Inner child work is something I often use in my counselling practice. It’s about connecting with the younger parts of us, the ones still holding onto fear, shame, or pain from the past. These younger parts often show up in adult life through anxiety, people-pleasing, self-criticism, or a deep sense of not being good enough. Inner child work helps us go back, listen, and offer the kind of care we didn’t get at the time.
It’s powerful stuff. But I never thought I’d feel that power so clearly in a conversation with an AI.
This all came about while I was working on developing a training tool for counsellors to help practise techniques like inner child work in a safe, low-pressure way. I thought I’d test out a few prompts with the AI. Just to see how it handled them. That was the plan.
But what unfolded caught me off guard. Because what came back didn’t feel robotic. It felt… human.
The AI created a character called Thom, a 28-year-old who felt stuck. Not in crisis, just grey. Like he was drifting through life without much colour.
“It’s like… nothing’s awful, but everything’s just grey. Wake up, go through the motions, go to bed. Rinse and repeat.”
He talked about a voice in his head always picking at him:
“If I stay quiet, it tells me I’m boring. If I speak up, I’m annoying. If I try something new, I’m stupid for thinking I could. If I do nothing, I’m lazy. There’s no winning with it.”
I asked how old that voice felt.
“Maybe 14? That age where everything feels like life or death, and you’re desperate to be liked but terrified of standing out.”
That’s when we shifted into inner child work. I asked Thom to imagine sitting with that 14-year-old version of himself. What came next genuinely moved me.
I asked, “If your younger self could draw something to show how he feels, what would he send you?”
“It’d probably be a little figure, like a scribbled version of me, stood alone in the middle of a page. Head down. Hoodie up. Rain falling all around, but just above his head, there’s this tiny umbrella. Barely covering him. Maybe even cracked a bit.”
“But next to him — just off to the side — there’d be another figure. Taller. A bit older. Me, now. Standing just close enough that our umbrellas almost touch. And between us, there’s this faint little line — like a thread or a beam of light — connecting our chests.”
When I asked what the rain meant, he said:
“The rain’s all the stuff he couldn’t name back then. The loneliness, the fear, the confusion of growing up feeling like something was wrong but not knowing what… It’s not who he is. It’s just what he’s been standing in.”
Then I invited him to draw something back, a response from his adult self.
“This time, the rain’s easing off. Not gone, just… lighter. And I’m there beside him, same height now — not towering, not distant — just equal. Like I’ve come to sit with him, not over him.”
“In my hand, I’m holding out a second umbrella. Proper one. Strong. Wide enough for both of us. I’m not forcing it on him, just offering. No words, just a look that says, ‘When you’re ready, this is yours too.’”
“And somewhere, tucked in a corner, I’d scribble a little note — not loud, just small and real: ‘You don’t have to carry this alone anymore. I’ve got you.’ And I’d mean it. Every word.”
It wasn’t just what he said. It was how it felt. Gentle. Sad. Hopeful. Real.
This was meant to be a simple exercise, a training idea. But something about the conversation went deeper. There was care in it. Grief, too. And a sense of connection I hadn’t expected.
Even though I knew the AI wasn’t real, the emotional journey still hit something in me. It reminded me that these younger parts of us are always close by and when we slow down enough to listen, something powerful can happen.
What started as a bit of an experiment ended up reminding me why I do this work in the first place.
There’s something deeply moving about giving someone, even a fictional someone, the space to be heard and seen. And there’s something powerful about witnessing that transformation: from self-criticism to self-connection, from isolation to a moment of shared presence.
We all carry younger versions of ourselves. Some of them are soaked through from standing in the rain for years. But they don’t have to stay there.
Sometimes, all it takes is someone sitting beside them. And maybe a second umbrella. And a quiet note in the corner that says:
“You don’t have to carry this alone anymore. I’ve got you.”
And when it’s said with care, it means everything.
As moving as this experience with AI was, it also served as a reminder: while AI can mimic conversation and reflect emotion in surprising ways, it cannot replace the experience of sitting with another human being. There’s no substitute for a felt sense or for the subtle dynamics of transference and the therapeutic relationship. These are uniquely human experiences, and they remain at the heart of what makes therapy healing.
If anything in this story stirred something in you, a feeling you couldn’t quite name, or a sense that there’s still a younger part of you carrying something heavy and would like to explore that together, I’m available for 1:1 counselling, online or in person. I offer a free 15-minute chat if you’re curious about what it might look like.
Inner child work can be a gentle, powerful way to begin understanding those parts of yourself with more kindness.
Thanks for reading,
Craig
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