Do you have a healthy inner child or do unresolved childhood hurts and wounds keep you stuck? No matter how old (or young) you are, a process called “reparenting” can help you discover and work with emotions and wounds that may keep you entrapped in patterns that leave you hurting and unfulfilled. Today, I’m joined by Dr. Katy Cook, a top-notch inner child specialist who will guide us through the journey of getting to know, heal, and love that precious inner child within you. Dr. Cook is a psychologist, author, and co-founder of the Inner Child Care app.

Topics discussed include secure attachment, insecure attachment, inner child healing, inner child work, reparenting, inner critic, criticism, self-worth, negative beliefs, self-doubt, imposter syndrome, validation, emotional abuse, neglect, childhood, parenting, healing, self-compassion, and self-talk.

Please note that this episode contains sensitive material; listener discretion is advised.

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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: No expert is offering medical or psychological direction or advice; the content is purely informational in nature. Please consult your physician or healthcare provider before undertaking any new regimen or procedure.

Connect with Dr. Carla Manly:

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Books by Dr. Carla Manly:

Joy From Fear: Create the Life of Your Dreams by Making Fear Your Friend

Date Smart: Transform Your Relationships and Love Fearlessly

Aging Joyfully: A Woman’s Guide to Optimal Health, Relationships, and Fulfillment for Her 50s and Beyond

The Joy of Imperfect Love: The Art of Creating Healthy, Securely Attached Relationships

Imperfect Love Relationship & Oracle Card Deck by Dr. Carla Manly:

Etsy

Amazon

Connect with Dr. Katy Cook:

Website: https://www.drkatycook.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drkatycook

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61586197941963

InnerChild: https://www.innerchild.care

The Psychology of Silicon Valley: https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Silicon-Valley-Emotional-Unintelligence-ebook/dp/B07Z4LT5V8

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Unlock Joy and Get Unstuck: Reconnecting with Your Inner Child!

Connect with Your Inner Child to Discover Joy and Heal Trauma

Do you have a healthy inner child, or do unresolved childhood hurts and wounds keep you stuck? No matter how old or young you are, a process called reparenting can help you discover and work with emotions and wounds that may keep you entrapped in patterns that leave you hurting and unfulfilled. I am joined by a terrific inner child specialist who will guide us through the journey of getting to know, heal, and love that precious inner child within you.

We will focus on this audience’s real-life questions. “My parents try to be good parents, but they did a lot of things in my childhood that left me feeling like I was never enough. Both are high achievers and constantly pushed me to do better. Their method of aloof critical parenting did not work for me. I want to work on this before my partner and I have a child. I do not know where to start. Please help.” With that question as the focus of our episode. Please note that this episode contains sensitive information. Listener discretion is advised.

Reparenting and Discovery: Healing Unresolved Wounds

I am thrilled to be joined by Dr. Katy Cook. Dr. Katy is a psychologist, author, and co-founder of the Inner Child Care app. Welcome to the show, Dr. Katy. It is such a joy to have you with us.

Thank you. It is so nice to be here and see you.

Before we launch into this really wonderful topic, can you tell our audiences a little bit about what makes you you?

It is funny, as I knew this question was coming, and I did not give it any pre-planned thoughts. This is going to be very off the cuff. I am a very values-aligned person, which I did not know was so important until probably my thirties, when I started doing some coaching when I lived in the UK, and some values work with some Brené Brown-trained coaches. I realized that empathy, bravery, curiosity, and adventure were really important to me. Those are some of the things that drive me. I tend to follow my interests a lot. I have had a very curvy, odd path, which I love.

It would probably freak a lot of people out. I really like where I have been and how interesting and odd and dynamic it has been, and where it has brought the people it has brought into my life. I care a lot about the people in my life. I am an introvert. I have ADHD, and I love my people fiercely. I need a lot of space for myself. I love my clients a lot.

