Self Criticism

In this blog section, I shall be exploring various topics of mental health be it sleep, panic attacks, feeling isolated etc. I shall be providing certain tools and skills to help you better look after yourself in each area of your well-being.

Claire, 45, enters therapy, reporting that she feels dissatisfied with her life in general. She reported that she is persistently riddled by guilt and shame that she is a bad mother and an inadequate wife to her spouse. Within therapy, Claire is able to discover how cruel and judgemental she is towards herself.  Claire explored the developmental origins of this self-critical thought pattern. It emerged that she had always been the parents’ parent, managing the household while being a child herself. She was always working towards meeting an unrealistic expectation of being the perfect carer, daughter, parent and partner to everyone. Within therapy, Claire explored her emotional needs for the first time in her life. She worked with the therapist to achieve a sense of compassion towards herself. With the therapist’s help, Claire was able to disempower the self-critical thoughts she always had and empower the self-compassionate thoughts.

Self-criticism, is a thinking style that involves criticising ourselves. Most of us adopt this thought process almost unknowingly and/or unconsciously. This thinking style does serve important purposes, such as:

• It helps us navigate various situations and relationships with others around us.
• It helps us acknowledge our flaws and this can be a healthy way to increase our awareness of ourselves, motivate ourselves and strive towards personal growth and development.
• Critiquing ourselves can help us learn from our own mistakes from the past and aid us to move past our habits that might not be serving us well.However, a high level of criticism towards ourselves can stop us from asserting who we truly are. If we indulge in highly self-critical thoughts over a long period of time, this can:
• activate self-sabotaging behaviours; i.e we start holding ourselves back in every way.
• can damage our self-esteem,
• drive anxiety, perfectionism, shame,

4) low mood and depression and even

5) reinforce thoughts and feelings around harming ourselves.

As a result, our mental health and well-being are affected negatively.

 

UNDERSTANDING SELF-CRITICISM

 Self-Criticism as a discovery that adversely affects our mental health is relatively new. As Thompson and Zuroff found in 2004 in their Levels of Self-Criticism Scale; that there are two types of self-criticism that we all indulge in:1) comparative and 2) internalized.

In Comparative self-criticism we compare ourselves with other and find ourselves to be lacking in some way or the other. For example; we might see a colleague who started working in an organisation the same time as us but they get a promotion but not us. Typically, when we see their success, we start indulging in thoughts that are judgemental, critical and hostile towards ourselves.

 The second type of self-criticism that we indulge in is: Internalized self-criticism. This way of thinking about ourselves involves extreme high conditions of worth that we set for ourselves. This again sets us up for failure because we are not able to live up to our own extremely high and unreachable standards. For example, if I have a high level of internalised self-criticism, and I score a 99% on a test, I would still consider it as a failure as I did not get a 100%. Anything less that perfection is a failure to me. At times, people with a high sense of internalised self-criticism is not aware even when perfection (externally imposed standards) in itself is reached.

HOW DO THESE Self-Critical thoughts DEVELOP?

For most people, detrimental self-critical thinking styles originate from:

1) Negative experiences,
2) Early life trauma and

3) Breakdown in relationships with important figures in childhood such as parents, grandparents, extended family members etc.

When children feel rejection, shame and abandonment by their parents, or they feel that they are not treated with warmth and compassion, that they are met with criticism on a regular basis, they may grow up to absorb this criticism and shame of who they are and their thoughts and emotions.

 

HARMFUL SELF-CRITICISM VS HELPFUL SELF CRITICISM

Self-criticism can be generally experienced as negative internal thoughts about ourselves, our behaviours, our attitudes and our emotions. Common self-critical thoughts that all of us might have engaged in from time and again include:

• “I am so stupid.”
• “I can’t do anything right.”
• “I am not good enough.”
• “I will never get better.”
• “I will always remain worthless.”

The above thoughts that we experience do not focus on any particular behavior of us or a mistake that we might have made that can be improved upon. Rather, these thoughts promote a feelings of helplessness and hopelessness because of their all-encompassing, condemning nature. These thoughts damage our self-esteem and promote a relationship in which we bully ourselves.

