In every adult there lurks a child—an eternal child, something that is always becoming, is never completed, and calls for unceasing care, attention, and education. That is the part of the personality which wants to develop and become whole.―Carl Jung
The Legacy of Inner Child Wounds
Inner child wounds are deep emotional scars we carry into adulthood. They influence our attachment styles, affecting our behaviours, relationships, and self-perception. Attachment styles are rooted in attachment theory, which posits that individuals relate to others based on early childhood experiences. Recognising inner child wounds and the coping mechanisms they create is essential for healing and personal growth.
These wounds often stem from experiences in childhood where our emotional, physical, or security needs weren’t met. They can manifest from clear traumas or subtle moments of neglect, each leaving its mark on our adult selves. Key inner child wounds include:
Abandonment: This wound leads to adults with a deep fear of rejection, a tendency to cling to relationships, and difficulty in forming secure attachments.
Neglect: Results in adults struggling with self-worth, difficulty trusting others, and a tendency to neglect their own needs.
Enmeshment: Causes challenges in establishing a separate identity, leading to difficulties in setting healthy boundaries in relationships.
Invalidation: Adults may struggle to trust their emotions and find it hard to express themselves, often seeking external validation.
Betrayal: Breeds trust issues and a fear of vulnerability in relationships, with adults either avoiding closeness or overcompensating with trust.
Shame: Creates a persistent sense of being flawed, leading to perfectionism, hiding one’s true self, and feelings of being ‘never enough’.
Guilt: Adults may exhibit excessive self-sacrifice, difficulty asserting needs, and a tendency towards self-blame in conflicts.
Conditional Love: Instills chronic feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, with adults constantly striving for external validation to feel valued.
Emotional Abuse: Leaves adults with low self-worth, difficulty asserting themselves, and a fear of conflict, often avoiding confrontation.
Physical Abuse: Can lead to fear of intimacy or aggression and anger management problems.
For a practice exercise, note your inner child wound type(s) from the list above. Take a few moments to think about these wounds, as they represent the roots of what we will focus on throughout this journal.
Attachment Styles
Attachment theory helps us understand how our early childhood relationships shape our attachment styles, influencing how we connect with others throughout life. There are four primary attachment styles: secure, anxious-preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant, and fearful-avoidant.
1. Secure: Individuals with a secure attachment style typically had responsive caregivers, creating a sense of security and trust in relationships. They can form healthy, balanced connections, express emotions openly, and handle conflicts constructively.
2. Anxious-Preoccupied: Stemming from inconsistent caregiving, this attachment style manifests as a fear of abandonment and a constant need for reassurance and validation. Adults with this style may be overly dependent, fear rejection intensely, and struggle with self-worth.
3. Dismissive-Avoidant: Resulting from emotionally distant or neglectful caregiving, this style leads individuals to downplay the importance of relationships, keep an emotional distance, and avoid intimacy to protect themselves from vulnerability.
4. Fearful-Avoidant: Formed in response to abusive or traumatic caregiving, this style combines aspects of both anxious and avoidant styles. Adults may crave closeness but fear intimacy, oscillating between wanting connection and pushing others away.
Understanding one’s attachment style can illuminate how inner child wounds manifest in adult relationships and coping mechanisms. For example, someone with an anxious-preoccupied style may exhibit people-pleasing as a coping mechanism to gain approval and avoid abandonment. Or a person with a dismissive-avoidant style might resort to emotional distancing or detachment when faced with intimacy.
Exploring attachment styles alongside inner child wounds provides a comprehensive view of how childhood experiences influence present behaviours and relationship dynamics. It empowers us to recognise patterns, heal from traumas, and develop healthier ways of relating to ourselves and others. Using attachment theory, we can work on our inner child wounds to establish a secure attachment style, changing our entire perspective on life.
Coping Mechanisms 101
To protect our wounded inner child, we unconsciously develop defence mechanisms. It’s as if the ego can’t handle the truth, so it makes a deal with the unconscious to take care of it. It takes the path of least resistance. This defence, though once needed for survival, becomes maladaptive in adulthood. Self-limiting beliefs hinder growth and happiness in the long term.
The long list of coping mechanisms that follows is not exhaustive by any means, as the mind gets creative when concocting strategies to protect itself. These behaviours can be categorised into groups of more specific applications. For example, selective amnesia is a form of denial. Such behaviours can provide a sense of pleasure or power, so they ingrain themselves more deeply as time passes.
Since they can release dopamine, they are like addictions. They can contribute to mental illness by distorting reality, causing avoidance of emotions, disrupting relationships, inhibiting growth, and warping the sense of identity. They can be acted out consciously or unconsciously, or from somewhere in between.
