A toxic inner critic can often trap our clients in painful patterns of shame, or sometimes leave them frozen in fear.
But according to Rick Hanson, PhD, the inner critic can also serve an important function.
So how can we help clients counteract a harsh inner critic in order to experience healing and growth?
In this short video, Rick shares a useful way of reframing the role of the inner critic for clients, and why it can sometimes be necessary to veer from some of the most common approaches for working with it.
Take a look—it’s about 4 minutes.
How do you help clients break free from a harsh inner critic?
Please leave a comment below.
I encourage clients to develop self-compassion, to love themselves despite and including their flaws and mistakes, understanding that none of us is perfect and we all have problems. Putting the oxygen mask on and nurturing oneself in all dimensions, intellectual, emotional, physical, social, and spiritual can lead to self-love. Helping them combat the automatic negative thoughts of inner criticism, learn to forgive themselves and challenge and reframe the inner critic to be more constructive seems to be helpful, also.
As an art and journal therapist I have clients build up their Nurturing Parent within and their Protective Parent (boundary setter), then we meet the Critical Parent who is a character assassin. That’s how I define it. It is the worst of Inner Critics. With art we have fun by drawing, painting or sculpting a Critical Parent Mask.. The Angry CHIld sasses back and lets off steam that has accumulated over the years of being brow-beaten by the Critical Parent. In other words, we play with it. Make a drama out of it, a performance piece, if you will. Afterward we journal with it. The Critic gets it’s say with the dominant hand. The Brat gets to sass back with the non dominant hand. Then we make a list of critical sentences on the left side of the page and counter this with “Truth Telling” statements about each sentence. It’s fun, cathartic and connects the thinking brain with the feeling brain. I intrigued this latter activity in my draw-it-yourself coloring book, Hello, This is Your Body Talking.
I see the inner critic as in the IFS system and it’s something /someone to negotiate with. Psychodramatically the Clnt plays both roles and other protectors and supports and in that way the Clnt can differentiate the role parts…and when they are speaking.. now who and why they have ‘come forward’. As therapist each voice is interviewed. The Clnt can reframe the critics words..or negotiate.
Thank you, Dr. Buczynski and others. Great work
I’ve had some success with having clients visualize their inner child (usually about age 7-8 tho occasionally younger) that they speak to lovingly. First I ask them to ‘see’ their child, how they’re dressed and other specifics, then ask if they can see what the child needs at that moment. Then I will ask them to say nurturing sentences to the child such as ” I love listening to you…I love giving you attention” and to then take note of the child’s reactions to the loving sentences. Some folks have a very strong positive reaction and others begin crying and abreacting in session bc they have never had their child hear such safe mirroring sentiments. Clients who do best with the exercise are naturally ones who are willing and competent at visualizations.
Very helpful video. I like the analogy of the climbing coaches and it is similar to one I use when asking clients to choose which kind of teacher they think would be best for a child. We can send them to a school where the teachers push with hard critical punishing statements, putting the child down when there are mistakes, or choose a school where the teachers nurture, support and encourage the child, giving constructive feedback. Most client’s laugh and choose the later. I also use Compassion Focussed Therapy and chair work to increase awareness of how it feels being criticised and how this impacts on future behaviour and motivations. Helping client’s to recognise that the intention of the critic may be to motivate but ultimately it is not helpful and engaging with the compassionate self can be a more helpful alternative. We then look in more detail at the critical thought and find the alternative more balanced compassionate perspective. Asking what they would say to the person in the empty chair or another person, can encourage finding the alternative perspective. I also encourage client’s to recognise that thoughts are not facts and we use CBT techniques to find the more compassionate alternative thoughts and how this would then change feelings and behaviour.
It is so true that it is difficult to disempower the harsh inner critic. I love the idea of building a caring committee…I would rally love to hear more about this. I fear some of my clients wouldn’t feel that they could identify anyone…even the fun kind If characters that Rick refers to
I use the process called DNMS to assist in managing the inner critic. Interesting that there is a “healing Circle” within that process that directly relates to Rick’s description of encouraging rather than criticizing.