I know we are supposed to just do unconditional positive regard or whatever, but I truly adore them. I love them. I love my work. I am in a very good place. It has taken me a long time to get here. I am aware and grateful for how long it has taken me to get here and what I have overcome to do that with the help of a lot of great therapists. It makes it even more meaningful and grounded. I feel very lucky to be doing the work I do, and in the place I live with the people I am around. Life is good.

That is such a beautiful and vulnerable look into what makes you you. I have a question. When you started your journey, was your inner child very strong and healthy, or has this been a process of you working on that inner child?

My inner child was huddled in a corner somewhere very deep inside me. It has been a long process of drawing her out and letting her know she is safe and okay and loved. This work, for a lot of us, not everybody, but a lot of us, comes from a place of healing a lot of stuff ourselves and seeing how meaningful that is and how much that can change your life.

Your circumstances, your beliefs, and your behaviors are impacted. Being able to slowly and consistently work on that over time has been really meaningful for me. I did not even know, probably in my teens and early twenties, what an inner child was. I was probably just trying to survive at that point. It has been a lovely process to get to know her. I am very grateful that she is in the room much more than she used to be.

Defining the Inner Child: A Visual Representation

I am so excited to have you take us on this journey of the inner child. I truly believe in inner child work. I love and appreciate how you said that your inner child was huddled into this little corner for the first couple of decades of your life. I really think that is a beautiful invitation for audiences to also look at where their inner child is. I will ask you in a moment to explain your definition of inner child in layman’s terms. I know when you gave that beautiful image of that child huddled in the corner, it will really resonate with so many people.

It certainly did with me immediately, even though my inner child has not had a descriptor like that. I have a feeling mine was sitting on a stone wall somewhere for a really long time. When we look at how imagery works in this really non-judgmental way, that is one of looking at the audience’s question. One of the first ways to begin the work is to look inside at the impact. There is no shame or blame for parents. There is no use getting stuck in shame or blame. Being able to look at how it impacted you is the goal. Back to you. Could you give us a nice definition of inner child work, please?

At the heart of it, it is a version of yourself for a time in your life. I think of my life in terms of phases. This is the earliest phase of me, the earliest version of me. When I think of my inner child, she is eight years old. For whatever reason, this is something we ask people to do. Give us a picture of what age your inner child is, what she is wearing or what he is wearing, what they are wearing, what they are doing, and what environment they are in.

Having this visual representation of what that part of yourself is like, who represents that piece of your life. The way we do inner child work, I should say the way I do inner child work, because everyone may do it differently, is to build a relationship with that part of yourself. Often, that is because that part of yourself, that phase of life, did not get what it needed. There were a lot of unmet needs that part is still holding. This is related to parts work. I am not trained in parts work, but it is similar.

Thinking about what that inner child did not get, the attention, the safety, the love, the care, the kind words, whatever it is that is still activating sometimes that inner child is holding, those are the things that that inner child is scared of. Those are the things that we need to pay attention to. As you said, do not judge and do not shame. I know you are talking about parents, but people can also get into this with themselves.

Shaming and blaming themselves for not getting through this faster or being better at this or whatever is common. It really is such a process to draw that inner child out, to get to know it, and to let it know it is safe. That is the main thing that I work on with my clients who are starting to do this work. It is a very slow process, which is intentional.

We do not want to rush this kind of stuff. I really like it in terms of trauma work. A lot of the folks that I see have a history of relational trauma. Emotional abuse and neglect are common. Many have parents with personality disorders or stuff like that. In those environments, it is really hard to get your needs met. That inner child can become a little constellated, shut down, or hidden like mine was. Inner child work is a process of drawing that part of us out. That was a very long-winded answer to your question.

Unconstellating and Desticking Relational Trauma

It is a very beautiful answer. When you are talking to someone who might know what you mean when you are saying constellated, could you give a little more information on that piece?

When I say constellated, I mean it becomes almost like an energy vortex. It is rigid and sucked in and stuck, constellated in this space. This can happen for different things. A lot of trauma therapists work with the body, and things get stuck and constellated in parts of the body. I do not do somatic work. I should preface that. Constellated means stuck.

