What Is Inner Child Work—And How Can It Actually Help?
You’ve got a job, responsibilities, maybe even a family of your own. You know you’re an adult—but sometimes you still feel small.
Like when you panic over a text that hasn’t been returned. Or when your stomach drops after someone uses a certain tone with you. Or when part of you still hopes that maybe, this time, a parent will finally show up differently.
That’s your inner child. And whether or not you’ve heard that term before, chances are, you’ve felt it.
So What Is Inner Child Work?
Inner child work is about getting to know the parts of you that were shaped by your early experiences—especially the ones that didn’t get the support, protection, or care they needed at the time.
It’s not about staying stuck in the past or blaming your parents for everything. It’s about understanding how the past still shows up in ways that might not be working for you anymore.
For example:
That people-pleasing you do at work?
The fear of being “too much” in your relationships?
That critical voice in your head that never seems to let up?
Those are often learned responses. Your younger self figured out how to stay safe or get love or avoid rejection, and those strategies stuck around—sometimes long after you needed them.
Inner child work helps you understand where those patterns came from. It also helps you learn how to respond to yourself with more compassion and choice, rather than reacting out of old survival habits.
Why Does the Inner Child Still Matter?
Because developmentally, we don’t just grow up and leave our childhoods behind. Our nervous systems, our beliefs about relationships, and the way we see ourselves are all shaped by the environments we grew up in.
If you had caregivers who were inconsistent, critical, emotionally unavailable, or overwhelmed, you likely learned to adapt in ways that made sense at the time:
Staying quiet to avoid conflict
Becoming the “helper” to feel needed
Numbing out your feelings to get by
Walking on eggshells to keep the peace
Always pushing yourself to be perfect
These adaptations often become the blueprint for how you move through life. And even if you’re no longer in the same environment, your body and brain can still be wired to expect the same kinds of stress or disconnection.
Inner child therapy helps interrupt that cycle. It helps you notice when your reactions are being driven by a younger part of you—and gives you tools to respond differently.
What Happens in Inner Child Therapy?
This kind of therapy is less about “fixing” you and more about building a new relationship with yourself.
Some of the work might include:
Getting curious about patterns that don’t feel like they’re fully in your control
Learning to notice and name the feelings that show up in certain moments—especially the ones that feel disproportionate or confusing
Visualizing or dialoguing with your younger self, not in a cheesy way, but as a way to access what those parts of you might still need
Practicing new ways to care for yourself, especially when you’re overwhelmed, ashamed, or triggered
It’s not all deep dives and emotional breakthroughs, either. Sometimes it’s slow and steady. Sometimes it’s just noticing, “Oh wow, that voice in my head sounds a lot like my dad when he was stressed,” or “I keep expecting people to leave, even when they haven’t given me a reason to.”
Little by little, the goal is to make those younger parts of you feel less alone—and to give your adult self more say in how you move through the world.
How Does Inner Child Work Help?
Here are some things I often see shift for clients who engage in this work:
Less self-blame. You start to understand that your reactions aren’t random—they’re connected to things that happened.
More self-trust. As you build a relationship with your inner child, it becomes easier to know what you need and stand by it.
More emotional regulation. When you can recognize that a younger part of you is getting triggered, it’s easier to stay grounded and take care of yourself.
Better boundaries. Many clients realize they’ve been over-functioning or staying small to avoid upsetting others—and learn they don’t have to anymore.
Healing old grief. Sometimes you didn’t get to be sad or angry as a kid. This work gives you permission to feel those things now, without shame.
Who Is Inner Child Therapy For?
This kind of therapy can be helpful if:
You grew up in a home where emotions weren’t safe or supported
You had to be the “adult” too early
You experienced any form of emotional neglect, abuse, or chaos
You struggle with shame, anxiety, or feeling “too much”
You feel stuck in patterns that don’t make logical sense but are hard to shake
Even if you don’t think of your childhood as traumatic, you might still carry wounds from things that didn’t happen—like not being comforted, not being believed, or not being seen for who you were.
This work is especially helpful for people who’ve tried to “think their way out” of things for years and are ready for something deeper. Not more dramatic—but more honest, more connected, and more healing.
What It’s Not
Let me be clear: inner child work isn’t about blaming your parents for everything or staying stuck in anger or blame.
It’s also not about pretending to be a kid again or wallowing in the past.
It’s about noticing where the past is still alive in you—and gently helping those parts catch up to the present. Sometimes when we do that we can be more aware of how we respond to other people based on the way our caregivers responded to us. Inner child work enables us to care for the parts that can get triggered in relationships, so we can actually ‘do relationships’ differently than what we were taught or what we witnessed. Often we hear clients say things like “I don’t want to have my kid feel like they have to take care of me in the way I had to take care of my parent.” Through inner child work, we become more aware of our unmet or dissociated emotional and relational needs so that we can more effectively respond to those needs within ourselves and more clearly communicate our wants and needs to others- with direct, clear, communication, rather than through passive aggression or in other ways that our younger selves learned we had to communicate (or avoid communication) in order to stay safe and cared for.
There’s no shame in needing that. It’s just human.
If any of this sounds familiar, you’re not the only one. We see it all the time in our work with adults who are successful, thoughtful, and self-aware and still feel stuck, anxious, or ashamed in ways they can’t explain.
Inner child work offers a different kind of healing. Not a quick fix, but a steady way forward. A way to be less at war with yourself. A way to feel safer, softer, and more whole-not because someone else finally gave you permission, but because you did.
If you're curious about exploring inner child therapy in Philadelphia or want support in starting this kind of work, we’d be glad to connect.