by Halko Weiss
Recognizing the Child State
As I looked at Picasso’s paintings I often felt I was seeing with the eyes of the confused, uncomprehending, disorientated, but interested and curious child.
ALICE MILLER, The Untouched Key, 1988
As stated above, the inner child can be reified. It is rather a metaphor for a state of consciousness, which holds unintegrated, implicit memory. The metaphor of the child can be useful, but it is important to remember that the inner child is not a concrete entity. There are many child parts, and they change, move, and disappear as the overall growth process occurs (Ferruci, 1982; Schwartz, 1995; Wolinsky, 1991, 2003).
As a result of the way in which Hakomi therapists work, using mindfulness and deepening into experiences, including the bodily felt sense, the child often emerges naturally and by itself. Both client and therapist can sense this experientially. We can then use that opportunity therapeutically. The metaphor of the child can then be most useful. In fact, Kurtz developed the theory of the child and the magical stranger in response to his experience of childlike states pushing their way spontaneously into therapy sessions. Sometimes the child emerges as a first-person experience: “I am hiding under the table,” accompanied by a childlike voice, words, and mannerisms. At other times the child is sensed by the adult self and spoken of in the third person: “I see her under the table, all by herself.” The child may also emerge in artwork or writing.
Earning a Secure Attachment
You can live and die still a child, or move fully into adult life. You have that choice.
STREPHON KAPLAN-WILLIAMS, Transforming Childhood, 1988
Daniel Siegel and others talk of a person with an insecure attachment history being able to earn a secure attachment: “Although emotional relationships of all sorts can be healing and promote healthy maturation, facilitating a movement towards an ‘earned’ secure/autonomous adult attachment status, at times the unique configuration of psychotherapy is needed to catalyze this growth” (Siegel, 1999, p. 287).
Working with the preverbal child-state can occur when creating new attachment “templates.” This may need to be part of long-term therapy where limbic resonance processes work directly on implicit memory (Lewis et al., 2000; Schore, 2003). Loving presence, kind eye contact, reliability, and nurturing touch over a period of time may be needed. Too many words may bring the person out of present experience. Nonverbal child states of fragmentation, such as occur in disorganized attachment, can occur as a result of shock and trauma. When working with such states, the therapist needs to be safe and gentle, and go slowly. Completion of trauma sequences may be required in a safe therapeutic window of awareness (van der Kolk, 2014).
Working With the Child: Regressive States in Therapy
Holding the image of the abandoned child in our minds helps to reclaim the needy, helpless, frightened part of us.
SUSAN ANDERSON, The Journey From Abandonment to Healing, 2000
The core beliefs of the child are held in state-specific consciousness and are usually not available in ordinary awareness. They are available in the state in which they were first learned. For transformation to occur, the client needs to be present with his or her child consciousness, so that these early beliefs can be fully accessed and processed. An opportunity to make new decisions, due to seeing the self and world differently, can then occur. It is possible to do useful work with the child and core beliefs from the place of ordinary consciousness, but it will not have the same impact as working directly with the child state.
Other states of consciousness may be present alongside the child state, such as the adult or mindfulness. As previously discussed, it is a good idea to have the adult self, or some compassionate aspect of the adult, present as a resource (Anderson, 2000). It is not advisable to pursue the child state or do regressive work unless the client has a strong adult or sense of self as a ground and resource. Clients who generally operate out of the child state in their lives may need to develop the adult part more strongly.
During the session, the therapist can talk to the client’s adult self, who internally relays the message to the child, notices any reactions, and reports back. This is especially useful for those clients who easily regress and get taken over by child trances. When the child state is present, the therapist can talk directly to that child, using simple, direct, and age-appropriate language.
Communicating With the Child
The therapeutic experience is not just that of expressing the hurt or angry or terrified feelings. . . . The real healing comes also from being listened to and understood and recognized as a person.
JOSEPHINE KLEIN, Our Need for Others, 1987
The therapist begins by establishing the presence of the child as a state of consciousness (see Chapters 15 and 19). The therapist addresses the fact that child consciousness is active, on a metalevel, and then can ask whether it would be okay to talk to the child directly in the present tense. It can be a very helpful, therapeutic intervention to enter into a relationship with that child part.
The child is often accessible when a memory arises in the client. The therapist can expand the memory a little by asking for the age and setting while tracking emotional and bodily expression and accessing felt sense. He may say, “You feel little now,” or “You are at home now,” or “Your sister is with you.” The therapist can also further explore the child state with contact statements directed to the witness, such as, “This is the little boy feeling sad. . . [?]” or “A memory is emerging. . . [?]”
The Magical Stranger and the Missing Experience
The vulnerable child is tuned in energetically—it is aware of everything that is happening. Words will not fool it for a moment.