I just love how you use that idea of a vortex. This is this stuck piece of energy, or this stuck issue, or this stuck sense of not being enough. I was picking that up in the question of the day. It is actually the issue of the day. It is this sense of always having to try harder or always waiting to be criticized. You feel like you are not being enough. I think that is the gummy area of this person’s life.

Gummy is a good word. Maybe stuck is a good word, too. It gets wedged in there. The messaging that we get, these critical messages or these messages about ourselves or the world or other people, gets constellated and stuck in us. It is something, especially as kids, that you do not have a lot of conscious control over.

You are not aware of as much as you are as an adult in terms of what you take in and what you have boundaries around accepting into your world and your mind. Those things can plant seeds and grow over time. A lot of it is a process of stopping the weeds of critical thoughts or negative thoughts and planting new seeds. Paving new roads and neural pathways is part of it. A lot of it is unconstellating. That is not a word.

I like it. Un-constellating and de-sticking are good terms. For someone who might be tuning in and thinking, “I do not believe in this inner child stuff. I do not have an inner child inside of me.” What would you say?

I have definitely heard people say that before. That is very valid to not be in touch with that part and not to be aware of that part. That is totally understandable. A lot of people also never want to get to know that part, which is also valid. I am not here to force anybody to do anything they do not want to do or are not comfortable with.

A lot of times, when we are not conscious of something in our background, as you know, because we went to the same school, it is in psychodynamic psychotherapy. Making the unconscious conscious is a very core tenet of that type of therapy. If something is blocked, unconscious, or we are not aware of it in our day-to-day life, that does not mean it is necessarily not there.

Exploring that with curiosity is where I would start with someone who even had an iota of openness to inner child work and wanted to see what was there. Oftentimes, those parts of ourselves are so shut down or so scared or so deeply internalized and hiding that it is hard to access them. It is hard to even know that they exist, and they are in there.

Breaking the Cycle: Overcoming Critical Messages and Finding Play

For someone who grew up being told to suck it up, be a man, be strong, and not feel. Whatever the messages are. Try harder, do not listen to your gut instinct, goodness, no. If they got messages telling them to be quiet, to stay small, to just be good, and to just move forward. All of those messages lead to kids just absorbing them as the truth and as the right path.

That little inner child, I know, when I first started becoming aware of my inner child, I happened to think that she was pretty funny. She is goofy. I will still find myself at times wanting to stamp my foot like a two-year-old and say, “No, I do not want to do that.” Now I just smile because it is just that young part that probably did not have any autonomy and just said, “No.”

Now I know better ways as an adult. When we giggle about it, once we get to know and befriend that inner child who often was not safe in childhood, not safe to speak truth, not safe, not seen, not made to feel worthy or valuable. Of course, that little kid, that little inner piece of you, is going to retract and not want to trust anyone.

If we cannot trust our parents, even if they are well-meaning, not every parent is going to be well attuned to that particular child for many reasons. That child gets that message internalized. If I cannot trust these people, these caregivers who were my first go-to people who taught me about love, how can I trust anyone else? That is the real nugget of inner child work. You are the expert here. What do you think?

I think the trust involves not only trust in other people but trust in oneself, too. We often learn that we cannot trust our instincts and our intuition. We do not have validation that we can figure it out. We have the capability to do that, and we can make mistakes. That is a big one that we are not often allowed to do. If you grow up in a critical environment, mistakes are a big no-no for many people.

Perfectionism can be rooted in that. It can even be in its opposite, almost in the feedback that doing well and doing great makes you valuable because you get good grades and do all these things. It can be rooted either in criticism or in this, like, really high evaluation of praise and feedback for certain things. The playfulness that you mentioned, too, is under-recognized as a symptom of a scared or absent inner child.

