slow, and with difficult or charactologically impaired people, they may never see improvement. Even when therapy is effective in relieving painful symptoms and termination is successful, patients leave. With them goes the knowledge of the long-term effect the work has had on their lives. In addition, the lack of easily available scientific and measurable ways to evaluate the outcome of therapy, leaves therapists wondering whether or not they are being truly effective and helpful. They may question their entire involvement with what Freud called "the impossible profession."

4. Grandiosity and Omnipotence: Patients often put therapists on pedestals. They may idealize the therapists, ascribing to them super-human abilities to see, understand, and heal. In the private setting of psychotherapy, these projections may repeat themselves every fifty minutes. Combined with a lack of critical feedback from objective sources, this may encourage in clinicians the development of what Ernest Jones labeled "the God Syndrome."

5. Depression, Sadness and Vicarious Traumatization:Working constantly with people in pain, who feel suicidal, or are grieving over the loss of loved ones, or those severely traumatized, often takes a heavy toll on practitioners. The psychotherapist can be infected with a patient's sadness; a condition Jung called "psychic poisoning." The term "vicarious traumatization" has been introduced in recent years and has become even more popular after the events of September 11, 2001. Vicarious traumatization refers to the cumulative effect upon the trauma therapist of working with survivors of traumatic life events. It is a process in which the therapist's experience is negatively affected through empathic engagement with clients' trauma material.

6. Confusion: While some patients idealize therapists, others put them down. The healer may be set on a pedestal only to be knocked off of it soon thereafter. In fact, the higher the therapist is elevated, the longer the fall and the bigger the crash. Without objective feedback therapists often end up confused and in doubt regarding their own qualities, qualifications, and even their sense of worth or self identity.

7. Constant Worry: Psychotherapists often leave their offices worrying about whether a patient is going to follow up on a suicide or homicide threat. Whether or not they report such intentions or make a suicide contract with the patient, sleepless nights and constant worry are significant hazards of the profession.

8. Grief Cycle: The endless cycle of introductions to new patients, conducting psychotherapy, and finally terminating the relationship takes an additional toll on practitioners. Therapists need to connect and disconnect on a regular basis. In many cases they never hear from their patients after termination. When patients terminate abruptly, therapists are left to grieve without sufficient closure.

9. One-way Intimacy and Voyeuristic Attitudes:While many patients disclose the most intimate aspects of their lives to their therapists, the therapist must share only what is appropriate and beneficial to the patients. Experiencing many such relationships can lead the practitioner to acquire extreme voyeuristic tendencies. It may also lead therapists to transfer the mode of one-way intimacy to friends and lovers outside of the therapy office.

10. Distraction: Focusing on other people's problems, which may be more severe than their own, often leads therapists to lose track of their own situation. The sense of power and invulnerability that often characterizes care-givers may also contribute to practitioners' lack of attention to their own problems.

11. Inability to Shut off the Therapeutic Stance:After being an expert and helper for many hours, some therapists find it hard to leave the therapeutic or analytic stance behind. Interaction with friends, family members, and lovers in a mutual way without jargon or a feeling of expertise and where power is equally shared, can be beyond the scope of the therapist.

12. Events that Affect Effectiveness: Therapists, like most people, go through life events, such as death of a parent, severe illness in the family, divorce, mid-life crisis, and accidents. Because the most important tool therapists bring to their offices is themselves, events that happen in the course of their lives affect not only them, but also their ability to be effective and productive with their patients.

13. Conflicting Clinical, Ethical, and Legal Considerations: The rapidly growing number of state laws, combined with the continual updating of ethical guidelines, leave clinicians in a quandary. The question of how to act when conflicting mandates are present (for example whether to act in the best interest of the patient, to follow the ethical guidelines, or obey the laws) may be difficult to decide. Regardless of the final decision, therapists are bound to feel stressed, compromised, and frustrated.

14. The Threat of Lawsuits: Living in a highly litigious society and working with disturbed people in the unwitnessed privacy of our offices leave therapists extremely vulnerable to lawsuits. As most situations boil down to a patient's word against a therapist's, the only proof of what therapists did (or did not do) is their notes. The only shield against litigation is clinical competency, a shield that can be easily shattered by shrewd attorneys and "hired guns," as there is very little scientific data to qualify any specific intervention as standard and effective conduct.

15. Split Personality-Public vs. Private:Traditional therapy emphasizes a rigid separation of the therapist's professional and personal life. With some types of people this differentiation is crucial for therapeutic and safety reasons. However, the preoccupation with such separation has led therapists to live isolated and limited lives and to exclude a sizable part of their community and their public lives from their experience.

For more reading about the therapist's healthcare and tips to improve it, click here.

Reference: http://www.zurinstitute.com/burnout.html

Oh, my Child! Where have you gone? Part II

By Aiala

The process of healing through Art Therapy

In each of us, there is a young, suffering child. We have all had times of difficulty as children and many of us have experienced trauma. To protect and defend ourselves against future suffering, we often try to forget those painful times. Every time we’re in touch with the experience of suffering, we believe we can’t bear it, and we stuff our feelings and memories deep down in our unconscious mind. It may be that we haven’t dared to face this child for many decades[i].

