The Inner Child Workbook: What to do with your past when it just won't go away

This book is a powerful guide for healing unresolved childhood wounds. Cathryn Taylor takes you step-by-step through a gentle but transformative process to reconnect with your inner child, release old pain, and finally reclaim the parts of yourself that were lost or hurt along the way. I especially loved how structured and practical it is. Cathryn uses a six-step process for each stage of childhood, which makes it easy to follow and revisit. She combines psychology, self-reflection, and even spiritual practices like visualization and rituals, making the experience feel deeply personal and holistic. I also purchased the audio book. Listening on Audible was a bonus — it felt like having a therapist or compassionate guide walk me through each exercise. I found myself pausing often to journal or reflect, which made the work even more impactful. A couple of things to note: this isn’t a quick, surface-level listen. It dives deep, and at times, it can bring up strong emotions. If you’ve experienced trauma, you may want to go slowly and have support as you move through it. Overall, this audiobook is life-changing if you’re ready to do the work. It helped me understand my past, release old pain, and truly begin to reparent my inner child with love and compassion. Highly recommended for anyone seeking deeper emotional healing, growth, and self-understanding.

I’ve just started this book but so far I’m impressed. I’ve read the first couple of chapters and done three of the activities. It has a diverse approach that includes the intellectual, but also the emotional. You have the opportunity to think about your inner child, but also to interact with your inner child. That means their areas of meditation and even speaking to your inner child in a mirror. These are the sort of things that make me a little bit uncomfortable, which tells me they’re probably the sort of things that are exactly what I need. Unlike another similar book, this one is free of any religious judgment. It’s rooted in rock solid science, though please note that it was written quite some time ago. I’m not finding that to be a limitation, but it’s something you might consider.

Opening the pages of this book marked the start of a journey towards self-discovery. I diligently did the exercises as they were presented in the book and made time every day to do the work it asked for. I found the checklists to be simple and quick to do, but very insightful. Many of the characteristics and behavior patterns listed were ones that I engage in. One of the most intense exercises in this book was "Step Five: Grieving Your Infant Self's Pain." I had no idea my inner infant was in so much pain until I gave her permission to express it in a safe way. This pain came out as rage expressed through pounding and yelling, and doing art work as suggested in the exercise. It was very intense and very exhausting. When I was done, I burned the pages as the author suggests. What a wonderful and renewing experience. I did the same work for the grade-school child and inner teen and it was equally difficult, but rewarding. Reading this book and doing the work within it's pages has put me in touch with my inner child and my inner teen and has helped me discover my true self. Doing this work has changed my life for the better. Thank you, Cathryn Taylor for providing this setting and script for wonderful self-healing. I am grateful. Juliet A. Wright, author of "Everything is My Fault." [[...]]

Very helpful! I loved this workbook and getting connected to my inner child.

I'm a therapist and purchased this, on the advice of a colleague, to use with my clients. In general, I see where the author is going and feel the tasks of the book would be good for anyone to go through. I think this will be very useful for people and worth engaging in. My main complaint is that the reading level is fairly advanced. I wanted to use this with a 61 year old client who has roughly a 6th grade reading level, and there is no way she could get through it. I wish these authors would consider writing an alternate version for those with a lower reading level.

I’ve been working with a counselor for depression and anxiety and she recommended this book. It does make you dig deep into your past which brings up a lot of emotions and I probably wouldn’t work on it if I didn’t have a counselor . If you are serious about working through your issues and have a counselor or trusted friend I highly recommend it but you have to do the exercises in it to really make progress. It’s been very helpful for me.

My therapist recommended this book to me. It’s been very helpful.

I gave this book 3 stars because 1) it didnt feel like a workbook that I was expecting, I prefer more hands on workbooks where you have some info, some work to show you understand what you are doing, but this one has like 3-4 pages of explanation and the workbook aspect is more imaginary. 2) I cant seem to grasp the concept its abstract. It wants you to visualize yourself as a parent but also a child, and to me thats something I cant seem to do because it just feels like make believe/pretend. Overall I think this book would be better as an audio book. I'm a little disappointed I couldnt get it to work for me, because it was recommended by my therapist, and its something I'd really like to learn how to do.

Very detailed systematic comprehensive book.

Looks like a good book in terms of learning the basics....

Good book

new age deception

A must buy therapeutic book if anybody is doing inner child work. This looks a fabulous workbook and I also gifted one to my niece.