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🎧 Alt - Stella Dove, trauma-informed inner child healer, speaking gently to camera, in her therapy space, surrounded by bookshelves, as she explains how trauma keeps the amygdala overactive and how healing restores nervous-system safety
What is Inner Child Therapy?
"Reclaim the self you were meant to be."
Your inner child isn’t a metaphor.
It’s the living memory of who you were before life taught you to hide.
It holds your earliest experiences of love, safety, joy — and pain.
The moments you felt welcomed… and the moments you learned it wasn’t safe to be fully yourself.
In my London practice, Inner Child Healing forms the heart of Emotional Recalibration Therapy — a trauma-informed blend of hypnotherapy, somatic awareness, and nervous system regulation.
Together, we gently meet the parts of you that adapted through silence, perfection, or people-pleasing.
Not to analyse them.
But to help them finally feel safe.
So you can come home to yourself — steady, seen, and whole.
When painful things happen in childhood — abandonment, inconsistency, shaming, fear, or being left to cope alone — the developing brain adapts.
It doesn’t choose.
It survives.
When early needs for nurture, protection, and acceptance aren’t met, the body stores the experience.
You grow up.
But the imprint remains — quietly shaping your relationships, your choices, and the way you see yourself.
If you’d like to understand how this works in the brain and nervous system, the video below explains more about childhood trauma and why these patterns aren’t personality — they’re protection.
What Childhood Trauma Does to Your Brain — This Is Not Your Personality.
Childhood trauma doesn’t just live in memory — it reshapes the brain itself. From the prefrontal cortex, where calm thinking lives, to the amygdala, where fear is born, early emotional pain can rewire how we think, feel, and respond. Full transcript at the end of the page.
Does This Sound Like You?
• You long for closeness — but don’t fully trust it when it arrives
• You feel unseen or misunderstood in relationships
• You say “yes” when you mean “no,” and end the day exhausted
• You were called “too sensitive,” “too much,” or “difficult” growing up
• You hide your feelings, over-explain, or avoid conflict to keep the peace
• Your emotional reactions sometimes feel bigger than the moment
• You fear that expressing your needs will push people away
• Somewhere deep down, you wonder if something is simply wrong with you
If this feels familiar, nothing is wrong with you.
Your inner child may still be carrying pain your adult self has been trying to manage alone.
These patterns aren’t personality flaws.
They’re intelligent adaptations your nervous system learned early on — ways to stay safe, loved, or accepted.
You might recognise yourself in some of these reflections:
→ 🧊 What Is Functional Freeze?
→ 🫁 Why Anxiety Won’t Go Away
→ 🧸 What Is Childhood Trauma?
→ 🌧 Why Do I Feel So Lonely?
Inner Child Healing gently meets the roots beneath these patterns — so you’re no longer coping… you’re actually healing.
Whether you’re seeking support in London or online, this work begins exactly where you are.
How Childhood Pain Shapes the Adult Self
Trauma isn’t always a single catastrophic moment.
It’s often quieter than that.
Slower.
Harder to name.
Sometimes it’s a gradual erosion.
A parent who wasn’t emotionally there.
A sibling who mocked or belittled you.
A teacher who shamed you in front of others.
A home where love had conditions.
Nothing dramatic.
Just a steady message:
Be smaller. Be quieter. Don’t need so much.
And the body listens.
Over time, your nervous system adapts.
Your brain’s alarm system stays switched on.
Safety feels fragile or temporary.
Rest never fully lands.
Self-worth gets tangled with fear and self-blame.
So you learn to cope.
You become helpful.
High-functioning.
Independent.
Easy to love.
Or invisible.
People-pleasing.
Perfectionism.
Emotional numbness.
Self-abandonment.
Not personality flaws.
Not weakness.
Intelligent survival strategies.
Adaptations a younger version of you created to stay safe.
Inner Child Healing begins here — not by fixing you, but by gently meeting the parts of you that had to grow up too soon.
For many people, the deepest ache isn’t loud.
It’s quiet.
Private.
Hard to explain.
It lives in what didn’t happen.
A father who was absent.
Unreachable.
Emotionally unsafe.
Or simply unable to love and protect you in the ways you needed.
This isn’t just grief over a man.
It’s the inner child’s unanswered question:
Why wasn’t I worth staying for?
Why didn’t you protect me?
From your temper… your silence… your indifference… or even from my mother?
When this wound goes unmet, it doesn’t disappear.