Playfulness is one of the best things that our inner children can bring us. If you are lacking a sense of playfulness, joy, exuberance, or silliness, as you said, your inner child is often very goofy. I love that because a lot of us did not get that. We were shamed for it and not given space for that. That part is often one of the first ones to go and one of the most fun pieces to retrieve.

In the app that we made, many of the tasks focus on playfulness. What can you do today that is playful? Can you jump in a puddle? Can you count each time you see your favorite color today? Just silly fun things that get you in touch with a piece of your childhood that you might have missed, depending on the environment that you grew up in.

I have to say, when I did my first bit of inner child work, the psychologist gave me some tasks like that. I thought, “Is this going to fix me? Going and having an ice cream cone and doing jump rope, that is going to fix me?” It is part of what teaches you to notice what that inner child wants and not to make it good or bad or judge it. The inner child is saying, “Let us go and lie down in the grass.” That might be a really good thing to learn how to do. It might open up something inside of you that is really tamped down and not being given freedom because of all of the musts and shoulds that have invaded your life.

It can unlock a lot of creativity because kids are so creative by nature. If that part of you was ever tamped down. I was told one time not to stop and look at butterflies on a bike ride because I was slowing my aerobic activity. I still to this day have a hard time riding bikes because of that. One of my tasks in my forties is to get back on a bike and learn to make it fun. It is not a Peloton.

If you can lie in the grass and look at the clouds and find animals in them, you can re-trigger this really important part of your brain that does this tremendous creative lifting that we need as humans. Especially in this world, find joy in small moments. Be grounded and present with nature. Find something you need in that moment. Is it a lie down? Is it to surround ourselves in a cool fort where we feel safe, secure, held, and cozy? Is it to hug our dog and get a cuddle and some warmth? Figuring out what you need in the moment and getting in touch with those needs is a core part of inner child work.

The Mirror of Our Needs: Learning from Pets and Nature

It is lovely that you mentioned dogs. I was thinking that right before you said it. That is one way for somebody, if this is novel to them. If you have a pet of any type and you feel safe with that pet, you want to cuddle it. You want those feel-good neurochemicals that are coming out. You want to stroke it if it is a bird. That is a good example of what that inner child needs. In our society, we give ourselves the freedom to give love to our pets and to let that inner child out.

I know with my Giant Schnauzer, I am absolutely goofy with him. It brings out the best, youngest part of me. I treasure that. When we are talking about inner child work, I am going to bracket it before I ask you a question. It is not permission to act childish or be cruel or horrible. It is not that at all. It is instead bringing out that part of you that is joyful, natural, and curious. It is getting loose of all of the handcuffs that are put on us throughout life.

We cannot necessarily live in our inner child day in and day out. We might not get a lot done if the baby needs feeding and we just want to lie down on the grass. The baby needs to be fed. We sometimes have to go to work. The goal is to be able to have a good relationship with that inner child. Please say more about that.

There is a definite difference between childish and childlike. Childish has a negative connotation. You are being childish. That means you are being petulant or you are not mature. Childlike is very joyful. You see children running and playing, and not thinking about how loud they are being. Even if they want to go play in a corner of a playground by themselves with sand, they are doing their own thing. They are playing in a way that is intuitive, joyful, and present.

It is what they feel coming up to the surface. We often do not make a lot of space for that as adults. We are caught up in what we have to do and the have-tos and the shoulds. Even a couple of minutes every day to do something that feels joyful is going to make a huge difference over time. You tap into it, and then it starts to snowball. You find those moments more often. The more I have done inner child work, the easier and more intuitive it has become. It becomes part of a life that I do not really have to think about too much anymore.

Reclaiming the Self: Challenging Negative Core Beliefs

It is so important. Another beautiful piece of it is especially for someone who grew up being criticized. I have many clients who struggle with shoulds. They think, “I am bad if I go and take some free time. I should be doing this or that.” The inner child work allows for that lovely balance. The child that we are trying to access is the child before all of the societal and parental messages came down. Those messages said that if you are relaxing, you are lazy.

