It is not enough to work with inner children in a purely bodily way, nor is it enough to work with them in a purely cognitive way.
Inner-child work is one of the core processes of The Gaia Method.
Susanne Roursgaard developed Regenerative Therapy between 2008 and 2012. It is unique in its form, merging bodywork and cognitive therapy into a single process that combines points, touch, energy work, breath, sound, and cognitive communication and understanding.
The process gives the practitioner a way to identify, through the body, where an issue has embedded itself, and to work from there ... even when there is not enough cognitive access to know whether a bodily or emotional activation is linked to an inner child.
Reparenting is necessary.
The client is guided to reparent their own inner children and to build a connection with the child, so that the child no longer looks outside the client to meet the needs stemming from old wounds ... wounds that can never be healed outside the client.
Inner children call for an additional body of work before they can be re-integrated into the whole. Where this work is missing, an inner child that was assumed healed will surface again and again, showing that it is still present within and still holds power over the client. This is where this process comes in.
The process is designed to help the nervous system form new neural pathways for the wounded parts, and to give the client a way of understanding how to nurture their own inner child.
What are inner children?
Inner children, or inner parts, are formed around an unmet need, often within a traumatic experience. They are older, wounded parts, held in an earlier time within us yet still gripping the present, and they affect behaviour, patterns and emotions. They often shape how we see the world without our realising that we are looking through the lens of these wounded parts. The imprint they leave can rest in tissue, in bone, and in the subconscious, and can surface through bodily symptoms, convictions, fears and addictions.
Why this process?
Inner children often obstruct the changes a client is trying to make in their life, so that sessions which seem effective do not lead to lasting change. Inner children typically seek a particular kind of support. The child has often been trying to communicate for years without being heard or understood. To be noticed and to be found, it may present itself as many different issues ... sometimes bodily, sometimes health-related, sometimes mental, sometimes emotional.
At this point the client simply wants the "problem" to go away. But because the "problem" is a part of the client reacting and trying to be heard, making it disappear is not the same as resolving it.
This process helps the client re-integrate this part into wholeness ... not by waiting for a spontaneous shift, as often happens in bodywork alone, but by following a specific process to reach this work.
Professional Foundation
Regenerative Therapy was not simply devised and put into practice. Susanne Roursgaard documented the method in the graduating thesis of her psychotherapy training and submitted it to formal examination by an independent panel of experienced psychotherapists, including a university professor of psychology, who read the thesis, challenged her on it, and observed her guiding a live group through the process before she passed with honours. Her psychotherapy title carries individual state approval, a quality recognition that not every Danish training can offer.