It follows you into adulthood.
It can look like:
• fear of abandonment or rejection
• mistrust of men or masculine energy
• attracting emotionally unavailable partners
• over-achieving to “earn” love
• needing constant reassurance to feel secure
Not because you are needy.
Because somewhere inside, a younger part of you is still bracing for loss.
In our work together, we don’t analyse this wound.
We meet it.
Gently.
We help your nervous system learn what protection feels like.
We release the shame that was never yours.
We reparent the inner child so love no longer has to be earned.
And we redefine “father energy” on your own terms — steady, protective, devoted.
You cannot change what didn’t happen in childhood.
But you can stop abandoning yourself now.
If you’d like to explore this more deeply:
Sometimes the wound comes from protection that never arrived.
Sometimes it comes from nurture that never felt safe.
Not all absence is loud.
Some is quiet.
Domestic.
Hidden inside the very person who was meant to hold you closest.
This is where the mother wound lives.
Some wounds come from what happened.
This one often comes from what didn’t.
Not enough safety.
Not enough softness.
Not enough steady love.
The mother wound isn’t just grief over what wasn’t given.
It’s the quiet, devastating belief formed in childhood:
Maybe I’m not worthy of care at all.
And because the world tells us mothers are love, this pain can feel almost unspeakable.
When your lived experience doesn’t match the myth, shame creeps in.
You don’t question the care you received.
You question yourself.
You may have grown up with a mother who was:
• emotionally absent or preoccupied with her own pain
• critical, enmeshed, or easily triggered
• loving one moment and unpredictable the next
• anxious, controlling, or resentful
• able to provide physically — but not emotionally safe
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing you could clearly point to.
Just a slow learning that your needs were “too much”…
or inconvenient…
or invisible.
So you adapted.
And that adaptation can follow you into adulthood.
It may look like:
• fierce self-criticism and perfectionism
• anxious attachment or fear of abandonment
• people-pleasing and over-functioning
• emotional eating or body struggles
• guilt or resentment you don’t feel allowed to name
• difficulty trusting your own intuition or needs
Not because something is wrong with you.
Because somewhere inside, a younger part of you never felt fully held.
In our work together, we don’t blame your mother.
We tend to the child.
We gently separate your worth from her wounds.
We build emotional safety in the nervous system.
We cultivate a new, internal source of mothering — steady, compassionate, protective.
We help your body learn what nurture actually feels like.
So you no longer spend your life trying to earn love.
You become the love.
This isn’t about rewriting the past.
It’s about finally giving yourself what you needed all along.
If this speaks to you, you may wish to explore more here:
💭 And if you recognise the constant overthinking or hyper-vigilance that often grows from this wound, you may also feel supported inside Emotional Recalibration Therapy.
💫 Reparenting Therapy
Becoming the Parent You Needed
Reparenting is the heart of inner child healing.
Because for many of us, the love, protection, and permission we needed simply weren’t there.
Not because we were unworthy —
but because the adults around us were carrying wounds of their own.
So as children, we didn’t blame.
We adapted.
We became quiet.
Helpful.
High-achieving.
Emotionally self-contained.
Not because that’s who we truly are —
but because it was how we stayed safe.
Those adaptations got you through.
But now…
they may be costing you your voice, your softness, your peace.
Signs you may need reparenting
You might notice:
– struggling to soothe yourself without external reassurance
– speaking to yourself harshly or expecting perfection
– feeling like an anxious child inside adult situations
– difficulty making decisions or trusting your own instincts
– longing to feel safe, but not knowing how to create that safety within
Not weakness.
Not failure.
Simply younger parts of you still waiting to be met.
What reparenting therapy actually does
Together, we gently turn toward those parts —
not to relive the past, and not to blame your parents —
but to reclaim your authority and care for yourself differently now.
You learn to:
– hear your needs instead of silencing them
– speak to yourself with warmth rather than criticism
– create boundaries your nervous system recognises as protection
– build daily rhythms of safety, rest, and self-trust
– become a steady inner voice — firm, kind, dependable
Over time, something profound happens.
The child inside you stops searching.
Stops bracing.
Stops performing for love.
Because they finally feel held.
Ultimately, reparenting is simple — and radical.
It is becoming the adult your younger self needed.
So you no longer look to partners, work, or achievement to fill the ache.
You carry home with you.
And from that place, relationships soften.
Boundaries strengthen.
Life feels lighter.
Not because you’re trying harder.
