The Inner Child

From my investigative journey through town, I found that a lot of what stood out to me in shop windows, advertisements etc was very playful objects/forms of display. This led me on to think about how and why is it that as an adult the objects that stood out to me and caught my attention the most were rather childlike. The pig with wings watering can, the sweet shop, wanting to run up and jump off the end of the sloped piece of wood would all be seen as childlike objects/activities. This encouraged me to examine the idea of the inner child and think about whether society encourages our inner child to prevail by playing on notions of nostalgia ? I started to think about how this could become an underlining theme within my project and could possibly help to create a stronger narrative, as the final destination could aid and appeal to this inner child or it could completely shut it away...

"Inner Child" is a concept formed through popular psychology and analytical psychology. It points to the whole of our childlike aspect; what we learnt and experiences, good and bad, as children before puberty. The inner child denotes a semi-independent entity subordinate to the waking of the sub conscious mind. (This notion of the waking of the sub conscious mind tends well to the spontaneous, sub conscious thoughts that flow through my mind as I walk and interact with society through urban spaces). John Bradshaw famously used "inner child" to point to the unresolved childhood experiences and the lingering dysfunctional effects of childhood dysfunction.

I am keen to explore Bradshaw's notion further as I feel this sense of unresolved childhood experiences is rife among many adults in society. A popular phrase that you hear from all age ranges in society is "oh to be that young again". As you age, you gain responsibilities that restrict the freedom you have as child. From year 6 students sitting their 11+ entry tests into secondary looking down and wishing they were running around on that elusive second break period the kinder garden children got, to final year university students sitting in the library jealous of the young, wild and free reigns of the freshers and up to parents heading into their 20 plus years of work, whilst their children 'live the dream' at University- going out, socialising, attending university for less hours in a week that their usual working day. I feel this nostalgia and dream of being young again is prevalent across society and from my observations in town I feel the shops/advertisers in society play on this in order to capture the attention of the passer by and draw in their custom.