1. Suppression: Limiting the consideration of specific thoughts, emotions, truths, or perspectives—to assert and maintain control. This tactic encompasses the entire list.
2. Denial: Refusal to accept reality, whether it pertains to past traumas or any challenging situation—to maintain a sense of stability and avoid overwhelming emotions.
3. Manipulation: Controlling situations or people to create a sense of safety, encompassing abusive behaviours like gaslighting and stonewalling—to maintain dominance.
4. Projection: Casting unacceptable thoughts, feelings, or motivations onto others—to deflect personal responsibility and uncomfortable truths.
5. Rationalisation: Explaining away behaviours, thoughts, or feelings that are unacceptable or distressing—to justify actions or relieve guilt and discomfort.
6. Regression: Reverting to earlier, more childlike patterns of behaviour in response to stress or anxiety—for temporary relief and comfort.
7. Repression: The unconscious exclusion of extremely disturbing memories, thoughts, or feelings from conscious awareness—to avoid anxiety, emotional pain, or trauma.
8. Sublimation: Channelling unacceptable impulses or emotions into acceptable outlets, such as sports or artistic creativity—for healthy expression and reduced internal tension.
9. Displacement: Redirecting emotions, especially aggression, from the source towards a less threatening target—to relieve tension and avoid direct confrontation.
10. Reaction Formation: Adopting behaviours, thoughts, or feelings opposite to one’s genuine desires or impulses—to manage internal conflicts and present a socially acceptable facade.
11. Undoing: Attempting to reverse actions, thoughts, or feelings viewed as unacceptable or guilt-provoking—to relieve guilt and restore a sense of moral integrity.
12. Entitlement: Expecting others to cater to one’s emotional needs or desires without reciprocity or consideration—to assert dominance through emotional leverage.
13. Blame-Shifting: Holding others responsible for negative outcomes or conflicts without acknowledging personal accountability—to preserve self-image and avoid guilt.
14. Oversimplification: Viewing the world in absolutes, neglecting essential details or contexts, as a simpler all-or-nothing way to process complexity—to avoid uncertainty and ambiguity. Also known as splitting.
15. Intellectualisation: Processing emotions or experiences through intellectual analysis and detachment, avoiding emotional engagement—to cope with distress.
16. Ad Hominem: Shifting the focus of an argument from its substance to the character of the individual making the argument—to invalidate their position.
17. Self-Sabotage: Engaging in behaviours that undermine personal success—to avoid the fear of failure or confirm deeply held negative beliefs about oneself.
18. Nit-Picking: Excessively focusing on minor details to cut a thing, idea, or person down, often to the detriment of the big picture—to maintain a sense of control or superiority.
19. Perfectionism: Idolising flawlessness to feel valued, seeking external validation to quell insecurities, often to the point of obsession—to defend against criticism and insecurity.
20. Grandiosity: Fantasising about the unimaginable success one deserves, temporarily filling a psychological void—to soothe feelings of inadequacy and get a dopamine rush.
21. Overgratification: Using indulgence, such as excessive eating, shopping, or entertainment binging—to escape uncomfortable feelings or situations temporarily.
22. Histrionics: A pattern of excessive emotionality, attention-seeking tendencies, and dramatic displays aimed at capturing the spotlight or eliciting strong reactions—to feel powerful.
23. Authoritarianism: Manipulating the flow of information or making flimsy judgements to support a certain narrative or control others’ perceptions—to maintain power dynamics.
24. Rewriting History: Distorting timelines or historical facts to suit personal narratives or justify past actions—often to evade accountability or get sympathy.
25. Nostalgia Bias: Romanticising experiences or relationships, attributing more positive qualities to them than reality warrants—to cope with current dissatisfaction or uncertainty.
26. Selective Amnesia: Ignoring specific situations that are uncomfortable or inconvenient—to maintain a skewed narrative and avoid unpleasant truths or memories.
27. Pity-Partying: Exploiting others’ sympathy by feigning injury or hardship—to gain favours or advantages and feel special.
28. Avoidance: Evading situations or topics that cause anxiety or discomfort, missing opportunities for growth or resolution—to maintain a sense of safety or control.
29. Escapism: Diving into distractions like excessive gaming, substance use, or daydreaming to avoid unpleasant emotions—to temporarily relieve stress or dissatisfaction.
30. Fantasising: Creating idealised versions of people or situations, ignoring flaws or red flags—to escape from dissatisfaction or disappointment in reality.
