Inner Child Work in Hypnotherapy
by Arlene Thompson, M.Ed. Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist
(925) 485-7997 ~ www.Thompsonhypnotherapy.com

 

First of all, what is hypnosis?  Hypnosis is a way to relax your conscious, rational mind, so that you can gain access to your subconscious.  It’s basically an alpha or theta brainwave state.

When you’re in that relaxed trance state, we can put positive suggestions into it (post-hypnotic suggestions) or release negative beliefs out of it.  The main vehicle I use to help clients release negative stuff out of the subconscious is inner-child work.

Inner-child work is not primarily about childhood.  It’s more about the false beliefs, negative messages, and limiting ideas you may have in your subconscious mind.  All the things that sabotage what your conscious mind wants to achieve.

For example, your conscious mind wants to achieve a certain goal, for example apply for a new job.  Yet you somehow lack the motivation to move forward with the steps necessary for attaining that goal.  You seem to be sabotaging yourself, stuck somehow.

Where is that lack of follow-through coming from?  No doubt, the subconscious.  Your conscious mind wants something, but your subconscious isn’t quite on board with it.

Why not? Probably because it has some old negative messages or limiting false beliefs in it.  

It could be something like, I’m not good enough, I’m inadequate, I’ll never be able to…, whatever.  Since these are False beliefs and are not serving you in any way, we want to help you release them.  And we do that by going back—usually in the first inner-child session only--to where they began, usually childhood.  That’s where you “meet” your inner child.

After that first session, the inner child becomes--not your childhood self--but rather a metaphor for your inner feelings, emotions, wants, needs, intuition, instinct, creativity, passion.  In other words, everything that is different from your rational consciousness, which I call the Adult Self.

So you learn to identify which “consciousness” you’re in--the Adult or Inner Child.  And you learn to shift back and forth between your Adult Self and your Inner Child, in other words, dialogue between those two consciousnesses.  You no longer “jump down the well” with the IC and over-identify with that consciousness.

For example, if your Inner Child is feeling inadequate and not good enough, your Adult Self can remind her of her past successes and achievements, all those times she did accomplish what she wanted to accomplish. You have a back-and-forth dialogue with her, and help her release the false beliefs she has that are currently sabotaging you from achieving your goals.  And, amazingly, the Inner Child immediately begins to feel better!  (That’s how you know it’s working!)

The Inner Child is also the “juiciness” of life, the part of you that loves to laugh, to play, to engage in activities that bring you joy.  If your Adult Self sometimes disallows or disapproves those feelings and behaviors, you recognize that you’re harming your IC, whom you learn to love and care about. As a result of that awareness, you can then consciously choose to allow that joy back in your life, through your IC.

So that’s what my IC work is, in a nutshell.  It brings more balance to your consciousness, in a way integrating the R and L hemispheres of the brain, or the conscious and subconscious minds.

It’s powerful, freeing work, and it’s actually my favorite work to do in my hypnotherapy practice.  If you’re interested in learning more, please give me a call.  Free initial phone consultation.