-IBIS-1.5.0-
rx
imagery
reparenting
psychospiritual approaches

definition

goals: handle past traumas with present resources; travel back in time and provide the mature insights, strengths, and skills that you lacked as a child; become your own supportive parents.

image: Get a clear picture of yourself at sometime before age five, when you were feeling depressed, anxious, or angry. Lie down, close your eyes, and relax. Go to your outdoor special place. Allow your younger-self (y-self) to enter the scene quietly and stand a few feet from you. Concentrate for a moment on your y-self's clothes, hair, posture, and eyes. Introduce your now-self to your y-self. Say, "I am your future self." Show scars, birthmarks, secrets, to convince your y-self you are indeed from the future. Tell your y-self, "Your doing the best you can in your situation, even though it's not always enough, I know you're doing your best. I want you to know that, too." Then give your y-self whatever special, adult information that would have been useful to have back then. Give your y-self the benefit of your experience. Hug your y-self, or hold hands. Say, "you are ok as a person, just the way you are." Ask this question in your own words: "Since your can't get what you want from your parents, will you accept it from me?" Tell your y-self, "Anytime you need to talk to me, just snap your fingers and close your eyes. You'll come right to this special place and I'll be here." Say goodbye in a way that feels comfortable. Promise to visit often. Reorient yourself to your surroundings and end the session. You'll become closer and closer to your y-self the more you visit.

uses: This is a way of healing old wounds and allowing the more undeveloped parts of the personality to mature and unite with the wiser, older figure. The next step in reparenting is allowing the y-self to age. As time goes by, make friends with and support yourself at age 5, 7, 10, etc. up to the present. Each has its own way of knowing the world and coping with painful emotions. The younger versions of yourself are cut off from and resist the understandings of the older versions. Reparenting visualizations break down these resistances and allow younger traumas to be healed by your older strengths. (Fanning, p. 180)

see :
imagery: rainbow butterfly journey
imagery for anxiety and depression


footnotes