31. Ego-Tripping: Idealising oneself based on desired traits, accomplishments, or behaviours while ignoring conflicting realities—to cope with insecurities or maintain self-worth.
32. People-Pleasing: A drive to meet others’ needs, often at the cost of our own, rooted in a fear of rejection, seeking external validation—to compensate for low self-esteem.
33. Savior Complex: Seeking validation by constantly solving others’ problems, sometimes to the detriment of both parties—to mask underlying insecurities or feelings of inadequacy.
34. Catastrophising: Predicting exaggeratedly negative outcomes, consequences, or implications from events or decisions—to inspire anxiety or irrational reactions.
35. False Humility: Downplaying achievements or strengths excessively, often to cover up egregious flaws by highlighting harmless ones—to appear modest while seeking recognition.
36. Overcompensation: Exaggerating or overdoing behaviours to compensate for perceived inadequacies or weaknesses—to mask insecurities or get acceptance.
37.Comparison: Evaluating one’s worth based on comparisons with others, leading to feelings of superiority or inferiority and influencing behaviours—to manipulate oneself or others.
38. Ethics-Bombing: Making bold judgements of character based on assumptions and limited perspectives, without genuine empathy or analysis—to assert moral superiority.
39. Armchair Empathy: Presuming to understand and feel others’ emotions without sufficient knowledge or context—to maintain control over narratives and appear caring.
40. Gaslighting: Manipulating someone’s perception of reality through denial, misdirection, or contradiction, causing them to doubt their own experiences or sanity—to maintain a web of lies and go on a twisted power trip.
41. False Consensus: Assuming that others share our beliefs, attitudes, or experiences to justify our own perspectives—to avoid discomfort from differing opinions.
42. Fair-Weather Friendship: Engaging in interactions or relationships for personal gain, viewing others as a means to an end—to exploit resources, emotions, or opportunities.
43. Strategic Favors: Offering help or support with hidden strings attached, expecting compliance in return—to ensure dependence or indebtedness for future manipulation.
44. Slave-Mastery: Conditioning others to comply with one’s desires through indebtedness, imposing constant demands for service—to bask in a sense of superiority and avoid work.
45. Ingratiation: Using flattery or charm to gain approval from others, often at the expense of authenticity—to establish control, influence, or access to resources.
46. Love-Bombing: Overwhelming someone with displays of affection and attention, creating a sense of obligation and gratitude—to gain their trust and manipulate their emotions.
47. Hate-Bombing: Having prolonged, vitriolic tirades expressing animosity towards individuals, groups, or concepts for the sheer thrill of it—to validate prejudices and incite disgust.
48. Sadism: Schadenfreude, deriving satisfaction or pleasure from inflicting pain, suffering, or humiliation on others—to feel superior and reinforce a self-image built on fear.
49. The Cold Stare: Employing a prolonged, icy gaze toward others, asserting dominance and control without so much as a word—to instil fear, guilt, or insecurity.
50. Silent Condemnation: Staring blankly while someone speaks, exuding judgement and impatience, waiting for them to finish—to disrupt the speaker’s concentration.
51. Conversation Monopoly: Using tactics to dominate conversations, such as constantly redirecting the focus back to oneself—to overshadow others’ perspectives.
52. Trivialising: Belittling the significance of emotions, experiences, or accomplishments—to dismiss concerns, undermine others’ feelings or achievements, and maintain superiority.
53. Joke-Juking: Making a sarcastic or cutting joke to belittle the topic and change the subject when threatened—to deflect attention from personal shortcomings or insecurities.
54. Ad Hocking: Making up spontaneous auxiliary explanations to justify behaviours, thoughts, or feelings—to avoid immediate accountability, shame, or guilt. Also known as B-S-ing.
55. Spiritual Bypassing: Using spiritual beliefs to avoid dealing with issues, seeking quick resolutions or escapes—to maintain a sense of security or righteousness.
56. Bypassing Spirituality: Asserting spiritual experiences are impossible because they require unrealistic situations or death—to dismiss spirituality and feel superior.
57. Solipsistic Godhood: Believing that one’s own views alone are valid, disregarding others’ perspectives or feelings—to manipulate others into serving one’s version of reality.
58. Affection Deprivation: A pattern of withholding acceptance or affection while consistently criticising the efforts or tastes of others—to assert superiority and maintain dependency.
59. Sanity Erosion: Gradually diminishing someone’s sense of self-worth through subtle criticisms, dismissive gestures, or backhanded compliments—to maintain control and superiority.
60. Emotional Blackmail: Guilt-tripping or using something against someone to coerce or manipulate them—to exploit their emotions for personal gain or control.
