Bob Rich’s Self-Therapy Guide: Loving the Inner Monster

In this series, Dr. Bob Rich teaches you how to leave behind depression, anxiety, and other forms of suffering all too common in our crazy world. Recovering the Self published three sections of Bob Rich’s book From Depression to Contentment: A self-therapy guide in a series of posts – the first section ending with the quest for meaning and the second section concluding with The Development of Resilience.

The third section of Bob’s work was marked by special attention to various techniques and practices that are helpful in controlling depression. It concluded with a discussion on values and their implication in therapy. Bob now shares the final section of his self-therapy guide that delves deeper into the practical side of his therapy work illustrating with examples from individual cases of his own patients. In the third post in this section, Processing Trauma, Bob explained how effective therapy handles processing traumatic experiences. Here he takes the readers to meet their inner child, or inner monster for that.

Loving the Inner Monster

Sean, an Australian Aborigine, was one of the worst-traumatized people of my counseling career. He suffered from “Dissociative Identity Disorder,” that is, multiple personalities. He became a street kid at eight, and survived because of superior intelligence, creativity, and courage. But, at 36 years of age, whenever he perceived a situation as involving a threat, his eight-year-old alter took over, and fought for survival. And a savage eight-year-old in a superbly fit, strong 36-year-old body is terrifying.

He was invincible in a fight because he simply ignored injuries until he destroyed his opposition. At first, he brought other people into his sessions with me, he said for my protection. It took six sessions before he started trusting me, a white man, sufficiently that we could start real therapy.

I won’t tell you all the many complicating details of our work together, just the one intervention that was his turning point. In hypnosis, I had him in a rowboat. He, adult, strong, wise Sean, was at the oars. Eight-year-old Sean sat in the back, holding a fishing rod, enjoying himself. He knew he was perfectly safe, because adult Sean was there, IN CHARGE.

Thereafter, whenever circumstances triggered the savage boy, he automatically remembered that the adult is in charge, and can keep the kid safe.

It may have been this experience that gave me a new realization about myself, but probably it had been growing for years before then. The inner voice that kept abusing me and putting me down, the monster of Narrative Therapy, was a very young voice. Oh, it sounded like adult-me talking to myself, but it wasn’t.

It was a very hurting little child. He wasn’t calling ME stupid and useless and unlovable. He was doing that to himself.

What do I always do with people who are hurting? I’m a healer by profession (though retired now), by preference, and even by nature. I give compassion and love, and do my best to help the person to heal.

So, why was I treating this poor little boy as a monster?

“Love the inner child” is a pop-psychology cliché — but it’s based on wisdom.

During those many years of having depression under control, I could bash myself up for weeks before remembering to use my tools. But now, when that inner voice called me a stupid idiot, I remembered that this was a little kid, so I could smilingly let his shouting go. This went on for years, becoming more and more frequent, and more and more easy.

Note that this is still Narrative Therapy. Inner monster, hurting inner child — either way, the abusive comments are not my thoughts, but “externalized.”

The process came to a peak in 2007, long after I’d healed myself, using this and other tools. In order to recover the memories of my childhood, I found a therapist even more senior, and we did age regression hypnosis (what I described for processing trauma).

All my life, I’ve had a distinct memory of being a little toddler, reaching up high to hold the finger of a man next to me. I’d thought that this, my only memory from before five years of age, was of my grandfather, who’d died before I was two.

In hypnosis, my therapist said: “Back. Back to the earliest thing you can remember in this life.” (The odd ending is necessary. There are many recorded cases in which, without it, people experience a past life.)

I’m a tiny boy. I wear warm clothes, a bonnet on my head. My right arm is stretched way up, holding a man’s finger. I see his trousered leg next to me. Oddly, at the same time, I’m looking down at a toddler, who is grasping the middle finger of my left hand. I am me, Bob, 2007 vintage, and my heart is filled with love and pity for this poor little tyke, knowing all the suffering ahead of him. I pick him up, and little-me Robi puts my arms around grandfather Bob’s neck, and both my selves cry.

This was among my most healing experiences, ever. If you’ve gone to a therapist to process trauma, ask for something similar. If not, you can use guided imagery and do it for yourself:

• Ensure you’re safe, comfortable, at ease.
• Relax your body and mind.
• Use your favorite guided imagery induction. (You HAVE done the homework for the Meditation chapter, right?)
• There are hundreds of ways of going back in time. In addition to the magic eagle, you can walk along a corridor with numbered doors; or ride in a train past numbered stations. If you use something like this, make it as vivid as possible, using all the sense-modalities. The numbers refer to your age. Walk through the door, or get off at the station, at the age you want to visit. Or say, “I’ll be where I need to go,” and walk through an imaginary door.
• Then, adult-you can give love to little-kid-you. If you’ve gone deep enough, you might find yourself to be both, like I did.

Homework

I’ve just described it, haven’t I?

– Dr. Bob Rich

• Inner Child
• Inner Monster
• multiple personality