‘Family-Therapy Participants Try to Shed Childhood Anguish’

Re “Family-Therapy Participants Try to Shed Childhood Anguish” (July 14): I would like to offer another viewpoint concerning John Bradshaw and the workshops he gives.

In 1988, I participated in one of John Bradshaw’s inner child workshops. Already 18 years into a recovery process from childhood trauma, which included incest, alcoholic parents and severe physical and emotional abuse, there was still a missing puzzle piece.

A few years before John’s workshop, I had begun to search for my inner child. I longed to make contact with the little girl with blond hair and blue eyes in the picture I carried in my wallet. While still quite small she had learned that the adults in her life couldn’t be trusted.

My attempts to make contact were barred by her well-founded suspicions and doubts. Even though the adult me had healed in great measure, that part of me still longed for a healthy parent. Since this was not really possible from the outside, I would need to learn how to accomplish the process on the inside, to become my own healthy parent.

During John’s workshop I made contact with the child I had been. After several eye-opening processes, we came to a meditation near the end of the workshop. There I encountered myself as a little 5-year-old with beautiful but sad blue eyes standing on the front porch of our family home.

In her arms was a favorite doll. I imagined walking up to her and asking her to come with me, telling her that I would protect and love her. After staring at me for several seconds she took one last look at the place that had been home, then bravely extended her tiny hand to me and together we walked away from all the pain.

From that moment, I began to provide the wounded child of my past the healthy parent that she/I had never had.

John Bradshaw’s workshops are not a “magic button” for healing because there is no magic button, as John would be the first to confirm. For me, however, as part of a comprehensive healing process, this experience was one of the most powerful.

BARBARA OLIVER

Laguna Niguel