Inner Child
The part of you still operating from how you felt at five, eight, twelve — and the focus of much modern therapy.
Origin
The idea threads through Jung (who wrote about a 'divine child' archetype) and Eric Berne's transactional analysis (the 'Child' ego state, 1960s), but it became a pop-psychology staple through John Bradshaw's Homecoming (1990), which sold millions on the premise that healing the wounded inner child resolves adult patterns. Modern frameworks like [[internal-family-systems]] and somatic therapies have given the concept a more rigorous scaffolding under the term 'parts work.'
Modern usage
Mainstream therapy talk. 'My inner child needs that' is now a normal explanation for buying yourself a stuffed animal at thirty-four. The term 'inner child work' or [[reparenting]] describes the practice of consciously offering yourself what you didn't receive as a kid. The TikTok therapy ecosystem runs on this vocabulary.
In the wild
I bought the bouncy castle for my inner child, not the party.— common usage
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