A Comparison of Parks Inner Child Therapy (PICT) to Standard Counselling Methods

Standard counselling methods usually operate by trying to resolve current problems, or traumatic events from childhood, through our 'adult' logic and reason. Although our adult logic and reason can completely understand the senselessness and futility of behaving or believing a certain way, that understanding does not enable a person to stop it. The person is then often full of self-loathing because they can't stop doing, thinking or feeling something they know to be wrong for them, i.e. "I know I shouldn't feel (do, think) X, but I do!" Standard counselling continues to go over the same ground attempting to facilitate change through logic and reason. This is time consuming, emotionally painful, draining and frustrating for both the client and the counsellor, for the client will have already tried to resolve his/her problems with logic and reason and been unsuccessful, that is why the counsellor has been engaged.

To carry on with counselling using the same strategy (and obtaining the same slow, tedious and usually marginal results) begins to convince the client that s/he is beyond help. Using the Parks Inner Child Therapy (PICT) tools, in the traditional one session per week, clients can expect to resolve problem issues very quickly (six weeks compared to six months); efficiently (going right to a root cause rather than guessing or trying several routes); thoroughly (problems resolved and symptoms completely stopped rather than clients returning for the same issues); and humanely (details of traumatic events do not have to be disclosed).

This is achieved by accessing the client's 'inner child' who experienced problems or trauma and who still holds all the beliefs and perceptions made at that time. The development of those beliefs and perceptions during childhood is usually out of conscious memory for the 'adult self' and therefore will simply seem like 'the truth' to the adult self, i.e. "That's not what I believe, that's just how I am." Those beliefs and perceptions will still be restricting the client's adult self today.

Once the 'inner child' is accessed PICT enables the adult self to facilitate changing the 'child's' old beliefs and perceptions through flexibly structured visualisations and by giving three things the 'child' needed in the past - information, support and love. When this process is completed, the client will immediately feel different and will experience a sense of 'oneness' or 'wholeness' and will report a sense of complete resolution to the past event or current problem. Therefore, those changes made in the 'child' consequently empower the adult self to be free of his/her current restrictions.

The PICT method encompasses everything needed to facilitate clients with eating disorders, compulsive behaviour disorder, phobias, grief issues, depression, fear, self harm, anger, sexual dysfunction, relationship difficulties and many more of the common problems associated with childhood abuse issues or the problems resulting from poor parenting.

A further development available during the past few years is PICT Quick Change Therapy. This is offered as an intensive week or as weekends where clients are able to address unresolved issues quickly and thoroughly.