Maybe the Baby Was Never Broken…
In my integrative therapy practice, I often meet people who carry early experiences of being misunderstood. Some were told they were “colicky” babies. Others were seen as difficult, dramatic, or too sensitive. But what if the baby wasn’t broken? What if they were simply overwhelmed?
I’ve been reflecting deeply on this — how much of our early experience is shaped not just by what happened, but how our needs were met, or misread. What if that crying baby wasn’t unwell but just overstimulated? For some neurodivergent babies, even a loving cuddle can feel like too much. The smells, the movement, the eye contact — it can all overload the nervous system. And instead of being understood, they’re labelled.
This matters. Because many of those babies grow into adults who still carry that disconnect. Who learned to mask. Who were told their distress was “too much,” or to stop fidgeting, or to “use their words” when they had none.
In therapy, those early patterns show up again and again — in shutdown, burnout, anxiety, people-pleasing, or dissociation. Which is why I work integratively. I don’t believe in rigid models or one-size-fits-all interventions. Instead, I offer a blend of CBT, nervous system education, somatic exploration, mindfulness, and gentle trauma-informed practices. Always led by the client.
Take tapping (EFT), for example. Some people find it grounding. For others — especially those who haven’t felt safe in their body — it can be deeply triggering. That matters. And when it doesn’t feel right, we don’t force it. We get curious.
As Yetta Spring Smith says, “It’s not about fitting the person into the protocol. It’s about making the protocol fit the person.” That’s exactly how I work. If imagery is hard, we try words. If words don’t come, we notice sensation. If sitting still is too much, we move. We find the access point that feels possible, even if it’s tiny. And that in itself is often deeply reparative.
One client — let’s call her M — once told me she hated the idea of being “held” emotionally in sessions. When we explored further, she realised being held physically as a baby had actually felt frightening. Her body remembered the overwhelm, even when her mind didn’t. Once we understood that, things started to soften. The work could begin.
This is the power of integration — not just of methods, but of the whole person. Emotional, physical, cognitive, and nervous system responses all working together. And it starts with something deceptively simple: naming.
Naming is regulation. Saying “This is hard” or “I feel anxious” allows our system to settle. It gives shape to the chaos. As Dan Siegel puts it — “Name it to tame it.”
I use this with clients all the time. We map nervous system states. We track how it feels to be in freeze, fawn, or fight. We build language around shutdowns. Sometimes, regulation doesn’t look pretty — it looks like lying in the dark, watching the same show again, eating gummy sweets. And that’s okay too. There’s no gold star for healing the right way.
Integrative therapy is slow. It’s spacious. It’s curious. It says: I won’t give up on you just because a tool didn’t work. Let’s find what does.
So if you were once the baby that cried too much… or the adult who still doesn’t feel quite right in your skin… maybe the problem was never you. Maybe you were always responding exactly as you needed to.
And now, maybe, it’s time to be heard.
—
Clare Monson, Yarrow Therapies
Compassionate, integrative therapy for women and adults — gently reconnecting mind, body, and nervous system.