According to Louis Hay, as children, when something went wrong, we tended to believe that there was something wrong with us. Children develop the idea that if they could only do it right, then parents and caregivers would love them, and they wouldn't punish them. In time, the child believes that there is something wrong with him. That he is not good enough. As we grow older, we carry these false beliefs with us. We learn to reject ourselves.

Recent findings on art and the brain increasingly explain why art therapy is a game-changer in trauma intervention, particularly with children who have been abused. [ii] “Three things are striking about inner child work,” says John Bradshaw. “The speed with which people change when they do this work; the depth of the power and creativity that result when the wounds from the past are healed”. Then, says Bradshaw, "the healed inner child becomes a source of vitality and creativity, enabling us to find new joy and energy in living."

Anytime we have a strong emotional reaction to something or someone - when a button is pushed and there is a lot of energy attached a lot of intensity - that means there is old stuff involved. It is the inner child who feels panic or terror or rage or hopelessness, not the adult.

Here are some ideas I've tried myself when working with my Inner Child. They should help you get to know him/her, befriends and heal whatever needs to be healed. Under every step, I added some suggestions that might help you achieve the goal at every point. The most important of all though, is that this should be done in a very non-judgmental, empathetic way.

1- Recognizing and reconnecting with your inner child.

You can do this by starting with a little relaxation breathing and some quite music. Try to recall a picture in your mind of how you looked as a child. Place your child in a friendly and safe environment (beach, forest, cabin etc.) and approach to him/her.
Take a few moments to be there, and try bonding. Observe the child: how does s/he look like? How old is s/he? Look him/her deep into the eyes. What do you see? How is the child feeling?
Start a small dialogue. Say Hi! Ask him/her how are you, how old are you? Approach in a very soft way, and talk to him/her as you would talk to a child that is your inner child’s age. Pay attention to the tone of your voice. Is it tense? Harsh? Sweet?
Make a drawing of your inner child as the way you saw him/her in your imagination. 

2- Embrace your inner child.

S/he just told you the way s/he feels. For a child, that takes an incredible amount of strength. Thank him/her for sharing. Tell him/her that it was very brave from him/her to share, since you guys just met! Don’t say things as: that’s not so bad, or, you shouldn’t be feeling this way. Instead of fighting your emotions, start taking good care of yourself. 
Focus on your adult self. Listen to your feelings and inner dialogue: how do I treat / speak to myself? Do I respect myself? Do I refer to myself with dignity, love and understanding? If there is something bothering you, please validate your feelings by listening careful and patiently. Be empathetic to yourself.

This doesn’t mean you should sink into self pity and victimize yourself.
We keep telling ourselves that certain feelings are childish, stupid or unaccredited. That reasonable adult should feel differently about certain situations. This is absolutely wrong. We've become our worst enemies, our most cruel judges!
We are unique, and as such, we feel differently from others in different situations. We feel the way we do. Feelings are neither stupid nor invalid. They are just feelings. And instead of denying them (trust me, that won’t help), we should try to find out what triggered that feeling, when did it start, an even better, when was the first time you started to feel this way.
Try going back to the earliest memories you have from your childhood that matches that feeling, and from there, you can hold a precious dialogue with your inner child on what happened, how did he feel and what was done about this situation (or what wasn’t).
Write down the dialogue.

3- Hug your inner child.

Promise him/her that you will never abandon him again. From now on, you will be there for him/her, in a loving, caring and supportive way. You will protect him/her in any way, and won’t let others hurt him/her again in any way. Now you are big and strong, and you have the strength to do so in any situation and any time. If you can, hold you child’s hand and go back together to the painful situation. If the child back then was scared and felt unprotected, hug him and protect him as long as s/he need to relax and feel secure again. If s/he felt lonely or sad, hold him/her and south him/her. Just give him/her whatever s/he needs right now. Validate his/her feelings.
Before leaving the Child, thank him/her again, reassure your love and acceptance and let him/her know that you will never abandon him/her and that you will meet again very soon.

After doing this exercise, you can jump into this one as a follow up.

Daily Inner Child Exercise[iii]

1.Relax and breathe with your paper and crayons in front of you.

2. Close your eyes and see or feel a child near you. Notice the color or her/his hair, notice the height, posture, clothing. Open your heart and feel yourself accepting this child exactly as she/he is, even if the chid is angry sad or frightened.

3. Ask the child to play a game with you. The adult in you will ask the child 3 questions. What is your name? What are you feeling right now? What can I do to help you feel really good?

4. Let the child draw a picture of for you and answer the questions using crayons and your non-dominant hand.

5. Thank the child for sharing with you.

Note: I often change this exercise as I find it a profound way to get to know renegade, inner child parts that made decisions for me a long time ago, that I may not be conscious of. Sometimes we have well-meaning but less mature parts of our minds running the show that are not making the best decisions for our current adult, mature needs. I ask my inner child part these questions:

What is your name?

How old are you?

What is your purpose?

Good luck! And please, if you did the exercise, let me know how did it go.

