How Wounded Inner Child Undermines Adult

There is always a discrepancy between one’s chronological and emotional or mental ages. When the gap is inordinately big, regressive infantilization sets it (Puer Aeternus or Peter Pan Syndrome). This happens when the child is not allowed to separate from the parent, establish personal boundaries, and become an individual. The primary objects (caregivers) objectify, idolize, instrumentalize, or parentify their offspring or violate the boundaries via more classical forms of abuse (sexual, psychological, verbal, or physical). The Ego or Self constellate and integrate via repeated exposure to bruising reality and via external object relations with people. Absent these, one feels estranged from one’s life and cannot own it (“whose life is it anyhow). Unable to inhabit his own life, alienated and confused, the adult retreats into familiar modes of infancy and remains fixated there. History of the Inner Child Concept Developmental needs meeting strategy (DNMS) Working with the Inner Child Procedural memory Transference to people on whom we depend: intensity of reactions disproportional Children seek to influence a grownup to solve problems magically View of adulthood: all work and no play, I am a fraud (pretending to be an adult) Dysfunction is coming from an inner child Carl Rogers corrective emotional experience Affect Avoidance Model Adult reactions more self-efficacious Values militate against childlike (shame, anger, self-punishment, and repression) Intrusive Adult reshaping child content, growth and integration Find and Buy MOST of my BOOKS and eBOOKS in my Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/60...