Because you’re no longer alone inside yourself.
Why this matters
This deeper inner child work often transforms:
– anxious attachment
– people-pleasing
– self-abandonment
– emotional overwhelm
– the constant feeling of “not enough”
Not through force.
But through safety.
Because when the nervous system feels safe, change happens naturally.
🫀 How Inner Child Healing Becomes Lasting Change
Inner child work opens the door.
Emotional Recalibration Therapy helps you walk all the way through it.
A single session can bring insight.
It can soften something.
It can offer relief.
But lasting change happens when the nervous system is supported over time —
when safety is repeated, not just glimpsed.
Because the body doesn’t change through understanding alone.
It changes through experience.
Through consistency.
Through being met again and again in a different way.
That’s why Inner Child Healing is woven into my three-part Emotional Recalibration Therapy Intensive.
Not as a technique —
but as the foundation.
Gently guiding you through:
• understanding what happened
• releasing what your body has carried
• integrating new safety
• embodying a different way of living
So the changes don’t fade after a good session.
They stabilise.
They root.
They become who you are.
If you’re ready for more than awareness —
if you want your body to actually feel different —
this is where we begin.
👉 Explore Emotional Recalibration Therapy
Together we:
• witness the child self without judgment, naming what was never allowed to be spoken
• reparent with truth, compassion, and nervous-system safety
• integrate so your adult and child selves no longer fight, but walk side by side
This work is gentle — and profound.
We move at the pace your body can truly sustain, blending somatic regulation, guided inner journeys, and practical boundary work so healing isn’t just emotional.
It’s embodied.
It becomes your new baseline.
What You May Discover
Over time, something begins to shift.
Not because you tried harder.
But because your system finally feels safe enough to soften.
You may notice:
• more confidence and clarity in your relationships
• the courage to express your needs without guilt
• relief from shame, anxiety, and old emotional storms
• a deeper sense of calm, play, and self-acceptance
• freedom from the loop of “too much” or “not enough”
• a steadier connection to your body, your worth, and your voice
Less bracing.
Less performing.
Less surviving.
More you.
🕊️ You Were Not Made This Way - You Became This Way
And if you became this way, you can become differently.
Not perfect.
Not someone new.
But more present.
More grounded.
More true.
More free.
🧸 FAQs — Inner Child Healing London
What is Inner Child Therapy?
Inner Child Therapy helps you reconnect with the younger parts of yourself shaped by early experiences of love, safety, and belonging.
These parts don’t disappear as we grow up — they live on in the body as emotional memory.
Using trauma-informed hypnotherapy, somatic awareness, and gentle nervous-system regulation, we meet those places with compassion so shame, fear, and abandonment wounds can finally soften.
It’s less about analysing your past — and more about helping your body feel safe in the present.
Who is Inner Child Healing for?
This work is for people who have always felt a little too much or not enough.
Too sensitive.
Too responsible.
Too aware of everyone else’s needs.
If you find yourself people-pleasing, overthinking, emotionally reactive, or stuck in repeating relationship patterns, there’s often a younger part of you still trying to stay safe.
Many clients arrive here after heartbreak, burnout, anxiety, or simply the quiet realisation:
“I can’t keep living like this.”
What happens in an Inner Child Healing session?
Sessions unfold gently and at your body’s pace.
We combine guided hypnotherapy, somatic awareness, and compassionate dialogue to help you meet the younger self you once had to silence.
Nothing is forced.
Nothing is dramatised.
Instead, we create safety first — because real healing only happens when your nervous system feels held.
Over time, you learn how to reparent yourself with warmth, clarity, and boundaries, so self-trust becomes your new baseline.
How is Inner Child Healing different from traditional therapy?
Traditional therapy often works through thinking and talking.
Inner Child Healing works through feeling and integration.
Rather than analysing the story alone, we work directly with the body and subconscious — where emotional patterns actually live.
This means change isn’t just intellectual.
It’s embodied.
You don’t just understand yourself differently.
You begin to feel different.
What changes do people actually experience?
Clients rarely describe this work as “small.”
More often, they talk about relief.
Like something heavy they’ve been carrying for years has finally been set down.
A nervous system that no longer feels braced.
A mind that isn’t constantly scanning for danger.
A body that feels like home instead of a battlefield.
