Category: harsh inner critic

The Harsh Inner Critic

Harsh Inner CriticHave you ever wondered why one criticism or piece of feedback will wipe out ten compliments? That happens because of the Harsh Inner Critic.

Children who grow up with adequate parents are able to develop into their individual selves. When the parenting is inadequate, the children then decide they are “bad in a good world,” and work to be like the parent/ caretaker. They come to believe that their basic needs have caused the problems in their worlds. They are convinced their needs are bad. A harsh inner critic develops.

Insecure Attachment

An insecure attachment is created between the caretaker and the child. This is an attachment where the child cannot depend upon the parent. A child needs a trustworthy and dependable parent/caretaker in order to thrive.

The Internal Parent

Because the human psyche is so creative and flexible, the baby can create a solution; he or she develops an internal parent (the Harsh Inner Critic) who is always with them, constant and dependable. Unfortunately, because the baby has decided he or she is bad and a problem to be fixed, this internal parent is harsh, critical and never satisfied. This internal parent always knows what to do and freely tells the child what to do, often far into adulthood. This usually involves telling the child how bad they are, and how much they need to change.

The Harsh Inner Critic

The Harsh Inner Critic is focused on the external world with no regard for the needs of the child. If the child does have needs, the Harsh Inner Critic calls the child a failure. Therefore, the child comes to believe that he or she should never require help satisfying basic human needs, because to do so is “bad.”

Critical Help

The Harsh Inner Critic, with all its demands and negative messages, becomes the child’s defense against feeling helpless, vulnerable, and hopeless. No matter how bad these messages feel, there is always a solution. The internal parent tells the child that the answers to these feelings are to develop a way of life that requires no outside help. This scenario sets the stage for the internal drama triangle to begin.
If you feel you are struggling with a Harsh Inner Critic, call me at:919-881-2001. Together we can find a way to help you with these messages.

Better to be Bad in a Good World Than Good in a Bad World

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Current cinema is flooded with movies about the “end of the world.” A catastrophic event occurs, the world as we know it is destroyed, and there a few “good” survivors left to face the “bad” faction who brought about the situation. This establishes a terrifying scenario in which the few people who are left must hide and struggle to survive, facing deprivation and helplessness. The world they now live in is, at best, empty of resources and, at worst, hostile. Every day they must fight for their survival. They live with hopelessness and the very real possibility of annihilation.

This is an accurate metaphor for the experience of people who received inadequate parenting. Inadequate parenting can range from benign neglect (parents who wanted to care for their children, but for one reason or another were not capable), to outright abusive. Because a child depends upon the parent to survive, it is intolerable for him/her to know the parent is inadequate. It would
mean the child would not survive. Just like the survivors in the apocalypse movies, the child would be faced with certain annihilation.

In order to survive, the child interprets the parent’s inadequacies as being his or her fault, which makes that child view him or herself as “bad.” The annihilation anxiety turns into feelings of guilt because the child is “bad” for causing the parent discomfort. The child feels burdensome and inconvenient due to having normal human needs and wants.

From this guilt, internal messages and beliefs develop to help the child survive. Normal human need for love, nurture and caring-contact are labeled as “bad.” From this experience negative messages develop about who the child is. Messages in the child’s mind could take such forms as, “I am wrong, not good enough, lazy, and stupid, unlovable; I don’t deserve to be happy or successful.”

We carry these messages with us into adulthood, which is far past their usefulness. Those thoughts define who we are, and tell us that our motivations and actions are bad. We carry inside of us intense internal criticisms that are so old and deeply ingrained that we no longer consciously hear the critical voice, yet still act upon the messages it sends.

Together in therapy, we will deconstruct these internal beliefs so you can move forward in life and begin to feel better. Our first job is to help you hear your internal dialogue. As we discover more about you, we will come to understand these beliefs and how they developed. Eventually, you will learn to stand up to these self-criticisms and create new, more positive messages.