61. Psychic Vampirism: Draining others emotionally through constant neediness, drama, or manipulation—to feed off their energy and fill an emotional and psychological void.
62. Passive-Aggression: Indirectly expressing hostility or resentment through disguised behaviours—to avoid accountability and maintain control while manipulating.
63. Playing the Victim: Acting out a perpetual victim role, blaming external factors or others for personal challenges or failures—to avoid responsibility and get sympathy.
64. Malicious Defamation: Spreading false or hurtful information about others, such as exploiting their traumas —to damage them and feel superior.
65. Emotional Terrorism: Using intense emotional outbursts, threats, or manipulation—to dominate others’ behaviours or decisions by instilling fear.
66. Withdrawal: Suppressing or withholding emotions, refusing to share vulnerabilities or genuine feelings—to maintain a facade of strength or control.
67. Stonewalling: Refusing to engage in communication during conflicts—to avoid accountability, manipulate power dynamics, or silence opposing viewpoints.
68. Intrusion: Violating personal boundaries, disregarding consent or established limits—to exert control, induce discomfort, or create dependency through forced proximity.
69. Order-Lording: Fixating on recognising patterns in behaviours, events, or relationships, often leading to over-analysis or shallow delusions—to establish a false sense of predictability and control.
70. Loopholing: Exploiting technicalities, ambiguities, or oversights—to gain advantages, avoid responsibilities, achieve personal goals, or rip someone off.
71. Mirroring: Mimicking others’ behaviours, preferences, or beliefs to gain trust or admiration—to exploit vulnerabilities or elicit desired responses.
72. Baiting: Deliberately provoking emotional reactions from others to elicit specific responses or manipulate situations—to make them look crazy or for sadistic amusement.
73. Triangulation: Bringing a third party into an interaction to manipulate perceptions or control emotions—to shift blame, create jealousy, or exert power dynamics.
74. Echo-Chambering: Only associating with those who share similar beliefs, avoiding differing perspectives—to reinforce certainty and validation.
75. Micro-Marginalisation: Using micro-aggressions or exclusions to demean others based on their beliefs or traits—to assert dominance and superiority.
76. Scapegoating: Blaming individuals for collective failures, conflicts, or challenges—to preserve group cohesion, power dynamics, or individual reputations.
77. Isolation: Strategically cutting off a person from their friends, family, or other potential sources of validation—to establish an environment for deeper manipulation and control.
78. Loyalty Sabotage: Habitually criticising one’s loved ones, friends, or colleagues—to warp perceptions hypnotically, undermine relationships, and still fear, guilt, and shame into someone.
79. Codependence: A collaborative effort to alter self-perceptions, distort personal truths, and fabricate alternate realities within families—to maintain control and an illusion of harmony.
80. Valence-Shifting: Involuntarily mimicking the language, tone, or behaviours of an abuser or authority figure—to manage conflict using a dominant voice from your past.
81. Random Affection: Providing positive reinforcement at inconsistent times to maintain dependence—to create uncertainty and keep the victim on their toes.
82. Selective Validation: Offering manipulative recognition, like moving the goal post to imply the victim’s inferiority— to confuse, frustrate, and make them feel inadequate.
83. Nonverbal Intimidation: Using gestures or physical presence to instil fear, assert dominance, or manipulate emotions—to subdue others without verbal confrontation.
84. Semantic Obfuscation: Deliberately using ambiguous language or convoluted explanations—to appear knowledgeable, confuse others, and evade accountability.
85. Language Decimation: Dissecting a person’s choice of words, like pretending not to understand the pronouns they are talking about—to create confusion, doubt, and a sense of incompetence.
86. Time-Warping: Distorting perceptions of time or deadlines to create urgency or delay consequences—to manipulate situations to one’s advantage.
87. Hoovering: Engaging in intermittent acts of kindness, apologies, or affection after periods of abuse—to lure victims back into the cycle of manipulation, maintain control, or relieve guilt.
88. Dissociation: Mentally detaching from oneself—to cope with trauma or overwhelming situations by creating a psychological distance from reality. It’s like a trauma-induced out-of-body experience.
89. Trauma-Triggering: Deliberately exposing someone to triggers of their past traumas, causing emotional distress—to sadistically instill fear or a sense of control.
90. Narrative-Juggling: Shifting personal narratives or stories frequently to suit different audiences or goals—to create an appearance of consistency and avoid scrutiny.
91. Paradoxing: Having contradictions within one’s belief system for selective acceptance of information—to reinforce narratives and dismiss contradictory evidence.
92. Echoing Dissonance: Repeating lies, contradictory statements, or beliefs confidently: a gaslighting tactic—to sow confusion or doubt into others’ perceptions.