You may begin to notice:
• clearer boundaries — and the confidence to hold them
• the ability to say “no” without guilt
• less emotional reactivity in situations that once overwhelmed you
• fewer looping thoughts and anxiety spirals
• deeper sleep and steadier energy
• more honesty in your voice and relationships
• a growing sense of self-trust and inner authority
• freedom from the old belief that something is “wrong” with you
But beyond the list, something more fundamental happens.
Life stops feeling like something you’re surviving
and starts feeling like something you’re living.
Conversations feel easier.
Decisions come faster.
Triggers pass more quickly.
You recover instead of collapse.
Many clients say the same thing in different words:
“I finally feel like myself again.”
Not a new person.
Not fixed.
Just free.
And that steadiness lasts — because it’s coming from your nervous system, not willpower.
How does this work with you?
Inner Child Healing is the foundation of my work.
It lives inside Emotional Recalibration Therapy — a three-part immersive process where we don’t just meet the child within you, we reparent, regulate, and rebuild safety in the body.
Because insight alone isn’t enough.
Your nervous system needs time, steadiness, and support to truly change.
That’s where the real transformation happens.
If you feel drawn to this work, we begin with a complimentary Discovery Call.
Can I work with you online?
Yes.
Inner Child Healing through Emotional Recalibration Therapy is available both in person in London and online worldwide.
The somatic and hypnotherapeutic tools translate beautifully over Zoom, and many clients are surprised by how safe and connected it still feels.
Healing isn’t about location — it’s about presence.
What if I’m not ready for a full programme?
That’s completely okay.
Healing doesn’t have to be rushed.
You can begin gently.
Flexible instalments are available, and you’re always welcome to join Stories with Stella, my weekly reflections and practices to support your nervous system between sessions.
Sometimes the first step is simply staying close to the work until the timing feels right.
Reclaim your voice.
Restore your self-worth.
Rewrite the story.
You don’t have to carry this alone anymore.
When you’re ready, there are two gentle ways to begin:
👉 Book a complimentary Discovery Call
or
👉 Begin Emotional Recalibration Therapy
What Childhood Trauma Does To Your Brain (and What You Can Do About It) Full Video Transcript
If you've ever wondered why you overreact to certain things, freeze under pressure, lose time in spirals of worry, or feel constantly on edge, the answer might not be who you are. It might be what happened to you. Childhood trauma doesn't just linger in the heart. It lodges in the brain, reshaping how we think, feel, and respond. And unless it's addressed with care and compassion, it can impact every area of your life, relationships, focus, self-worth, even your physical health. Research shows that emotional trauma in childhood alters brain development. From the preffrontal cortex, our planning, logic, and regulation center, to the amygdala, our fear, and survival alarm bell, the brain adapts to keep us safe. But in doing so, it can begin to misfire. This rewiring can lead to emotional overwhelm and sudden outbursts, struggles with concentration and impulse control, chronic anxiety or emotional shutdown, time blindness, forgetfulness, and shame spirals, a constant sense of being too much or not enough. If you've experienced childhood trauma, your amygdala likely developed in hypervigilant overdrive. Neurological research confirms that early trauma can override the typical development of the executive brain, leaving your nervous system disregulated. This means you may react intensely to small triggers, struggle to regulate emotions, shut down or explode, feel overwhelmed by your own reactions. Many survivors also develop over responsibility for others feelings, often absorbing pain that isn't theirs to carry. This pattern, sometimes called toxic empathy, can keep the nervous system in a constant state of alert. Inner child therapy helps you gain your sovereignty over your emotions. Seatic awareness grounds you in your body and calms your nervous system so you can begin to think clearly. This includes understanding and working with the vagus nerve, the body's key to communication channeling between the brain and the body, essential for regulating stress responses. Meditation helps you sit beside your feelings without fearing them. Emotional recalibration therapy supports you to rewire thought patterns, challenge belief systems, and heal emotional imprints, not by chasing happiness, but by finding presence, peace, and clarity in the now. Most people don't know what happiness is because they're chasing it like it's a product on the shelf. But happiness isn't something you get. It's something you are when you remember who you are. Instead of chasing joy, you seek calm and truth and peace. Happiness lives there.
Emotional Recalibration Therapy
in Central London
with
Stella Dove PDCH MBSCH
A trauma-informed pathway blending inner child healing, somatic awareness and hypnosis to soothe grief, rebalance the nervous system and bring your heart back to peace.
Book a complementary 30 minute discovery call
This is our chance to feel if my work is the right fit for you. I promise to be honest — if I feel someone else could serve you better, I will say so with care.
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