To buy for loved ones after working it yourself!
Once I began working with this book, I purchased it as a gift for a friend of mine. If I could afford to, I would buy one for everyone I loved. There is much healing as a result of connecting with our Inner Child, in a creative, fun, entertaining, self-loving way. This book, is that way... I continue to enjoy working with it. I ALWAYS feel genuinely connected to my True Self when I do the exercises.

Outstanding resource for the the brave at heart
In response to other reviews here, I would agree that the emotions which can come up under the aegis of these methods might be too intense for readers with absolutely no grounding in self examination at all. People who need therapy first and foremost will not get therapy just by reading this - or any other book - and they should get a good referral and go do that. But those who are indeed ready, willing and able to undertake their own self examination will find so much that is useful and eye opening here, it seems a shame to dissuade anyone from working with this book and these methods. Therapists and their clients should welcome this as an opportunity to dive more deeply, quickly and thoroughly into the healing process. Capacchione's work is really brilliant.

I have previously worked with her Visioning book and really love that and have reviewed it as well. It can be said perhaps that just as that book shows us how to look to our future, the Inner Child work developed here shows us how to understand our past. Under careful guidance, the reader is walked through and encouraged to interact with an array of internal figures who compete to shape our reality, whether we realize it or not. The reader gets an opportunity to examine past patterns and see how this is related to conflicting internal needs for support, protection, vulnerability, self expression, survival and so on. The reader then re-directs this internal pantheon to a more harmonious, healing and supportive dynamic, allowing one to release old material and perhaps to discern with fresh eyes how such old patterns may be playing out in the present. It is so much better to see things for how they really are, rather than through the veil of past dramas which continually reassert themselves through our unconscious until we are able to heal ourselves from these burdens. This book gives one the opportunity to put that old material to rest, to truly love oneself rather than looking to the outside world to supply what we can truly only find from within and to move into a new phase of renewal, creativity and healthy relationship.

I can not say enough to praise this and other books by Capacchione.

Great resource for the discovery of your inner child!
This is one of the best books I've read on how to discover your inner child. It has many excercises to use to "talk" to your inner child. It showed me how to have a first hand experience with my inner child...and to actually feel the emotions. By writting and drawing with my non-dominant hand, I could actually have conversations with my inner child. I learned a lot about who my inner child was, the way she was feeling and how to make her feel happier and safer! The book stirs up many emotions that were buried for years, thus, helping me become healthier! One of the best self-help tools I have ever used!!

Art Therapy, Inner Child, Internalized Parent...
This book has Art Therapy exercises and dialog exercises with your inner child (who can be playful, vulnerable, angry, etc). For instance you might be instructed to ask your inner child a question by writing it with your dominant hand. Then you answer the question with your nondominant hand (e.g. for many of us our left hand that we don't usually write with). There are also exercises that involve your internalized Parent (nuruturing, protective, critical, etc.)

The exercises seem to be a blend of Art Therapy, Transactional Analysis and Gestault Experiments. As such the exercises can be somewhat risky since they bring up intense feelings. I wouldn't use some of these except under a therapist's supervision.

However, this book seem VERY useful for adding to the tools of a practicing therapist.

Wonderful for the layperson
If you are trying to find out where to begin your search for your inner child this is a good place to start. There are a number of excercises written in plain english that you can do alone, or share with your therapist.