Bradshaw On: Healing the Shame that Binds You. Deerfield Beach, Florida: Health Communications. 1988. ISBN 978-0757303234.

With guilt, you've done something wrong; but you can repair that-you can do something about it. With toxic shame there's something wrong with you and there's nothing you can do about it; you are inadequate and defective. Toxic shame is the core of the wounded child." HOMECOMING: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child offers a wealth of unique case histories and interactive techniques, including indexes of suspicion questionnaires, non-dominant-hand letter writing, guided meditations, grief work, and affirmations. Pioneering when first introduced by John Bradshaw, these classic therapies are now being validated by the new discoveries in attachment research and neuroscience. No one has ever brought them to a popular audience more effectively and inspiringly than John Bradshaw.

Are you outwardly successful but inwardly do you feel like a big kid? Do you aspire to be a loving parent but all too often “lose it” in hurtful ways? Do you crave intimacy but sometimes wonder if it’s worth the struggle? Or are you plagued by constant vague feelings of anxiety or depression? When caretakers are untrustworthy, children develop a deep sense of distrust. The world seems a dangerous, hostile, unpredictable place."

But the healing part is just some home remedy and cult-like level stuff. I simply don't think imagining yourself as a child, and talking to him, actually does you any good except making you feel like you are going crazy. I didn't even want to read the spirituality part. I think the author should go and write his stories about a higher being elsewhere. Healing The Shame That Binds You explains in poetic detail the not so easy to see dynamics that create shame and guilt in closed dysfunctional family systems. John's HOMECOMING WORKSHOPSand inner child therapies are used all over the World and have been attended by millions of people. We first see the world though the eyes of a little child, and that "inner child" remains with us throughout our lives, no matter how outwardly “grown-up” and powerful we become. If our vulnerable child was hurt, abandoned, shamed, or neglected, that child’s pain, grief, and anger live on within us. “I believe that this neglected, wounded inner child of the past is the major source of human misery,"says Bradshaw

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Toxic shame makes you not love yourself the way you are, so you need something outside yourself to feel whole. You obsess on this thing outside yourself. Instead of just being yourself, you need to constantly do things. You become a “human doing” instead of a “human being.” When you have toxic shame, you are unable to be yourself; instead, you keep your true self a secret and present a different self to the world (persona). This therapeutic technique allows you to work through the coping mechanisms you’ve developed along the way, so you can finally connect with your true authentic self. Reclaiming Virtue: How We Can Develop the Moral Intelligence to Do the Right Thing at the Right Time for the Right Reason. New York, NY: Bantam Books. 2009. ISBN 978-0-553-09592-0. While I prefer Healing the shame that binds you, home coming is the most thorough inner child reclamation book I’ve yet to read.

You can be addicted to constant activity: shopping, reading, exercising, watching sports, watching TV, taking care of pets or being a workaholic.Even if the conscious mind doesn’t have the words to talk about it, the body remembers trauma. Supportive physical touch can help you soothe your inner child.