If you are not doing your work, you are bad. If you are not getting an A plus, you are not worthy. If you weigh more than I think you should weigh, you are bad. That is the good, bad, right, wrong thing. Many people can realize that there is a child inside of us that was there before those messages.

Most of us can usually find times in childhood when we got a message that was saying, “There is something in you that is wrong. You are not enough. You are too much of this or that.” Kids remember that well into adulthood. People think, “How can I be affected by this inner child in my 30s, 40s, 50s, or 60s?” If you can remember some of these owies, you are affected by your inner child. What do you think of that?

It is not obvious when you start going to therapy and wondering, “What is getting in your way? What are some of these things that are coming up that aren’t like serving me?” The more you start digging, the more you see. I give clients a list of common negative core beliefs. Here are 40 or 50 of these that come up a lot for a lot of people. Circle the ones that resonate. Most people have about ten on average.

Those are all rooted in childhood. Even if we have not delved into inner child work explicitly yet, we will when we start doing that. The negative core beliefs we carry about ourselves, the world, and other people include the idea that people are not safe or that the truth is not safe. Messages include being too much, not enough, unlovable, or ugly. There are so many. It’s not an exhaustive list by any means. People add to it all the time, the unique messages that they inherited or heard in childhood.

Start with what messages get in your way and how these impact you. Start to unpack where these came from. Looking at my clients, I can see that obviously none of these are true. They are beautiful, lovable, delightful, and capable, and starting to do some deep diving into those by asking good questions, teaching self-compassion, mindfulness, and boundaries, starts to offset those messages.

Even accepting that this is something many of us deal with and being curious about how it comes up for you is helpful. Maybe some people have really secure attachments and lovely childhoods, but that is not the case for many of us. For my clients who come in for addiction, anxiety, or trauma, some of this can get very stuck. It is very unconscious until we start to do a little digging.

I love that you brought up attachment. Even for people who are securely attached. If you’re securely attached, and you can earn secure attachment, if you’re one of the insecure attachment types with work, you can earn secure attachment. I love that. I am raising my hand. We can both raise our hands. Earning a secure attachment gives a sense of joy and accomplishment.

It does not mean that if you have earned secure attachment, it is there for a lifetime. Someone can betray you deeply and create an internal rift. You may fall into insecure attachment. The beauty is that you can do the work to get back to security. We can all do this and keep evolving throughout life. Inner child work and attachment work have a natural fit. If you have an insecure attachment, you have a hurting inner child. If you have a secure attachment, you may still have a slightly hurting inner child or an inner child that wants to come alive more.

It is such a journey. I have a question for you, jumping back to the question of the day. If you would please go more deeply into the impact on a person’s inner child when the parents are aloof and overly critical. That is on one end of the spectrum. Focus on that, then perhaps jump into parents who are equally damaging. Parents who do not hold a child accountable or praise the child overly are trying to do their best. Many parents parent in ways that are not appropriate for their child, though they do not mean to do it. Could you speak to that, please?

Reparenting Yourself: The Path to Empowered Healing

That is a really good point. It is on two ends of a spectrum. Neither is very helpful. On one end, “You have this hypercritical parent who you cannot do anything right. B grades are bad. You could have done better. Did you really apply yourself? You came in third in your swim meet. There is room for improvement.” On the other end of the spectrum, you have the parent who says, “No matter what, you are amazing.” They are hyper-focused on you. Doing good and being good are praised. They praise high achievement.

I used to teach for organizations. I did consulting for companies for about 5 or 6 years. One of the things I taught was imposter syndrome. It was for everybody, but mostly women showed up. I would have many of them split in those two directions. They either had hyper-critical parents or parents who were praising of external achievements.

External validation, rather than an internal locus of control or intrinsic sense of self, can set them up for an inner voice of self-criticism. On one end, you are being criticized, and you internalize that. On the other hand, you are only valuable if you are doing certain things. Neither is very helpful. I tell parents, “How you speak to your kids will become their inner voice. Be very mindful about how you are talking to them. I do parent coaching around language and verbiage.” These hyper-engaged versus disengaged or rigid versus chaotic families can take many structures.

