Stefanie Stahl is a psychologist, therapist and author. She regularly holds seminars on topics such as fear of commitment and self-esteem. In an interview with FOCUS online, she talks about her long-standing bestseller – and why we should deal with our “inner child”.
FOCUS online: Ms. Stahl, your book “The child in you must find home” has been number 1 in the Spiegel bestseller list every year since 2016. For those who still don’t know it: What is your book about?
Stefanie Stahl: It’s about the most important thing in life – the brain and how it is shaped. This determines how we perceive the world and other people – and this in turn affects how we feel, think and act.
Each of us has a brain that is subjectively shaped by childhood and by our parents. And since there are no perfect parents, it’s interesting for everyone to see what software I’m running around with in my head. That is also the reason why it is so successful: the book concerns everyone.
With her bestseller “The child in you must find home”, the psychologist Stefanie Stahl has helped many people to overcome negative childhood memories and the thought patterns associated with them. You can experience Stefanie Stahl live in our free webinar. GET YOUR FREE TICKET HERE!
How can a book assume the role of a therapist who deals with the patient individually in talk therapy?
Stahl: We are not as individual as we think we are. Our psyche works according to certain laws and we all have the same basic structure. The individuality is merely the deviation from the structure. We therefore do not necessarily need individual support to see where the screw is loose in our company. Then there is the motivation. People whom my book can help are motivated to take responsibility themselves.
And who doesn’t dare?
Stahl: Those who need psychotherapy want someone by their side to help. This can be advisable, for example, in the case of bad and painful experiences. But there are many people who say the book has helped me much more than many therapies before.
It’s the same in our profession as everywhere else: there is a normal distribution, which means there are bad, good and very good therapists. And if the therapist misses the point, therapy won’t help either.
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According to the book, I should deal with the “inner child”. Why are childhood memories so formative for our entire life?
Stahl: Because the brain configures itself accordingly. The brain is only about 25 percent formed when we are born. The rest are wired up, especially in the first six years of life. And according to how we find the world out there.
What does it mean exactly?
Stahl: The brain is shaped by the experience of the environment. When I have the experience as a child that mom and dad are happy that I exist, they take good care of me and love me very much, then the brain connects via the hormonal and neuro-biological processes that are taking place. And deep down there is a basic trust, I’m ok and there are people out there I can trust.
That’s a deep imprint. If I don’t have this basic trust, my brain is much more stressed, I have less sense of security. The first two years are very important for this.
Does it matter whether I send my child to daycare very early or look after it myself?
Stahl: If children come to daycare too early and the sense of security is not strong enough, it will later be irreversible. These children are then stressed much more quickly because they cannot down-regulate. This is also due to the fact that children are born a year too early, they actually have to be “rebred” first.
The first year is all about safety and security, which honestly is best done by the mother as a caregiver. So give security through physical contact, pick up, comfort, caress. This causes the brain to release calming hormones. The child’s brain cannot regulate stress itself. Only with mum and dad does the brain find its way and the child gets security. However, if it is too early and too long in the day care center, this cycle does not occur, but hardware damage develops.
The key to solving (almost) all problems – Stefanie Stahl
It is said that Hans will never learn what little Hans doesn’t learn. Are there exercises that I can use to get rid of deadlocked thought patterns?
Stahl: You can catch up on a lot and learn new things, although the very early experiences in the first two years are more difficult to compensate. Later it’s about a primitive process: you have a situation as an adult that is not objective, but works through memory.
What does that mean specifically?
Stahl: Based on my experience and memory, I can recognize a table as a table or a dog as a dog. That’s good for concrete stories, but what if the other person pulls up the corners of their mouth? Is that a friendly smile or a silly grin? I interpret interpersonal things through my memories.
When my formative memories were very bad with people, I see a lot of animosity. And then these people are threatening because I haven’t earned that trust. Scenes play out in my head like: You can’t rely on the people out there, they’re not nice, they don’t see my needs. So I have to see that I can manage on my own.
And how do I get out of there?
Steel: Man has a reflectivity. I can see that this used to be the case with mom and dad and I think that someone means me badly or that I am inferior to the other. But that’s nonsense, it’s just subjective impressions.
If my parents had been in a different mood, I would have had completely different associations. So the whole program that’s going on in my head doesn’t belong to me at all, it belongs to my parents and I can distance myself from it. The first step is to realize that you are in the wrong movie. If I don’t see that, I believe everything I see.
I’ll give you an example: I was in the Bavaria film study in the 4D cinema, there was a killer-animated comic sleigh ride. The 4D effects made me think I was sitting in the sled screaming and scared. But when I remember that I’m sitting in the cinema and it’s just a film on the screen, I distance myself. It’s the same in real life. This characterization by the 4D animation has nothing to do with the here and now, i.e. the present. When you step aside and see that it’s just a film, then the scene also dissolves. That is what I also exercise with the readers in the book.
With her bestseller “The child in you must find home”, the psychologist Stefanie Stahl has helped many people to overcome negative childhood memories and the thought patterns associated with them. You can experience Stefanie Stahl live in our free webinar. GET YOUR FREE TICKET HERE!
How do I recognize that the cause of my problems lies with my “inner child”, i.e. the early imprints. It can also be the partner whose inner child causes problems.
Stahl: You can see that best when you look at it from the outside and switch to the observer position. What am I doing to make the situation difficult? So look at it from the outside, like when a judge handles a case. And then I see what the other side is doing, what is their share? I take responsibility for the part that belongs to me and separate myself from the other part.
Also an example: If my partner is afraid of commitment and always makes disturbed maneuvers of closeness and distance and I recognize this fear of commitment, then I leave this fear with her. If I were to take it, I would try to convince them of my worth and take responsibility for it. If I don’t do that, I break up because it’s too much work for me and find someone who is more committed or I choose a way to deal with it. One possibility could be that I make myself a bit more independent.
