Everyday situations can trigger existential survival mechanisms. When feelings of powerless and fear arise, children can become prisoners of their emotions, which can lead to a renewed traumatisation. At a physical and psychological level it becomes existentially vital to regain control of oneself. In child and youth psychiatry, and similarly in psychotherapy, the child’s imagination is an opportunity to internally shield oneself and to create a distance to what has been experienced.
INEO (from “inire”, Latin for “to go inside”, “to begin”) has been developed by Meret Trösch for therapy sessions with traumatised children. INEO is a personal object to which the child and the therapeutic professional can form a relationship and together imagine something protective, thus providing a route to renewed movement and action.