The flexibility and engagement have a lot to do with the messages we get. If you have a super-engaged family that is hyper-focused on you and sometimes enmeshed, you are going to get a lot of attention. It will feel very intense. You will be hyper-aware of other people’s opinions. A disengaged family leaves a vacuum for this want of positive feedback. Neither is great.

Something in the middle is usually ideal. That is the thing that we can give ourselves. When we do the process of reparenting, we can walk that line. We can rectify what we got in childhood that was not appropriate or helpful. We can give the things we need to ourselves now. That is the beauty of inner child work. It is very empowering. It is also not blaming.

It is a statement of fact. I did not get XYZ in childhood. I am going to give those things to myself now. It is a beautiful process to watch. It has a lovely domino effect on people’s lives. Their partners start talking to themselves more kindly, and their relationship improves. It is a lovely journey to watch people go on.

Internalizing the Voice: Affirmations and New Habits

Thank you for slowing down and looking at that with us. I agree. Once you get on the journey and begin to see that inner child, no matter how old you are, the inner child wants to be part of your life and be healed. None of us likes the message that we are not enough. I have worked with many people where a father figure would say, “Everything you touch turns to crap, or you are not a man.” With women, it was often something about their looks that made them feel not enough.

“You are eating too much food. You should not be doing this. Why can’t you be normal?” All these messages show why we would not want to slow down and take a look at those critical messages. If there were a vacuum of positive messages, both would be harmful. We need to be able to slow down. We often rely on other people for positive feedback.

What positive feedback from others and validation is good, we also want to be filling ourselves up with messages. If that unkind voice comes in, we want to be able to identify it. Notice it is there and say, “I no longer believe that I am a piece of crap. I really believe I am a good, wonderful person. I am able to do some self-validation.” Do you find with your clients that people do not get a sense that what they are telling themselves is true at first? It feels very foreign. Is that your experience?

Absolutely. It is the same with anything that feels like an affirmation or is scripted. I do work with couples and teach phrases that can be helpful in conflict, but it often feels odd at first. It feels like putting on a shirt that does not fit. After a while, it becomes second nature. As I was talking about earlier, for myself, having my inner child present, it becomes something that the more you do it, it’s like flexing a muscle. Anything that you practice is going to get easier.

You might find the right language that feels more authentic to you. It is great when you find something that resonates. The more you see it, the more helpful it is. When my husband and I got married, I made Taylor Swift bracelets for our wedding. I got obsessed with that in my ADHD hyper-focus. I have all the materials now.

I make them now for my clients if they have a word or a phrase they want to be reminded of daily. For a lot of us, especially neurodivergent people, it is hard to remember to do this stuff. Having it available to you was the idea behind the app. If it is consistent and daily, it is a supplement to therapy. You are getting these affirmations and reminders of self-compassion or playfulness.

Check in with yourself to see what you need on a regular basis. That can be helpful as a reminder. I see my clients once a week. I always want more time with them to check in. It is not feasible, but I would love to check in midweek and ask, “What have you tried in the last three days since we met? What’s working and what is not?” The bracelets have been really useful for my clients.

Thank you. I really appreciate both the bracelets and the app. In front of me right now is a rock that says peace. When we have a token or a bracelet from loved ones with sweet things on them, they are reminders. Just having that present. I really believe that it is much like audiences, this may resonate with you. Often, we have a song running through our heads. That is very much how some of these internal messages run.

We can have a song like Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World in our head, or we can have a song that is unkind and vicious playing in our mind. I believe that we all have the power to learn a new song. It takes practice. The more you repeat that song, the more familiar it gets. If it sounds like a foreign concept, just think about how easy it is to have a favorite song after you have played it a hundred times. You know the words.

