When Change is Really Hard
The missing participant is the inner child!
We all work with people who want to change but have a very hard time doing it. The psychodynamic world comes from a tradition of leaving change to the client, though Wilhelm Reich recognized that “character armor” is formidable enough to require serious attention. Behaviorism started out looking only at behavior, not daring to speculate about its exact origin. With the cognitive revolution, CBT recognized that thoughts and feelings needed to be taken into account but was still reluctant to ask how they got that way. Only recently has CBT embraced the idea of looking into the past and asking how and why a maladaptive pattern arose. Out of those many points of view come techniques like affirmations, journaling, coaching, mindfulness, etc. They are all good, but leave out one critical element.
The one missing piece is the role of the inner child, the one responsible for guarding the status quo. That child is faithful and valiant like Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese soldier who held out after WW II, until March, 1974, when an understanding and respectful journalist fulfilled his promise to return with Onoda’s commanding officer. Only then, did the loyal soldier give up his arms.
Values are the hardest to change
Many behavior patterns are hard to change, but the hardest of all are the ones that protect our human connections. They are supported by core values, the rules that keep us within bounds and belonging. The conscience, (or superego, to use a less value-laden, more scientific term) is functioning as it is supposed to, giving out shame to punish even the thought of “bad” behavior and pride to reward the “good.” Values, attitudes, ideals, and prohibitions are normally internalized from healthy interactions with family and culture. Problems arise when normal needs and actions are punished or otherwise associated with danger. Then kids cope by internalizing faulty values, and the superego goes to work. It has dual goals, first, guarding its own values from “corruption,” and second, using shame, guilt, and pride to keep behavior within safe limits.
Faulty and maladaptive values are usually invented by children to avoid rejection. For example, a child whose parent punishes normal demands for attention might find safety from temptation by internalizing a value that neediness is shameful and bad. Unhealthy values, once internalized, are very hard to change, as are the behaviors adopted to comply with them. In fact these qualify as the most challenging patterns to reshape in life and in therapy.
Because the mere thought of going against deeply held values raises powerful alarms, I think of them as “internal electric fences.” They do a formidable job of keeping us out of what is seen as trouble.
Behavior is key
Here, I agree with CBT. The best disconfirming information for changing outdated values is what I call “civil disobedience,” meaning doing the opposite of what the values say. By doing that and making sure the results are positive, we are creating a strong, nonverbal message to be delivered to the inner mind that the old attitudes, values, ideals, and prohibitions are no longer helpful or needed.
So what can we do?
All the techniques that have been written about are good, but to me the missing key to greater success (it’s still really hard) is to lower the stakes. The final moment of change often looks more like a giving up, an “Oh, what the hell.” Than a thoughtful decision or dawning insight. How, then, can we lower the stakes to the point where the inner mind is ready to give in, to capitulate.
It helps a great deal at this point to personify the inner self. Since internal electric fences are usually the creations of inner children, and since they are subsequently “frozen in time,” the part of the self that we need to communicate with is effectively a child. This child is not only the inventor of the value system, but also its guardian, since allowing a value to be corrupted is tantamount to losing it’s socially protective power, and that can lead to banishment and death.
Internal Family Systems Therapy proposes the ultimate disarming question: Addressing the inner protector, the therapist asks, “What would happen if you took a break from the exhausting job of upholding this protection?”
Influencing inner children is much the same as working with real children. When they have an idea that is not helpful–say being afraid to go to sleep or to go to school. The worst answer is irritation or anger. That puts the child on the defensive and hardens their resolve in relation to what is experienced as a life/death issue. What does work is love and understanding, along with a certain firmness.
It’s not our place as therapists to exercise the firmness. We are the agents of the adult client who hired us. We need always to follow their wishes and stay aligned with them. What works is to enlist the adult client as a partner in caring about the inner child, while exercising the right degree of firmness. It’s like real parenting in that too much authority creates an adversarial situation, while too little leads to the child having to raise themself. Some discussion back and forth is respectful, but too much reliance on reasoning becomes a sign of weakness and lack of authority. Inevitably, these are judgment calls, and it’s important to recognize that getting it right all the time is impossible.
What works?
The job of change is still very challenging. I think first of helping the adult client to gain a clear intellectual understanding of the maladaptive values, where they come from, what their function has been, and why they are outdated. Next we need to partner with our adult client to come to love and appreciate the inner child. Then the issue is how to bring about influence. It’s just as with real children. We cajole, bargain, discuss, understand, care, urge, reward. When those don’t work, discussing consequences or results may be required. Only after doing all those, can we dare to express some degree of disappointment or criticism. It takes a strong inner child to handle that, but it may not be possible to leave out authority entirely. How much depends on the degree of healthy development. Finally, when acting out threatens to be dangerous, then adult authority becomes a necessity. When we (with the grown-up client) have to exercise authority, we can assume it will be forgiven, though perhaps only after some heat. After all, we can’t assume that a self-respecting, survival-oriented inner child will let go without a fight.
Thank you for this. It names something that is easy to underestimate in therapy: some change is hard not because the client lacks insight, motivation, or technique, but because the old pattern has become organized around loyalty, safety, and belonging.
You said, “Values are the hardest to change.” So true. When a client’s symptom is tied to an internal law about being good, safe, loyal, strong, or lovable, the work is no longer just cognitive correction or behavioral practice. It is contact with the part of the person that believes breaking the rule could mean rejection, humiliation, or exile. When I worked mainly with CBT that was the piece I felt missing
I also appreciated the phrase “internal electric fences.” That captures how immediate and non-negotiable these systems can feel from the inside. The client may know, intellectually, that asking for help, resting, disappointing someone, needing reassurance, or asserting a boundary is reasonable. They read the books, the posts, the articles. But the inner system reacts as if a sacred boundary has been crossed.
I love IFS question, “What would happen if you took a break,” and often use it. It points to something important. The goal is not to defeat the protector. It is to help the adult client develop enough relationship with that younger guardian that the old rule can become less absolute.
Moreover, in clinical work, I often find that the most important moment is not when the client understands the origin of the rule, and not even when they first disobey it behaviorally. It is when they can feel the dignity of the part that created it. Only then does change stop feeling like betrayal.
That is what makes this article so useful. It reminds us that resistance is often not resistance at all. It is devotion to an outdated survival system. And devotion has to be met differently than distortion.
I appreciate your input; it is Simple, but not easy. Thanks for the perspective, the courage, and the insight. I especially like, "All the techniques that have been written about are good, but to me the missing key to greater success (it’s still really hard) is to lower the stakes. The final moment of change often looks more like a giving up, an “Oh, what the hell.” Than a thoughtful decision or dawning insight. How, then, can we lower the stakes to the point where the inner mind is ready to give in, to capitulate." Thanks again.