YOUR INNER CHILD: WHAT IS IT, WHAT'S UP WITH IT AND DOES IT NEED HEALING?

Recent online articles have listed the signs that reveal your inner child is wounded, or that your inner child needs healing. But is there any real psychology behind this?

- DR CHRISTIAN JARRETT

Have you noticed the spate of advice articles claiming to help you tap into your inner child'? Some of them suggest this inner infant could be to blame for your relationship troubles, and there are others that promise to show you ways to start 'healing the wounds' your child within may have suffered. Online influencers are apparently tuned into the trend - you can find many of them posting photos of themselves riding tricycles or doing other seemingly childish things alongside boasts that they're tapping into their inner child. 

So, what's this all about - do we really have such a thing as an 'inner child'? And do you need to heal it?

WHAT IS AN INNER CHILD?

The answer is that it depends on who you ask, and on whether you're being literal or metaphorical. A hard-nosed neuroscientist might dismiss the idea of an inner child as fanciful. But in other fields the notion of an inner child is long established. Both Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung referred to an inner child' in their writings, and for several decades now, many serious schools of psychotherapy have taught that, as adults, we have a child within. The late US self-help evangelist and best-selling author John Bradshaw also gave the concept a popular boost with his 1990 book Homecoming: Reclaiming And Championing Your Inner Child.

WHAT DO PSYCHOLOGISTS SAY?