93. Brute-Forcing: Imposing incessant monologues to implant toxic thoughts and ideals, creating an unconscious clone within someone—to perpetuate misery in others. A form of entrainment and introjection: methods of colonising a person’s psyche.
94. Dream Dictatorship: Controlling self-perception and aspirations from youth, linking worth to impossible goals through reinforcement and belittlement—to secure total allegiance. This is often a burden of the ‘golden child’.
95. Narrative-Hijacking: Appropriating others’ stories or experiences—to serve personal agendas, distorting realities for personal gain or validation.
96. Scientific Justification: Leveraging concepts such as genetics to justify abuse, exploiting perceived authority— to manipulate perceptions and invalidate experiences.
97. Evidential Gatekeeping: Demanding unrealistic or insulting levels of evidence to validate experiences, setting arbitrary standards—to dismiss others and maintain disbelief.
98. Intellectual Supremacy: Dismissing information, insights, or expertise from perceived inferiors—to satisfy the need to feel superior or special.
99. Global Defense: Grandiosely changing the focus from a specific topic to broader societal problems or global issues—to evade accountability or uncomfortable conversations.
100. Work-Shirking: Justifying the avoidance of responsibilities or challenges with made-up excuses and loopholes—to mask insecurities and avoid labor.
101. Ignoramus Alibi: Feigning innocence regarding harmful behaviour, deflecting responsibility by claiming lack of knowledge or intention—to avoid guilt or repercussions.
As you can see, this list of manipulation methods could go on forever. This is the legion of demons we are up against. They often work together in teams to distort reality, such as in the DARVO method (deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender). Manipulators tailor their manipulations to fit any circumstance. And we must keep a vigilant eye on our own thoughts, as self-manipulation often appears to be the easiest solution.
Mindfulness, the state of observing our own awareness, shares similar ground with sentience, which assumes an awareness of one’s own awareness. Practising mindfulness is an excellent way to avoid unconsciously manipulating ourselves. There are many things we can do, such as yoga and meditation, to cultivate mindfulness.
As Carl Jung suggested, we can understand how other people operate by understanding our own darkness. Coping mechanisms represent the shadow’s henchmen at work. By understanding them, we protect ourselves from abusers—and our own manipulative tendencies.
Lastly, coping mechanisms are not all bad. Some can be fun to act out in playful or artistic settings, as long as we avoid truly manipulating ourselves or others. Awareness is the key. Defence mechanisms can be positive, too. We can instill new ones to empower us as we eliminate those that control us. Examples of mindful coping mechanisms include enforcing boundaries, deep breathing techniques, present-moment awareness, constructive problem-solving, and active listening. Also, try reversing the meanings of the suppressive coping mechanisms to think of empowering versions.
For a practice exercise, make up five new ways to manipulate oneself or others. Draw on personal experience, thinking about ways you’ve been duped or manipulated someone else.
For further practice, write down three specific times you’ve been manipulated by others, and then note the numbers of each of the coping mechanisms from the above list that match up with this behaviour. Then write three times you’ve manipulated others, also noting the numbers of each of the coping mechanisms above that match. Then write three ways you’ve manipulated yourself, noting any matching numbers or patterns.
You can also categorise the list if you’re up for the challenge.
Finally, for an amusing exercise, rename some of the manipulation tactics on the list. Make up funny names to call them. This helps you reframe the way you think of these actions and those who do these things. It elevates self-confidence.
The Path of Healing
Healing requires acknowledging these wounds and understanding the defence mechanisms we’ve relied on. It takes compassion, patience, and the resilience to revisit sharply painful memories.
1. Identifying the Wounds: Begin by exploring childhood experiences to uncover the root of your wounds. Practices like meditation, journalling, therapy, prayer, and mindful reflection can facilitate this.
2. Understanding Your Coping Mechanisms: Recognise the protective strategies your mind has developed and assess how they’re limiting your present and future.
3. Reparenting Your Inner Child: ‘Be the person you needed when you were going through tough times,’ as Ayesha Siddiqi put it. Offer yourself what you lacked growing up. This involves healthy boundaries, fun activities, and imparting hindsight’s wisdom.
4. Seeking Professional Support: A therapist or counsellor can offer invaluable guidance and support, providing a structured approach to your path of healing. Healing the inner child is a process of self-discovery and learning to love ourselves. It enables us to move beyond our past, engage mindfully in the present, and create a future free from the constraints of childhood traumas. This leads to deeper, more meaningful relationships, a solidified sense of self, and a more fulfilling life.
