Founder and former Director of Holistic and Integrative Healing LLC
March 23, 2026
One does not need to study psychology or learn about all the personality theories to effectively heal. That truth is, in large part, credited to brain rewiring techniques effectively utilized by present day mental health providers who are licensed and certified in emotional freedom techniques (EFT) and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). A book entitled The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk M.D. an essential resource for the healing adult. But the patient in need of healing from childhood trauma doesn’t even necessarily require EFT or EMDR.
Professional mental health providers are well versed in personality constructs by philosophers and psychiatrists including but not limited to Freud, Berne, Jung, Erikson, and Maslow. These individuals posited the id, ego, superego (Freud); parent, child, adult (Berne), both of whom offered ideas that have helped guide the healing journey of present-day trauma survivors. Dream analysis (Jung), stages of development (Erikson), self-actualization (Maslow), and the list goes on, have contributed to our understanding of how and when the developing personality becomes arrested or empowered.
Healing from childhood trauma is not a sprint; it’s a marathon. The first step is understanding that the inner child, especially one from whom Toyland was stolen, hears and processes information only from the inner adult. The key is to remain alert to the signals when one’s inner child is craving attention from one’s inner adult. To be clear, left unattended, the child will take over.
What are a few common signals? Sabotaging love and joy, hijacking conversations, and sucking the air out of the room; essentially, pushing others away indicate the inner child needs guidance from the inner adult. Full recovery to thriver in one’s own lifetime is possible. The earlier one begins the healing journey, the faster the healing process. Success begins with recognition that one from whom childhood was stolen has an inner adult unprepared for the challenge. This essay will attempt to offer a few tools to help navigate the effort to prepare the inner adult for a life of satisfaction and emotional fulfillment. For one who is motivated, it is never too late to heal.
I’ve personally witnessed the journey of 55-year-old with childhood amnesia from victim to thriver. It took over a decade. At 68 this individual began to thrive. Laughter, love, joy, and comfort were nourished by perspective and self-acceptance. The desire for these drove this individual’s ability to accept responsibility for self-generated lies, excuses, denial, and internal games of relationship sabotage and energy-sucking behavior. These all dissolved.
Would it surprise you to learn that the healing journey of a 93-year-old from victim to survivor, then thriver, made the final years on this planet a gift of love and celebration for the entire family? Though childhood amnesia was maintained, this patient was able to stop pushing away family members.
Steps taken: in addition to posture correction (practiced under the supervision of a wellness professional) which helped this individual stand up taller, self-care was mastered. This particular thriver began to perform long neglected oral hygiene (turning the tongue from hairy black to youthful pink) – skills never taught during childhood. A heartfelt desire to correct a lifetime of mis-steps motivated this extraordinary individual to learn how to truly listen with mind and heart without hijacking conversations. Where there is life there is hope.
If you are caring for and/or simply have an aging relative who is fully oriented, living with childhood amnesia and/or is a survivor of childhood trauma with or without that memory, you likely feel the air sucked out of the room on more occasions than you wish to count. That is difficult. I know the feeling. Here is what you need to know about what that person desperately needs:
- · Gentle boundaries, guidance, and encouragement
- · Posture correction to sit straighter and stand taller with chest forward and head up
- · Small self-care tasks to build self-respect and self-love
Remain aware of this fact: toddlers raised in an emotionally supportive environment learn to take pride in themselves during potty training. They develop a sense of control and self-esteem at bidding their first true creations farewell (flushing poops and pee from the potty down the toilet and waving good-bye). Childhood is an opportunity to have one’s grade school artwork appreciated as it is displayed on the refrigerator. This builds a sense of self-respect and personal pride. Children have small successes when they lose their baby teeth, learn to effectively brush their teeth, tie their shoes, and the list of small challenges and triumphs build. This contributes to the personality part of their Personality CV throughout childhood.
A robust Personality CV is the key to emotional success later in life. Half the CV is populated under the category of Emotional Growth. The other, under The Ability to Self Support. The Emotional Growth category is generated by events and the thoughts as well as feelings experienced during the first 6 years of life. The Ability to Self Support is generated by power, prestige, networking, and fortune amassed.
Emotional Growth (EG): worthy mentors (guardians of the developing child) enrich the EG category by providing emotional and physical support, and an environment filled with genuine care, empathy, understanding, and guidance. The early years, if properly handled, set the stage for a life of positive energy by stimulating the child’s ability to generate and embrace laughter, love, joy, appreciation, and gratitude. But what if those experiences were stolen?
Imagine what happens to a person for whom that stage of development was never enriched? Childhood trauma including but not limited to abuse (physical and emotional), neglect, and/or sexual trauma each and all in their own way completely steal that stage of development. This robs the person of that essential part of their Personality CV.
The very skilled and lucky among those survivors go on to fill their Personality CV with all they can control: academic and financial achievement. This populates the category “Ability to Self-Support”. That is one’s professional resume which is only half of the Personality CV. In other words, with a robust financial and professional resume, they have only one half of the Personality CV effectively populated.
The task before any survivor of a stolen childhood is to begin at the beginning; that is, to build the emotional self.
- ·Earn self-trust by keeping promises made to oneself
- Deliver self-care by engaging in
- personal hygiene and pampering, posture improvement
- self-rewards for successful achievement of small, reasonable goals
If you are related to a survivor and interested in building or repairing the relationship that they sabotaged, you know where to begin; specifically, encouraging them to build their inner self by offering to them small, reasonable goals. Praise and encourage them, without patronizing, but similar to the way in which you would a child upon successful completion. Once on the path to healing, the journey grows into an ability to shower oneself and others with the compassion, positive energy, and support we all deserve.
Here’s to wellness, grace, gratitude, and success along your sacred journey. ~ Dr. Iankowitz
Dr. Nancy Iankowitz DNP, RN, FNP 