Who Should You Talk To: the Adult in the Room or the Child from the Past?

Janina Fisher on how and when to speak to a client’s “child part” in the consulting room

When an adult is in your consulting room, it’s understandable if you use adult language and logic. But at certain points in the healing process, you may need to communicate with someone else—the client’s child part.

According to recognized expert, Janina Fisher, this is especially true when there is a history of trauma or attachment issues. In this quick video clip, Janina explores the therapeutic cost of missing the cue when the “child” needs to be the focus and she covers the ABC’s of communicating and building a strong connection with your client’s child part.



Janina Fisher is assistant director of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, an instructor at the Trauma Center in Boston, and a former instructor at Harvard Medical School. This clip is taken from her session in our challenging cases video course:

Tough Customers: Treating Clients with Challenging Issues
These clinical innovators will help you master a variety of new approaches and methods that can transform your work with your most challenging cases. You’ll learn how to:

• Successfully move past impasses with borderline, narcissistic, attachment-disordered, and self-destructive clients


• Gain and retain therapeutic leverage, use empathic confrontation, and repair certain ruptures in the clinical relationship


• Identify and avoid common errors such as sounding like a disappointed parent, relieving the client’s pain too soon, and letting your own vulnerabilities get in the way


• Customize treatment to the characteristics and needs of your client

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