On the other hand, the thoughts listed below are also thoughts we experience on a daily basis. These thoughts focus on a particular aspect of our behaviours and our personality traits that we can improve upon and take control to better our lives.

• “I shouldn’t be spending so much time on my phone.”
• “I slacked and did not meet my work deadline. Now all my reports are delayed. I cannot do that anymore.”
• “I should not have shouted at my daughter. I need to take a breather and regain my calmness when dealing with her in the future.”

These thoughts are constructive rather than destructive as they motivate us and remind us of our abilities and resources to work and improve ourselves. This type of self-critical thought can often lead us to make the necessary modifications in our lives by helping us develop awareness of the areas we might be falling short on.

What self-criticism does to your mental health?

Chronic or excessive self-criticism may contribute to debilitating mental health conditions such as

• depression,
• social anxiety,
• eating disorders etc.
• isolation and withdrawing from family, friends and social circles.
• loneliness

ways to address self-critical thinking styles

Counselling and therapy have often proven to be impactful for people whose daily functioning might be significantly impacted by their self-critical thoughts. There are a few approaches within therapy that specifically address this thinking pattern.

• Emotion-focussed therapy conducts various exercises to help the person gain a perspective on the pervasive nature of their self-critical thoughts.
• Compassion Focussed Therapy where the person is guided to meet parts of themselves that they actively reject or are cruel towards. Potential barriers to extending compassion to their own internal parts are identified and explored.
• There is also an awareness building exercise that is drawn out of Emotion Focused Therapy which can help a person to build a non-judgmental awareness of one’s thoughts and feelings, and can promote greater self-esteem.This exercise can be called an inner critic dialogue. It involves dividing the thought processes in your head in two parts and giving them a name and a voice and then creating an internal, imagined conversation between the two thought processes. The following few steps are what this exercise entails:

 

• Name your inner critic
• Give the criticised part of you a name as well.
• Now make two columns for the two names in a journal, or a notebook or even on your phone or a piece of paper. For example: if you named your inner critic Jekyll and the criticised part of you Hyde. This is what your sheet should look like:

Jekyll	Hyde

• Now write the worst thought you have criticising yourself under Jekyll’s column. Use second person voice as if you are Jekyll now who is criticising Hyde who is also you. Try to embody Jekyll’s anger, resentment or contempt towards Hyde. For example:

Jekyll	Hyde
You are useless(angrily)

• Now connect internally to how this thought made you feel just as you thought about yourself in this way. It is important to connect with what Hyde(you) is feeling at this point and start a dialogue and address Jekyll’s cruelty to you.

Jekyll	Hyde
You are useless(angrily)	I feel sad and hopeless when you say that to me

• Emotionally, connect back to Jekyll. He might despise and hate Hyde and say something like in the two scenarios as shown below:
  SCENARIO A:

Jekyll	Hyde
You are useless	I feel sad and hopeless when you say that to me
Good, I want you to feel even worse

Or
SCENARIO B:

Jekyll	Hyde
You are useless	I feel sad and hopeless when you say that to me
I am sorry, I did not mean to make you feel this way

 

• Regardless of whether your internal dialogue is with Scenario A or B, it is important for the criticised part of you to find why the inner critic within says those things to you or what makes you think of yourself in self critical ways.

Jekyll	Hyde
	Why do you do this to me?

• In most cases, you will find that your inner critic is looking out for you, helping you navigate the world but unfortunately, in harsh, damaging ways

Jekyll	Hyde
I only try to look out for you, so that you don’t make mistakes

• The next step is for your criticised self to hear this intention behind your inner critic and communicate your emotional need from your inner critic. Such as:

Jekyll	Hyde
	I understand that you are protective of me but I need you to give me a break

So this is how the entire internal dialogue will look like:

 

Jekyll	Hyde
You are useless(angrily)	I feel sad and hopeless when you say that to me
I am sorry, I did not mean to make you feel this way
	Why do you do this to me?
I only try to look out for you, so that you don’t make mistakes
	I understand that you are protective of me but I need you to give me a break

 

This inner critic dialogue is a skill. It does not come naturally to the best of us. The key is to start practising this dialogue through writing and gradually, like in every skill you might find that you can easily start a mental conversation/an inner dialogue when you find yourself caught up in a moment of self-criticism.