Understanding Ourselves
How to Make Friends with Your Inner Critic
EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
The premise is counterintuitive: the goal is not to silence the inner critic but to change your relationship with it. Doug gathers practical strategies from Steven Hayes’s acceptance and commitment therapy — naming the critic, addressing it in the third person, answering it with evidence. At its center is a question worth sitting with: would you erase all your pain if it also erased what it taught you?
A Note on the Original Text
Doug’s writings are presented as originally written. Spelling, punctuation, and grammatical irregularities have been retained to preserve his words and the integrity of the original record.
ORIGINAL WRITING
The title of this post is identical to the title of an article by Lakeasha Sullivan in the Health 7 Science section of the 11 October 2022 issue of The Washington Post. It is based on the work of Steven C. Hayes, the foundation professor of psychology at the University of Nevada at Reno, and co-developer of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT).
‘Befriend you inner critic. Rather than trying to suppress negative thoughts, learning to live with the inner critic is an essential skill that we can learn, Here are some strategies that can help.
Name your critic: Many of my patients name their inner critic and create a fictional backstory for it. The inner circle may be a disgruntled relative or a scared child. ‘What are the benefits of it? Figure out is it tapping into parts of your history,’ Hayes says
This strategy involves changing your perspective about the inner critic. The subtle shift of ‘third personing’ the inner critic can be liberating. ‘Make friends with it. Dialogue with it. Be curious,’ Steele suggests.
Offer counterevidence: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy teaches us how to counter negative self-talk. This empirically validated approach capitalizes on holes in the inner critic’s logic. For instance, if your inner voice says, ‘You’re such a failure,’ you should cite examples of success. ‘I know I’m not a failure. I’m good at my job.’
Be open to painful thoughts and emotions: A recent study by Hayes and others found that being open to painful thoughts and emotions is an important therapeutic tool that accounts for significant change among patients in therapy. ‘What if you could take a magic pill and erase all of your pain? But you also had to remove the wisdom and values you learned from it?’ Hayes asks. ‘I’ve never had a client who wants to make that bargain.’
Stay mindful: Mindfulness is another powerful distancing technique. ‘When we hear the inner critic being harsh, we could notice it, recognize it, thank it for trying to help, remind ourselves that we would never say things like that to someone we care about and see if we can be a little more kind to ourselves,’ writes Ruth Baer, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky who specializes in mindfulness.
‘Practicing mindfulness is like mental exercise,’ says Baer, who compares it to physical exercise. ‘It’s not always fun or comfortable and just doing it a few times won’t have much impact.’ But with regular practice, you can reap the benefits. ‘We learn to respond more skillfully to difficult experiences, and that can lead to a greater sense of peace and calm,’ Baer says.
I have recommended such apps such as Headspace to my patients a starting point, and Baer agrees. She also recommends exploring mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) or mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) courses. Many centers offer evidence-based courses and free resources online, such as the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion and the Mindfulness and Health Institute.
Use the inner critic for growth: Once understood, the inner critic can be useful. It can, for instance, help us lead a values-driven life. Chronically late people, for example, often experience a harsh inner critic who scolds them for looking back in front of others and being immature. But if the patients values reliability, they can thank the inner critic for reminding them of this value and start applying time-management skills. In this and other cases, the inner critic brings something important to our attention, and we can use this experience to align our actions with our values.