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I distinguish what parts are activated and expressing inside me by sensing into my body. The body does not lie. And your perception/discernment improves with practice.

Treat the Inner Critic or superego with force, anger, and a feeling of protection for yourself and your Inner Child. The body may feel a stab, or contraction, an actual pain with the attacks. Most importantly the clue there is listen for "attacks" from the Inner Critic:

"You're weak and will never cure TMS." "Only babies cry." "You're not good enough." "You're too weak to assert yourself, and this makes you wrong." "You are not lovable as you are." "You need to fix yourself to be acceptable." The diminishing, self-rejecting voice --or attack-- is the key to identifing that you are dealing with the superego/Inner Critic.

Your skilled response can be BACK OFF! Then sense in and notice if you are still under "attack." Your response should be to ignore, disengage, defend. You want to disrupt the typical relationship between the powerful Inner Critic and the hurt, victom, pleading, excuse-making child response. You summon your life force in defense of your right to be exactly where you are in the moment.

The Inner Child needs attunement, empathy, love. When you are hurt, afraid, sad, anxious, in short, when you can sense a form of suffering that needs comfort, then provide this to yourself as best you can. This again can be felt in the body. Attune, listen, provide support with kind words to your Inner Child or self. We have longed all our lives to be understood and contacted in our suffering. Not so much because we can ever make the suffering goe away. It is more about finding a companionship in our suffering. Or revealing a companionship. Our own loving companionship. Some people can feel this as presence of God, or a personal contact with the Source, attuning to them. This is beautiful, but it is not necessary to feel the benefit of self empathy. Most importantly this takes practice and attunement, to establish a new response to our suffering.

Both of these parts need specific attention/responses in order to work with TMS psychodynamics, so this is a wonderful question/discussion. Typically, we are very used to rejecting ourselves, overtly or more subtley. We took this on in our development in an effort to stay within the field of love of our caregivers.

Attuning to the background action of self-rejection is very important, so that you are not allowing a rather constant "acting out" on your Inner Child by the Inner Critic. So many people go to the SEP and the TMS Recovery Program, and being new to this kind of exploration are amazed at how they've been treating themselves with rejection all their lives and took it for granted. How must the Inner Child feel (now we're right here with Dr. Sarno's theories) about being put down for their desires, needs, and feelings? Also, the Inner Critic's main job is to distract you from the content or feelings underneath. So disengaging from it is important for exploration.

These are my two favorite inner aspects to work with, so I love exploring this. Both aspects, worked with skillfully give us a direct rout to reclaiming our strength and love inside.

When you are being frightened by symptoms, perhaps by Alan's Inner Bully, you may find either way to work effective. You can be with the Inner Child or self which is afraid. Or tell the pain/ mind body to BACK OFF. My discussion is more about the Inner Child and superego/Inner Critic, which voices/feelings can more clearly be defined and discerned, in my opinion, than the perhaps broader inner aspect of Alan's Inner Bully. This is a confession of my incomplete understanding of Alan's Inner Bully.

Andy B