I love that analogy. Things are sticky. They get stuck. You can just as easily get something positive stuck as you can get something negative stuck. You can just as easily go in an upward spiral as a downward one. A lot of it is about the input. Our brains are essentially computers. Whatever you are putting in, you are going to get certain outputs. I have my clients think about what they are surrounding themselves with.

What are the things that are going into their brain? What is in those spaces? What are the people around them like? What messages and habits are picked up from peers or loved ones? Most people choose good people to be around. Many things influence us. The more you can put positive things in place to change the soundtrack in your head, the better chance you have of attacking this from different directions.

Breaking the Generational Transmission of Patterns

I know we have to start winding up. When we look at the issue of the day about what the audience is asking about, and you did touch on it, I just want a tiny bit more emphasis, please. The couple or at least the individual, wrote in considering having a child, or they want to have a child. I love how you said that the way the parents talk to the child is the voice the child will internalize. That can be an absent voice, like the parent not paying attention. The child likes, “Who am I? I guess I’m not worth anything. There’s nobody there.”

It can be like this. The audience has a critical voice. I really think that it’s a lovely piece just to touch on one more time. If this person is worried about the transmission of patterns from another generation. That tip alone is really helpful. Do you have any other thoughts on that piece other than, “If you’re watching how you talk to your child, kindly, gently, honestly having boundaries with them, teaching them healthy from unhealthy, that thing with kindness and respect.” Anything else, Dr. Katy?

It’s a really intelligent question and thing to be aware of. We were talking in the very beginning about different phases of life when we were introducing inner children and inner child work. Parenting is definitely a very distinct phase of life. I get a lot of folks who come in, either who are about to have kids or who do have young kids who are noticing these patterns coming up or having difficulty in the moment, not doing the thing that they may have learned from their families, and don’t want to repeat again.

It’s a really smart thing to be aware of. Does this serve me? Do I want to repeat this in my own family? If not, you have a tremendous amount of control over that. You’re getting like a double whammy. You get to heal yourself, and you get to do this thing for the next generation. It’s really unfair when I work with parents, you get this thing, “How do you want this to be for your kids?” You’re doing this for you, and you’re doing it for them.

It’s a lot of changing, I think, the self-talk. Focusing on self-compassion in whatever way, shape, or form that comes. You can think about how you would speak to your friend. You could think about how you would speak to your child. You can think about doing some work around imagining your inner child and what that little girl or little boy person looks like, and speaking to them in a more Gestalt way.

Practicing that so it becomes very, I don’t want to say second nature again, but a little bit easier to do that or to incorporate that. Even if your first instinct is to maybe criticize yourself or someone else, it still gives you this other option. You can stop and be like, “Wait, I know something else exists now, too.” Practicing that daily, having a task or an affirmation or a journal entry or some reflective question that helps you get in touch with that on a very consistent basis is the key. The small, consistent actions within our child work are really key, I found.

There are also different ways to approach it. If you don’t like everything, I think it can be done through talk therapy. Art therapy. I’ve had people draw their inner child, like what room or space, like you asked me, “Where is it? What is she doing? Where was she hiding? What does that look like? What is the room that you want your inner child to look like? What was what were all the things going on in her child’s world that made life hard?”

I happened to have these here. I didn’t even pull these on purpose, but there’s really good poetry in inner child work. Jessica Jocelyn is one, this one’s called Paper Flowers. Really good. There’s another author I’ll try to find the name of for your audience, too, so maybe we could insert it. There’s poetry that speaks to this, that gets at it at a different level than just talking about it.

It’s a very evocative sand tray, like all sorts of different approaches to attack this from different directions. Your brain is getting this in different forms. What I like to do with my clients is just throw a bunch of stuff against the wall and see what works because everyone’s so different. Hopefully, one of these things will work.

I love that because we see our clients, if we’re lucky, for an hour and 50 minutes a week, and then they’re out in the world for all of those remaining hours. Having practices that allow the work to become more like a snowball that’s gaining more and more momentum. That’s the nature of life, of what we do, Hebb’s law, neurons that fire together, wire together. We want to be doing more of that good stuff that keeps them firing in the areas where we want the firing. Dr. Katy, it has been such a pleasure and joy to have you with us. Any other wrap-up pieces?

