Identifying and Combating Your Inner Critic

Your inner critic, that persistent internal voice which tends to undermine your self-worth, can leave you grappling with feelings of worthlessness, loneliness, hopelessness, or anxiety. Embracing a schema therapy perspective, we can identify three primary types of inner critics, each with its unique set of challenges and negative emotions. Whether dominated by one critic or a combination, understanding and combating these inner critics is helpful for fostering a healthier mindset and self-image.

The demanding critic:
This inner voice enforces unattainable standards, often centred around academics, appearance, or career achievements. The demands are relentless and unrealistic, leaving individuals feeling like failures or perpetually 'not good enough.'  

The guilt-inducing critic:
This critic makes you believe that others' needs are much more important than your own. It assumes you are responsible for the wellbeing of the people around you. When you can’t make everyone happy, predict and meet the needs of others, it makes you feel guilty.

The punitive critic:
This critic denigrates and devalues the self. Often the messages are generalised negative attributes such as “you are stupid” or “you are a bad person”.

Origins of the critic:
Our inner critic voice often comes from internalised messages we hear around us growing up. It may be from parents, significant peers, a teacher or cultural norms. The critic may also be a result of trying to make sense of past mistreatment by incorrectly attributing blame or insufficiency to the self. Inner critics try to make us ‘better’, ‘more worthy’, or ‘lovable’ by shaming us into action.

Combating 'The critic':
To combat the critic, we need to grow our healthy, wise and compassionate selves. 

• Set behaviour experiments to do things you enjoy without any strings attached.

• Find a balance between the needs of others and your needs. Establishing boundaries and understanding that self-care is not selfish is key.

• Channel your healthy adult mode by recalling times when you felt proud, or confident. 

• Imagine the critic telling the same messages to a friend or child. How would you want to stand up for them? Repeat this back to yourself.

• Actively replace destructive messages with self-affirming thoughts.

Written By: Hayley Liew - Registered Psychologist