* For further reading on the subject, I very much recommend Jeremiah Abrams’s book “Recovering the Inner Child”. and Lucia Capacchione’s book “Recovery of Your Inner Child: The Highly Acclaimed Method for Liberating Your Inner Self”

References:

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[i] http://www.mindful.org/in-body-and-mind/coping-with-difficulty/healing-the-child-within

[ii] Published on October 13, 2013 by Cathy Malchiodi, PhD, LPCC, LPAT in Arts and Health.

[iii] http://www.expressiveartworkshops.com/30-day-expressive-drawing-challenges/inner-child-drawings/

Oh, my child! Where have you gone? Part I

By Aiala

Once upon a time, I was a child. And so were you. 

But eventually we all grew up, and hopefully became responsible adults. Adulthood can be overwhelming sometimes; parenting yourself or your own children can be extremely difficult specially when motherly deprivation, negligence, abuse or maltreatment was suffered during childhood, since you grew up without any role-model and your basic survival needs kept unattended. Its like growing up on emotional starvation and as a grown up, you suffer from emotional malnutrition. 

According to David M. Allen, M.D. in "A Matter of Personality",  the majority of abused children do not go on to abuse their own children. Some even decide never to have children for fear that they might become abusive to their own children just like their parents were. Others go to the opposite extreme and become so overprotective of their children that they end up snuffing out their children's ability to grow up. And many others become model parents. Still, as a therapist myself, I keep hearing over and over again, youngsters swearing that they will never do to their own children  what was done to them but somehow, statistics and research show quite the opposite: they suggest that one - third of all individuals who were abused or neglected as children will subject their children to maltreatment. Quite pessimist, right? 

Why? How does this happen? Maybe, because we never really grow up totally. What I mean is, that even if we physically grew up, and mentally developed, there is a part of us that will always remain a child. And if that child was abused or maltreated in any way, and hasn't been healed, its wounds will continue to be there over the years, boycotting our attempts for happiness and well-being. He will be constantly bugging us for attention, desperate to grasp into any corrective experience available at the moment (that sadly usually fails and the opposite occurs - a re-traumatization experience - since its not done in a conscious way, but rather as a reaction from the unconscious). 

In its healthier state, the Inner Child refers to that part of each of us which is ultimately alive, energetic, creative and fulfilled; it is our "Genuine Authentic Self", who we know deep within us, our "Real Self." It's are joyful, playful, most creative and loving side, full of awe and hope. Its the side of us that let us dream, have great ideas, enjoy and have pleasure in life and the beauty of the world.  

The concept called  Inner Child has been a part of the world for a very long time. Carl Jung called it the "Divine Child" and Emmet Fox called it the "Wonder Child." Some psychotherapists call it the "True Self". And Charles Whitfield called it the "Child Within." 

But what exactly is this child? Is that really a part of us? Then answer is: yes. And will always be. I liked very much Dr. Stephen Diamond's, PhD.explanation:

 The inner child is real. Not literally. Nor physically. But figuratively, metaphorically real. It is--like complexes in general--a psychological or phenomenological reality, and an extraordinarily powerful one at that. Indeed, most mental disorders and destructive behavior patterns are, as Freud first intimated, more or less related to this unconscious part of ourselves. We were all once children, and still have that child dwelling within us. But most adults are quite unaware of this. And this lack of conscious relatedness to our own inner child is precisely where so many behavioral, emotional and relationship difficulties stem from.

Most of us deny that there even exists such a part within us. While growing up, we are "educated" to silence this child and behave in a socially accepted way. That is fine, though. Self boundaries and good manners are important qualities to acquire. But together with this, we are tough to be serious and respectable adults, meaning as a contradiction to fun, joy, big dreams, creativity, being spontaneous etc. And eventually we forget that, once upon a time, we were children, and out inner child is still here, deep inside of us, abandoned. When this child - self is not allowed to be heard, or even acknowledged as being real, a false or co-dependent self emerges (Jung on Archetypes). We grow up as adults, acquiring some adult-type qualities, and at the same time, our inner child keeps growing up, but resented, fearful and angry for the abandonment and negligence upon its existence (this is basically our most true voice telling us that we are very far away from ourselves and its screaming for an S.O.S. rescue). We begin to live our lives as victims. The inner-child makes himself present in our adult life by controlling our reactions to different situations: passive aggressive, yelling, feeling of loneliness or emptiness, narcissism, selfishness, evil doings etc. This is his childish way to say: HELLO!!! you are neglecting me!! I am hurt and I need your attention. NOW! 

How do we heal our inner child?

There are many ways you can work on your healing, and definitely Art Therapy is of great help in this matter since it engages your most creative, vulnerable and unconscious side. 
Soon I will be writing a whole article about it, because it is a very serious matter. In the meantime, start by trying to recognize different attitudes or reactions that come to you "out of the blues": anger, resentment, jealousy, fear, anxiety. Also, try to recognize different times when you feel specially good about yourself, creative, empathetic, non-judgmental. 
These are all parts of your inner child. Lets start renewing your relationship. And remember: its never too late.