Dr. Claire Morrissey
Good suggestions. I love the caring committee. When it becomes clear that a client has a conflict between everyday self and a hypercritical sub-personality, I like to do Parts Therapy in light trance. I ask the client to enter the role of the critic fully, to speak from that point of view, and refer to the everyday self in the third person. I want to learn what the positive intention is and how this personality sees it playing out. No assumptions in the questions. Clean. The I invite the conscious self to speak and explain how this has a non-beneficial effect. Back and forth until they agree on a new set of tasks that satisfy the requirements of each. Not only do people have a caring set of characters, who usually need encouagement, but also a few would-be caring characters if only they could join the rest and if they knew how. Their intentions are almost always positive at the core, but working badly for the whole person.
Very clear and concise explanation. I found the mountain guide idea very helpful.
I like the idea of a caring committee although I have some concerns with someone with DID who has large committee to consult to reach any decisions.
Perhaps working parties for specific tasks could help.
It is good to help the critic to understand how a more compassionate approach can be more efficient in enabling change. I see how hard this is for people who have experienced only harsh criticism as a child rather than encouragement. It is a challenge to realise that the critic is working to help. By acknowledging this and looking at a different approach it can lessen the toxicity and facilitate more growth and kindness.
So useful to have these sessions. Thankyou so much
I use IFS with my own inner critic and if it’s being harsh I tell him/it/her that I understand he’s trying to be helpful but it’s a bit too harsh and that it’s not helpful to be spoken to so harshly and that he’s actually hurting me/other parts. It feels better and at the same time, hopefully, is teaching it (i.e. me) how to speak to me.
The difference is really encapsulated in the distinction between malignant superego and ego ideal
I help them notice when and in what circumstances their criticizing energies tend to appear.
I encourage them to notice that they are usually in some kind of compromised state: exhausted, stressed, pushing themselves beyond old limits, with family members who restimulate old shame, etc.
I lthink it’s useful to have them externalize these voices– through drawing, writing, verbalizing, or role playing– to get them out where they can be seen and are not so damaging. Working with groups helps people normalize these energies and witness each others’ harshness to themselves. And then we work with the parts, the needs of the parts (NVC meets IFS), and have them mediate between these parts (from Self) and see what their system is wanting, how they might better strategize to get its seemingly contradictory needs met, and then to start to reorganize around meeting needs in more effective, self-compassionate ways. I am a coach, specializing in the path of the creative client.
I use excerpts from the 12-step program that I use quite frequently with my different clients the thing to get into is what is really the underlying factor that is causing this harshness and go into it from there we look at fear we look at overbearingness we look at the big I or me person the manifestations of self consciousness and we don’t point it everything we look at it and just let the client come around too pretty soon he said you know I think that’s me I think that’s me and I Came Upon This one time in an awful big hurry harshness is also found in bullyism
The first step is to get clients aware of the inner critic. Then I’ll have them Gestalt it with 3 vantage points: topdog, underdog and observer.
Charles Horowitz, Ph.D., Boulder, CO
Always approach by being extremely positive in all interactions by challenging any topic of conversation with love and truth . Hoping to plant a seed for growth in the relationship of honor and respect.
Very very useful thank you. Often I use CBT and we look at the ‘evidence’ for the critical judgment, or disconfirming evidence. But this relies on people being able to think rationally, which is clearly not the case when they are sunk in self loathing. So I will give the Inner Coach a try – and to link it with inner compassion tools I use as well.
Like the mountain climbing analogy. Start to feel the Warmth!
Very good video. I like the idea of the committee lessening the power of the inner critic, diluting it! If we figure out that critic moved in in childhood (harsh parenting) I ask the client if they know children of like age and then to consider how it would have affected that child. This is to counteract our difficulty in imagining our childhood self. This seems to help them release the shame imposed upon the……they can see the inappropriateness of labels they have been carrying.
Love this!
Really vibe on how the recognition of guiding versus ctriticizing or non constructive feedback is explained. This is so true within ourselves when taking that inner part in hand and working toward recovery. I also find it applicable to the helping alliance beyond self inner critic work. There is so much more acceptance with what is happening in the here and now when the relationship takes focus on guiding through the present reality in place of fixating around missed expectations of the past or future.
This was really good, thank you. I like the idea of the caring committee and having different characters in mind that represent different parts. Also, the hard critic really does inhibit performance even though it’s intent is to assist. This has a lot of features of IFS, but I could see using Rick’s intervention easily even if I parts-work had not been formally introduced or covered. It’s so intuitive. Thank you!