Inner Child Therapy | Women over 40 | Healing Childhood Wounds & Emotional Neglect

The child who learned to disappear is still in there. She’s ready to be seen.

You may have grown up in a home that looked fine from the outside. Maybe there was no obvious abuse – just a quiet, persistent message that your needs were too much, your feelings were inconvenient, or you were only lovable when you were useful. That’s emotional neglect and we often overlook this in the healing world. But its effects don’t end when you leave home.

If you were raised by emotionally immature parents – or in any environment where you had to make yourself small to stay safe – inner child therapy can be a profound part of healing childhood wounds that have followed you into adulthood.

What Inner Child Work Actually Looks Like

Inner child therapy isn’t about regressing or pretending. It’s about being solidly in your adult self, making contact with the younger parts of yourself that got frozen in time – the ones who formed beliefs about your worth and lovability before you had the tools to question them.

Together, we identify the signs and symptoms of childhood emotional neglect in adults, and gently move toward those younger parts. We give them what they needed and didn’t get: witness, validation, and the experience of not being alone with their pain. Connecting with your younger self in this way often unlocks healing that “regular talk therapy” can’t quite reach on its own.

I blend inner child work with somatic tools, guided visualizations & depth psychology, and evidence-based practices to help you move from self-abandonment toward genuine self-trust. 

I’m Shannan Blum, LMFT, with over 30 years of clinical experience — and a personal understanding of what it means to do this work.

This Might Be Right for You If…

• You struggle with self-worth, people-pleasing, chronic self-doubt, or difficulty setting limits
• You grew up with emotional neglect or were raised by emotionally unavailable parents
• You recognize patterns in your relationships that trace back to early childhood wounds
• You’re ready to stop parenting yourself with criticism and start with something closer to compassion
• You’ve tried traditional talk therapy and want to go deeper into childhood trauma resolution

Virtual inner child therapy for women over 40 in Indiana, California, and Texas.

Free consultations available.