Human: Healing from the Inner Critic
If I were to identify only one thing to focus on in therapy with clients, it would be the Inner Critic. This toxic part of the psyche can truly wreak havoc, maintaining depression, anxiety, trauma, and poor self-concept. In contrast, the journey of healing, treating, or re-integrating the Inner Critic can bring enormous positive change. But this can be a long and complex journey. If it were as simple as ‘just be nicer to yourself’, clients would have done this long ago!
In my work, I see the journey of healing from the Critic involves ‘phases’. These are not separate steps necessarily, and these phases can overlap through the course of therapy many times. But they are a way to view the different therapeutic elements that we use.
1. Building awareness of the Inner Critic – often the Critic is so habitual and conditioned that clients don’t ‘see’ it anymore. Self-criticism is the mental norm. If we are not aware of our patterns as they happen, we cannot do anything different with them, and change is not possible.
2. Building psychological distance from the Inner Critic – often clients are very ‘fused’, or identified, with their Critic. This can be for several reasons; for example, the Critic might be habitual and deeply ingrained (‘that’s just the way it is, I can’t imagine thinking differently’), Or, the person feels helpless in the face of the Inner Critic attack (‘I can’t stop it, there’s nothing I can do’). Sometimes, clients feel they deserve this attack (‘It’s my fault anyway, I deserve to be punished, I’m useless’). Therapeutically, we need a ‘foot in the door’, or some psychological distance from the Inner Critic to even consider responding to it in a different way. One of the ways we can build distance from the Critic is to label it – ‘this is my Inner Critic Mode’. In order to label, one has to externalise, or ‘look at’ that part of the mind, as opposed to being lost in the intense negative thoughts and feelings.
3 Challenging the Inner Critic – this is also an important phase. For many clients, particularly those with trauma backgrounds, they might never had had the inner resources, safety, or opportunity in the past to proverbially ‘fight back’ against others’ harmful comments or behaviours. Clients can build, over time and with practise, healthy assertion against the Inner Critic (‘I won’t be bullied by you!’), and create more balanced and self-compassionate self-talk (‘It’s ok, I’ve done my best and that’s enough!’).
4. Understanding the Inner Critic – once a client has gained more strength and confidence in responding the Critic – when the power balance between Critic and Healthy Self is more even – often deeper insights begin to arise. Not only where the Critic originates, but also why it has been so strongly present. Reflections on parents’ own backgrounds, or how the Inner Critic has helped a client in some way in the past (but not without cost) are common.
5. Dropping the fight with the Inner Critic and integrating – this phase is in direct contrast to challenging the Critic. At some point, clients begin to care less about what the Critic has to say, and they are less inclined to expend attention or energy in fighting the Critic. At this point, the Critic is experienced as far less powerful. When we combine this with the understanding of where the Critic comes from, why it was there, and perhaps even what has been learned from it (previous phase), there can be an experience of acceptance, forgiveness, or even compassion for the Critic. When this happens, a powerful integration of psychological ‘parts’ can occur. It is in processes like this that we may then experience greater wholeness in ourselves.