John Bradshaw, #1 New York Times bestselling author of "Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child" and the man who popularized the wounded inner child and the dysfunctional family, returns to The Dini Petty Show in 1992 for a rare, uncut studio interview and live workshop.

This isn't a standard talk show conversation. Bradshaw, fresh off his Daytime Emmy-winning PBS series, leads Dini and her entire studio audience through a live championing meditation, walking them back into painful childhood memories with their adult strength as protection. The room changes visibly. People cry. The exercise works.

Between the workshop segments, Bradshaw explains why he believes all families carry dysfunction, why misery becomes identity, and why the real job of therapy is taking people from their misery to their actual pain. He speaks with raw honesty about his own fatherless childhood, his training for the Catholic priesthood, and the moment he tried inner child work on himself and broke down sobbing.

Bradshaw died in 2016 at age 82 with over fifty years of sobriety. His books have sold 12.5 million copies in 42 languages.

This interview has not been seen since its original 1992 CTV broadcast.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Dini welcomes back the man who turned millions of unhappy lives around
1:21 What the wounded inner child actually is, and why you never got to grieve it
2:32 The dysfunctional family defined: "It doesn't deal. That's the simplest way to say it."
3:43 How culture writes your identity before you're born
5:59 "I've turned my fate into fortune, my woundedness into creativity"
6:42 "You can make the church your mother, you can make crack your mother"
7:21 "It is too late to have a happy childhood, but it is never too late to heal"
8:26 Why misery becomes identity, and the real job of therapy
9:16 "You either pass this back or you pass it on"
10:00 LIVE WORKSHOP: Bradshaw leads the studio audience into a championing meditation
13:00 "You have no right to do this to me. I'm just a little child."
14:00 "I love you just the way you are"
15:33 The neuroscience of redoing a memory
16:00 Audience Q&A: why some memories resist, and when NOT to do this alone
19:07 From the priesthood to inner child work: Bradshaw's path

ABOUT THE DINI PETTY SHOW

The Dini Petty Show was a Canadian daytime talk show that aired on CTV from 1989 to 1999. Broadcast from Toronto, the show ran for ten years and featured in-depth conversations with Hollywood legends, music icons, politicians, and cultural figures. Dini Petty's warm yet probing interview style earned the show multiple Gemini Award nominations and a loyal audience across Canada.

This channel is the official archive of The Dini Petty Show. Most of these interviews have not been seen since their original broadcast. New conversations from the vault are uploaded weekly.

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