HAL STONE AND SIDRA WINKLEMAN, The Vulnerable Inner Child,1990
Ron Kurtz made an invaluable contribution to psychotherapy with his ability to become a magical stranger to the inner child (Kurtz, 1990a). It was, indeed, truly magical to experience Kurtz’s ability to sensitively relate to the vulnerable child in an age-appropriate way and to compassionately nourish that child with just the right input for his needs. Hakomi therapists have found working with the child in this way to be very effective in facilitating deep and lasting transformation. Moving into a magical stranger mode and providing a missing experience can be very powerful. The therapist becomes like an unknown, kindly person who has traveled back through time and who can interact with the “frozen” child, providing new experiences that were missing back then. When the client is in child consciousness, we assume that the relevant neural circuitry is active and is therefore plastic and open to revision. We must also be aware that there will be parts that tend to counter the acceptance of new, nourishing experience. These need to be worked with simultaneously.
As the magical stranger, the therapist relates to the child like a wise, loving adult—an uncle or aunt perhaps, or a friend—someone who was not actually present in the person’s childhood but whose presence could have helped the child manage and understand the situation. The therapist is not acting so much as a therapist per se, but is taking on a role to provide a missing relationship experience. Even though the client’s adult consciousness knows the therapist, the child does not. The therapist is a stranger to that child and has special powers. She comes from the future and appears in that magical moment when the child is back in a place that he once had to endure without solution and with no help. Now there is a magical other who understands, is patient and kind, and creates new options and perspectives. As well, the magical stranger knows unheard-of things, can answer unanswered questions, and brings nourishment that was, to the child, previously only dreamed of.
The therapist may say, “That’s right. I agree you need to be out of there. Maybe I can help you do it.” The therapist, of course—still working within a therapeutic frame—is conscious of session process and client state, has her own witness present, and does not promise or offer anything that is not realistic. It is important to be guided whenever pos
sible by the adult witness self of the client, who usually knows very exactly what his child self needs in that moment.
First, the therapist should acknowledge and validate the child’s experience. This is often a missing experience in itself. Take time to find out about the child’s hurt, being continually empathetic, tracking and contacting experience as it unfolds. Allow spaces and silences, without abandoning the child. Usually the child, in the first instance, was alone without anyone understanding her experience. Sometimes all that is needed is for the therapist to be there, contacting and acknowledging her in an attuned way. The therapist’s experience and knowledge of character styles can provide guiding maps (Chapters 8 and 23). Getting the details of the sense the child made of the situation at the time is important. Some narrative type questions can be useful here: “What did she tell herself about herself when her daddy left?” The client could reply, “It was her fault,” or “It was because I was bad,” or “She is too scared to cry.” The therapist can then explore the core belief or decision that was made at the time. “I am no good,” or “I’m not very bright,” or “There is something wrong with me,” or “I won’t show how I feel,” or “It is too dangerous out there,” or explore the ways the child protected himself from the hurt. For example, he might have become extra good or rebellious, or retreated to books.
The therapist then continues to acknowledge and validate the child’s experience: “You were too little to cope with that. Of course you would feel angry.” It is important to accept all feelings of the child and support expression of these feelings as indicated. (“It’s okay to cry now.”)
In some of his later writings, Kurtz says, “Where core beliefs are limiting, destructive, unbalanced, or painful they can be challenged. New beliefs can be tried and new experiences evoked. I call these missing experiences” (2004, p. 79). He goes on to describe how the missing experience can nourish and transform outdated patterns:
One woman, in her process, touched terror. It was set off by the statement, “You are perfectly welcome here.” Her terror and fear were based on her model that she was not welcome anywhere. In fact, at the deepest level, she felt that her life was in danger. People didn’t want her to be alive. These were the messages she took in as a child, and which created these terrifying core beliefs. She screamed with the terror while several of us held her very tightly (with her permission of course). She reported feeling good screaming; it was a relief to let it out. After a while the terror subsided and her body relaxed. She could finally take in that she was welcome. . . . She had this wonderful, thirty-minute experience of feeling welcome, held, cuddled, and loved. I saw her two weeks later. She told me she was . . . walking to a friend’s house and she started to feel uncomfortable. . . . In the middle of an [old] internal dialogue she suddenly heard a voice saying, “You’re perfectly welcome here.” . . . In an easy, light-hearted way she continued to her friend’s house. . . . That’s how people change. They have a new model. They use it, and if it works, it becomes a habit. (pp. 80–81)
Acceptance of Nourishment
Richard is aware of a childhood memory in which he was desperate to help his depressed mother. As a four-year-old boy, he would sit with his mother, stroking her arm and offering to get her cups of tea. Richard’s father would sometimes yell at him for not tidying his room or playing outside, and would pull the reluctant boy away from his mother. When Richard’s mother cried, he felt that it was his fault for not being able to make her happy.
There may be parts that fight nourishment and form what Hakomi therapists call a nourishment barrier (see Chapter 17). These parts have often been created to protect the vulnerable, hurt child from disappointment, further pain, or exploitation. For example, the therapist may offer some words to Richard’s child self as nourishment: “You are a thoughtful little boy.” These words have been suggested by Richard’s compassionate adult self who, as a father himself, can clearly see the dilemma of the little boy he once was. As these words are spoken, Richard hears a sad inner voice saying, “No, I am not. I am a failure,” and a strident voice saying, “Grow up and get on with life!” The vulnerable child self does not believe the kind words. They do not nourish.
