Client resources
Your Inner Child
The part of you that remembers everything — and sometimes still needs what it never received.
What is the inner child?
The inner child is a concept used in therapy to describe the part of us that holds our earliest experiences — the joys, the fears, the unmet needs, and the wounds we carried from childhood into adult life.
It isn't a literal child living inside you. It's more like an emotional memory — a part of your nervous system that learned how to survive in your early environment, and sometimes still responds to the present as if it were the past.
When we feel disproportionately hurt, frightened, or shut down in situations that others seem to handle easily, it's often our inner child responding — not the adult we've become.
What are inner child wounds?
Inner child wounds develop when our core childhood needs go unmet. These needs aren't just physical — they include the need to feel safe, loved, seen, heard, and valued for exactly who we are.
Wounds don't only come from dramatic or obvious trauma. They can form quietly — through a parent who was emotionally unavailable, a home where feelings weren't welcome, being told you were 'too sensitive', or simply never feeling quite good enough.
These early experiences shape the beliefs we carry about ourselves and the world. Beliefs like: I am too much. I am not enough. I have to earn love. It isn't safe to need things. I have to be perfect to be accepted.
Signs of inner child wounds in adult life
Generational patterns
Many inner child wounds are passed down through generations — not through intention, but through the wounds our parents carried from their own childhoods. They could only give us what they themselves had received.
Recognising this doesn't mean excusing harm. It means understanding the roots — and choosing to tend to them differently, so the cycle doesn't continue.
How counselling supports inner child healing
Inner child work in counselling is a gentle, compassionate process. It isn't about reliving painful memories — it's about creating a new relationship with the parts of yourself that have been carrying old pain.
Together, we can begin to identify the beliefs and patterns that formed in childhood, understand where they came from, and offer your younger self the care, validation, and safety it may never have received.
Over time, many people find that as they tend to their inner child, the critical voice softens, relationships feel safer, and they begin to feel more at home in themselves.
Your younger self deserves to be heard
If any of this resonates, I'd gently invite you to reach out. Inner child work is at the heart of what I do — and it can be one of the most transformative journeys you'll ever take.