No, I would say if this stuff interests you, like there are lots of free, just available, interesting things online. I do a lot of shadow work with my clients. There are a lot of journals. On Pinterest, you can get journal prompts. You can do art therapy projects that you can find for this. There’s so much out there that is totally free and available. If it feels like it’s affecting your quality of life, then I would talk to someone for sure. If you want just an introduction and a sneak peek into it, I would just poke around, read a blog, see if it resonates, do some art around it, do a journal entry or two, a book, and just see kind of where it goes from there.

The Psychology of Technology and Ethical Direction

I love the way that you drew it to a close because it is very playful, very inviting, and very much how that inner child in us responds, because we all have them, whether we want to access them or not. Our inner kiddo tends to be pretty curious and interested in things, especially if we allow it, and really wants to heal and heal deeply.

Thank you so much, Dr. Katy. It has been, again, just such a joy and a pleasure. I also know I wanted to find a way to talk about it, and you have this incredible book. Could you talk just for a moment, just because I’ll have to have you back to talk about that, because it sounds fascinating. Could you talk for just a moment about your book?

It’s getting old now. It came out in 2019. When I lived in London, I was doing my second master’s and my PhD. I ran a nonprofit called the Center for Technology Awareness. It was when I started noticing a bunch of what I would call negative impacts of technology just across the board, like distraction, jobs changing, potential environmental impacts, and things like that.

I got really curious about it, opened this nonprofit, ran it until I left London about nine years ago. It really took on a life of its own. I had all these webinars and educational projects and things in the UK. I had all this research when I left, and I thought you knew what I should do with that. I wrote a book and put it all in there, and it is called the Psychology of Silicon Valley.

I’m going to try to remember now, hold on to ethical threats and emotional and intellectual in the tech industry, and it’s about how the tech industry could use more emotional intelligence, more creative types, more humanities types to help steer it in a more ethical direction. This is even more true now than it was then.

The rise of AI and all the new stuff we’re dealing with now. A second edition would probably be useful, but it really looks at a lot of the mental health effects, the social effects, the political effects, and antidotes to all of those. It was a real fun thing to write, and I love writing books. I will write forever, but yeah, it was a good one.

Thank you for touching on it. Audience, please do not worry if you don’t have a pen handy, or if you’re driving, links to Dr. Katy’s work will be in the show notes, easy to find her, easy to find her app, easy to find her website. It has again been such a pleasure, Dr. Katy. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you so much. It was so lovely to be with you.

To our audience. Thank you, as always, for joining us. It is always my pleasure, my honor, and my privilege. This is Dr. Carla Marie Manley and imperfect love.

Important Links

• Dr. Katy Cook
• Dr. Katy Cook on Instagram
• Dr. Katy Cook on Facebook
• Inner Child
• Psychology Silicon Valley
• Inner Child Care
• Mental Health and Relationships
• NAMI Helpline
• Dr. Carla Manly’s Website
• Dr. Carla Manly on Instagram
• Dr. Carla Manly on X
• Dr. Carla Manly on Facebook
• Dr. Carla Manly on LinkedIn
• Dr. Carla Manly on YouTube
• Dr. Carla Manly on TikTok

About Dr. Katy Cook

Dr. Katy Cook is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and owner of Katy Cook Counseling. She specializes in working with adults, couples, and teens around issues ranging from trauma and addiction, to anxiety and neurodivergence. Katy has an M.A. in Counseling Psychology, an MA in Modern Culture Studies, and a PhD in Clinical, Educational & Health Psychology, and author of The Psychology of Silicon Valley: Ethical Threats and Emotional Unintelligence in the Tech Industry. She is also the co-founder of the Inner Child Care app, designed to help people get to know and heal their inner child.