Harry Guntrip describes the complexity of offering nourishment in his book Schizoid Phenomena, Object Relations and the Self:
The regressed schizoid patient wants to be treated as a baby, with the implications he should not be indulged in this. This gravely oversimplifies the case. . . . There is an infant in the patient . . . who needs to be accepted for what he is . . . but there is an anti-libidinal ego in the patient who hates this. The patient with the deepest schizoid problems of all is the patient most dependent for a successful result on the degree of maturity in the therapist. . . . One patient said simply, “If I could feel loved, I’m sure I would grow.” (1968, p. 287)
The therapist cannot force nourishment against resistance, and denying nourishment tends to evoke manipulative demands and clinging. Instead, he needs to linger at the nourishment barrier, exploring responses and different parts of the client that hold defensive attitudes. A person may have experienced nourishment as insincere or toxic, so will automatically become suspicious and reject it. Another child was given nurturing, but it was always taken away prematurely. Now as an adult, she is fearful to enjoy being accepted and loved because she “knows” it won’t last, and she will suffer bitter disappointment. When support is offered, she pushes it away, saying she can look after herself.
Working With the Child
General guidelines for working with the child include the following:
1. Learn to recognize the child as he appears in sessions by changes in voice, expression, posture, and so forth.
2. Be interested in that child; hold the experience in present time.
3. Acknowledge and validate the child’s experience directly.
4. Talk directly to the child in simple, age-appropriate language. Attune carefully, maintaining tracking and contact.
5. Ask the adult self for comments on how the child is responding in the moment and to nourishment.
6. Check out feelings of the adult toward the child. If they are negative, there is a critical, defensive part present who is not able to show understanding and compassion toward the child. This part can be brought to the client’s consciousness.
7. Encourage the child to name and express feelings and perceptions.
8. In the case of overwhelming emotions, allow for some distance to the child part (e.g., imagining placing it far away or behind a window).
9. Find out the meaning the child placed on the early situation.
10. Let the child articulate her needs.
11. Ask the compassionate adult self what the child needs to hear or know.
12. Support emotional expression as indicated.
13. Be real, realistic, and genuine toward the child.
14. Remember child-type thinking processes—magical, egocentric.
15. Remember that the child is the mapmaker, forming the core models of self and the world used throughout life.
16. Be attentive, validating, playful, compassionate, and creative, just as one would with a real child in the room. Draw on experiences with actual children. Adapt language and tone of voice according to what is age appropriate.
Progression Processes
As I’ve healed, Younger Ones have grown.
LOUISE WISECHILD, The Obsidian Mirror, 1988
As previously discussed, it is often not helpful to explore child parts, renegotiate early trauma, or disable defensive strategies, if there is not sufficient self-capacity. Trauma therapists emphasize the need for safety and the development of ability to manage and tolerate feelings. There is the place of raw, vulnerable childhood hurt, confusion, and trauma, with the potential to overwhelm. Then there are adaptive, defensive parts, which have allowed coping. Within the majority of people who come to consult us, there will also be aspects that are strong and resourced already. The person m
ay have had experiences that have led her to develop some of the characteristics of a secure attachment. This allows for self-reflection and self-regulation of emotion. (Certain neurological wiring has to be in place to allow this, and it grows through positive relationship experience.) When accessing these resources, the person can be visibly embodied, alive, and has a sense of wholeness. You may need to access, and even develop, these stronger parts before working with childhood hurts (Emmons, 2007).
Often the client presents in survival mode. It is important to assess self-capacity before dipping into the childhood hurts, and to honor the survival strategies that have enabled coping. Otherwise, clients can regress, becoming overly dependent, and the therapist then has to manage this for them outside usual session times, as an external regulator. Therapy should proceed in a backward-and-forward manner. The therapist may need to first spend considerable time building relationship and safety for clients with few inner or outer resources. The therapist’s presence may be the main containing function, which can directly influence growth of limbic pathways and inner capacity. Psychodynamically, this process is described as internalization. When there is sufficient safety, child parts can be transformed and integrated, bringing implicit memory into consciousness and freeing energy for more functional patterns in the present. The person then no longer needs to function from survival strategies. An increasing sense of wholeness develops as the person integrates more of the split-off parts and thus gains more awareness, control, and choice in her present life.
Integrating the Natural Child With the Embodied Adult
To bring back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living.
Job 33:30
Maybe we don’t always need a concept of the inner child to integrate outdated, frozen memories, to bring implicit, core material into the present, and to change neural pathways to support more satisfying responses to life. Some woundings from childhood are changed implicitly, without conscious intervention from the client, but rather by direct influence on the physiology. As commented on above, this can occur when the therapist brings loving presence to the therapeutic relationship, and his limbic states of attention, attunement, and compassion directly impact the client, increasing aliveness and self-capacity (Lewis et al., 2000; Schore, 2003). It can also occur through the creation of calm, mindful states, in relationship, or through the use of selected music—enhancing the ability to engage socially (Porges, 2006). The creation of a safe environment and then sequencing through body sensations and micromovements can change frozen trauma states (Levine with Frederick, 1997; Rothschild, 2000).