The Counselling Academy

Inner child work sits underneath much of what brings adults into therapy. The patterns that don't shift through insight alone, the symptoms that point to something older underneath, the parts of clients that remain unreached by ordinary cognitive work, all of these eventually bring practitioners into inner child territory whether they planned to be there or not.

Most counsellor training touches on the subject without teaching you how to actually do the work. The techniques get named, but the clinical decisions that surround them are rarely unpicked. The complex bits, like assessing whether the work is appropriate, pacing it safely, working with the parts that don't want to be touched, and recognising when something else is needed first, often get glossed over.

This course gives you the clinical training that the subject deserves. Twelve modules taking you through inner child work as it's actually practised, from understanding what you're working with through to integration at the end. You learn the territory in the order a clinician needs to learn it, with three recurring case study clients who develop across all twelve modules so you can see how the framework applies to different presentations.

If you've been doing this work and would like a stronger clinical foundation underneath it, this course will give you that. If you've been holding back from the territory because you weren't trained in it, this course will give you what you need to begin.

What Makes This Course Different

It's a clinical course rather than a theoretical overview. Twelve modules of applied clinical content, with the focus on how to actually do the work, not just what the work is. The course takes you through assessment, technique, complex presentations, and integration in the order a practitioner needs to learn them.

Three recurring case study clients across all twelve modules. Sophie, Daniel and Hannah are followed all the way through, with their stories developing as the work develops. You see the framework applied to different presentations rather than discussed in the abstract, which makes the clinical decisions much easier to internalise.

21 supporting materials ready to use from day one. Fourteen client handouts you can give to clients between sessions, and seven practitioner tools for your clinical work, including assessment templates, formulation worksheets, resourcing scripts, and a scope of practice guide. 

Real depth on the complex bits. The areas of the work that often get skipped or rushed in other training, including assessment and formulation, building safety in the therapeutic relationship, working with complex presentations like severe dissociation, active addiction, eating disorders and current safeguarding, and the ethical considerations that surround the work, are all given the room they need here rather than mentioned in passing.

What You'll Be Able to Do By the End

• Recognise the wounded child when she appears in your work, often disguised as something else.
• Assess and formulate inner child material clinically, with a clear sense of what you're working with and why.
• Build the relational and somatic foundations the work needs before depth work begins, rather than diving in too soon.
• Use a range of core techniques (visualisation, dialogue, chair work, letter writing, photograph work, timeline work) with confidence and clinical judgement.
• Guide clients through re-parenting work that genuinely shifts something rather than just adding insight.
• Hold complex presentations safely, with clear thinking about scope, risk, and when to work alongside or refer.
• Integrate inner child work with whatever else you bring to your practice, rather than treating it as a separate add-on.