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CPD Transparent

PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMA IN WORKING WITH THE INNER CHILD "ID, EGO, SUPEREGO" AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT
(LIVE ONLINE)
60 CPD POINTS

Format: Live-online Lecturer Led Classes (Virtual-Classroom) via Zoom

Duration: 1 Evening Every Week 6pm to 9pm

Online Live Attendance: 30 Hours

Self-Directed Learning: 30 Hours

Total CPD Credits: 60 Credits

Assessment: Written Assignment +/- Viva Voca Assessment

Award: Accredited Professional Diploma

 

Course Accreditation:

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WEEK 1 — Introduction: Inner Child Theory & Psychoanalytic Foundations

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand the origins of inner child theory

  • Explore Freud’s structural model (Id, Ego, Superego)

  • Recognize the influence of childhood experiences on adult behaviour

Lecture Topics

  • What is the “inner child”? Origins in psychotherapy

  • Freud’s Id, Ego, Superego — functional overview

  • The child mind vs. the adult mind

  • Early relational templates and emotional imprinting

Practice

  • Guided reflection: “Meeting your inner child”

  • Small-group discussion: childhood emotional memories

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WEEK 2 — The Id, Ego & Superego in Clinical Work

Learning Outcomes

  • Apply the structural model to emotional conflicts

  • Identify ego defenses in clients

  • Understand how internal conflict forms adult behaviour

Lecture Topics

  • The Id: instinct, impulse & desire

  • The Ego: mediator, reality testing & strategy

  • The Superego: internalized rules, shame, guilt & morality

  • Defense mechanisms: repression, denial, displacement, projection, regression

Practice

  • Defence identification exercise (case vignettes)

  • Mapping the Id–Ego–Superego conflict in sample scenarios

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WEEK 3 — Child Development: Emotional, Cognitive & Social Foundations

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand major developmental stages

  • Identify how unmet developmental needs shape adult emotional wounds

  • Integrate developmental theory into therapeutic formulations

Lecture Topics

  • Emotional development (attachment, attunement, affect regulation)

  • Cognitive development (Piaget overview)

  • Psychosocial development (Erikson overview)

  • Developmental ruptures: neglect, shame, fear, confusion

Practice

  • Developmental timeline exercise

  • Group analysis of age-based needs

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WEEK 4 — Attachment Theory & the Roots of the Inner Child

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand attachment styles & early relational patterns

  • Recognize how attachment wounds form inner child dynamics

  • Apply attachment-informed interventions

Lecture Topics

  • Secure, anxious, avoidant & disorganized attachment

  • The role of attunement & misattunement

  • Childhood emotional injuries & identity formation

  • Attachment ruptures & inner child protective strategies

Practice

  • Attachment style assessment (case-based)

  • Recreating childhood relational patterns through roleplay

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WEEK 5 — Working with the Wounded Inner Child

Learning Outcomes

  • Identify common wounded inner child patterns

  • Learn stabilization strategies for emotional regression

  • Support clients through emotional reconnection

Lecture Topics

  • The wounded child: abandonment, shame, fear, unmet needs

  • Emotional regression & triggers

  • Techniques for inner child stabilization

  • The therapist’s role as a surrogate regulator (within boundaries)

Practice

  • Inner child dialoguing

  • Emotional safety & grounding exercises

Formative Assignment

  • 1,000 Words: Write an intervention plan for a wounded inner child scenario.

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WEEK 6 — Inner Child Healing Techniques & Ego Reparenting

Learning Outcomes

  • Explore therapeutic reparenting methods

  • Use imagery, narrative and somatic tools for healing

  • Strengthen the adult self (Ego) to support the child self

Lecture Topics

  • Reparenting: emotional, cognitive, behavioural

  • Repairing unmet needs: validation, safety, nurturance, boundaries

  • Imagery and visualization for inner child reconnection

  • Strengthening the Adult Ego as the “inner parent”

Practice

  • Ego-strengthening exercises

  • Safe place & nurturing imagery

  • Letters to/from the inner child

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WEEK 7 — The Critical Parent & the Superego: Healing Inner Judgments

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand how the Superego becomes the “inner critic”

  • Work with harsh self-talk & internalized shame

  • Reduce inner punitive voices through compassion-based methods

Lecture Topics

  • Internalized authority figures

  • Shame, guilt & “shoulds” as Superego functions

  • Softening the critical parent

  • Compassion-Focused Therapy elements for inner child work

Practice

  • Inner critic dialogue modification

  • Compassionate self-talk practice

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WEEK 8 — Trauma, the Fragmented Self & Protective Parts

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand how trauma fragments the self into parts

  • Recognize inner protectors, managers & exiles (non-clinical overview)

  • Work safely with dissociative or fragmented inner child material

Lecture Topics

  • Trauma’s effect on Ego development

  • Protective parts: anger, numbness, perfectionism, avoidance

  • Exiled inner children & emotional split-off states

  • Safe pacing & avoiding retraumatization

Practice

  • Parts mapping (non-clinical introduction)

  • Grounded connection to the child self through the adult self

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WEEK 9 — Integrating the Inner Child: Boundaries, Identity & Emotional Maturity

Learning Outcomes

  • Help clients integrate child, adult & moral (Superego) parts

  • Support clients in developing healthy emotional boundaries

  • Build mature identity and relational patterns

Lecture Topics

  • Integration vs. suppression

  • How the adult self and child self cooperate

  • Emotional boundaries for inner safety and relational health

  • Identity reconstruction through inner child healing

Practice

  • Future-self integration imagery

  • Boundary-setting roleplays

  • Strengthening the adult self’s leadership

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WEEK 10 — Ethics, Practitioner Self-Awareness & Final Integration

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand ethical considerations in inner child work

  • Prevent dependency, projection & boundary erosion

  • Recognize therapist countertransference and personal inner child reactions

Lecture Topics

  • Ethical limits of regression & reparenting techniques

  • Scope of competence & safe containment

  • Countertransference from the therapist’s own child parts

  • Maintaining professional health & resilience

Practice

  • Therapist self-reflection exercise

  • Building a practitioner stability & supervision plan

  • Final group integration circle

Summative Assignment

  • 3,500 Words: TBC

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