by Nickan Arzpeyma, psychotherapist, Psyche.co

The experiences you had as a child influence your emotional life as an adult. Recognising these dynamics can be healing

Do you find yourself experiencing the same difficult emotions over and again? A sudden anger that feels out of proportion, a fear of rejection or abandonment that overrides reason, or a need for approval that never seems to settle? These reactions can strain relationships between parents and children, siblings or romantic partners, and at times even break families apart. You might be tempted to blame it on stress or challenging circumstances. But beneath these intense emotional reactions, and the conflicts they can trigger, often lies something much older: an inner child who never felt fully seen, safe or loved.

Your inner child is not a literal being inside you. In psychodynamic psychotherapy, it is a metaphor for emotional memories, unfinished experiences and ways of relating to others that were formed in childhood. Object relations theory, developed in the mid-20th century by figures including Melanie Klein, Ronald Fairbairn and Donald Winnicott, proposes that we internalise not only our caregivers themselves, but also how we were treated by them: their warmth or distance, responsiveness or criticism, predictability or unpredictability. A loving parent who was anxious, distracted, emotionally reserved or inconsistently available can still leave a child unsure of when or how comfort will arrive. When experiences of care are mixed with fear or shame, these patterns can be carried forward and replayed in adult relationships. The psyche may then resemble a theatre of unfinished relationships: a parent who could not reliably soothe becomes an inner critical voice, while a younger part that felt unseen remains sensitive to rejection or withdrawal.

Over time, the coping strategies that developed around these early experiences can become fixed. What once helped a child endure emotional difficulty can later restrict intimacy, creativity and flexibility. When these strategies operate outside awareness in adulthood, they often show up as impulsive reactions, emotional volatility or persistent self-criticism.

If you recognise any of these emotional difficulties, this Guide is for you, whether or not you had an obviously difficult childhood. Even people who grew up in caring families can carry unprocessed emotional imprints. These can form, for example, when a child had to grow up quickly because a parent was overwhelmed; when emotions were subtly minimised despite good intentions; or when love was available but conditional on being calm, capable or high achieving. Developmental research has shown how these early relational experiences can shape emotional regulation and patterns of relating, even when they were not registered as traumatic at the time.

Many of us demonise ourselves for these reactions, feeling crushed by guilt or paralysed by shame. But what looks like overreaction is often the body remembering a time when there was no room to feel safely. Working with the idea of an inner child gives us a language for understanding reactions that feel instinctive, disproportionate or confusing, especially when they seem to bypass our logical minds or deliberate intentions. What erupts in these moments is not a flaw or a broken self, but a younger part that once learned to survive through withdrawal, compliance, vigilance or overachievement. What you might experience as an emotional overreaction is often the body’s memory of earlier pain being reactivated, a process well documented in affective neuroscience and trauma research.

Your instinct might be to suppress these reactions, and this can seem to help in the immediate moment. But it often stores up more difficulty for the future. Each time distress is ignored, dismissed or harshly judged, the original experience of emotional abandonment is quietly repeated. Over time, this pattern does more than mute pain. It also erodes qualities associated with emotional vitality, such as curiosity, playfulness, creativity and joy. Life can then become less about experiencing and more about avoiding danger, less about living and more about surviving.

A healthier approach is to understand what is being replayed by getting in touch with your inner child. By bringing early emotional patterns into awareness, the adult nervous system can begin to do what the child version of you could not: pause, reflect and regulate. Healing the inner child is not about sentimentality or indulgence. When the adult self can stay present with younger feelings rather than being overtaken by them, integration becomes possible.

This process involves the integration of what was previously disowned into a fuller, more humane self. We become less driven by perfection, more able to tolerate vulnerability, and more capable of steady connection rather than fear-based relating.

This Guide is intended for anyone who notices that emotional reactions sometimes pull them into patterns that limit closeness, choice or self-understanding. By learning to recognise and relate differently to younger emotional patterns, it becomes possible to respond with awareness rather than automatic reaction, and to restore a capacity for love, connection and freedom in everyday life.

About the author; Nickan Arzpeyma is an accredited psychotherapist who has trained and taught within the NHS. His work draws on relational psychoanalytic thinking and trauma-informed practice. He has published in BACP publications and writes on attachment, emotional development, trauma and psychological change. He lives in London, UK.

Keywords; psychology, healing