Working with the inner critic: Therapeutic approach

Abstract

The inner critic refers to a well-integrated system of critical and negative thoughts and attitudes of the self that interferes with the individual's organismic experiencing process. In a previous article published in the same issue (Working with the inner critic: Process features and pathways to change), we demonstrated that the critic exhibits during therapy through a variety of manifestations and different degrees of intensity. Several pathways to change need to take place in order for this process blockage to evolve in a more adaptive self-aspect. In this article we offer a differentiated look of what therapists can do in concrete terms in order to facilitate these pathways of change. A comprehensive and varied sample of therapy episodes in which the inner critic was salient, was analyzed in depth. The research demonstrated that a variety of strategies was used to encourage the inner critic into motion. A flexible approach, tailored to the nature and intensity of the inner critic, appeared to offer the best chance of success. A critic-friendly approach that is attuning to the critic's feelings and concerns and valorizing these appeared to be more beneficial when the critic manifested itself in a stubborn and intensive way. Where the critic presented a milder manifestation the critic could be more easily set aside at a distance or contact could be made with the suppressed organismic experience. Maintaining a uniform approach to the problem without any regard to the way in which the critic was gradually being expressed, appeared to delay the therapy process or even, in certain cases, to be counter-therapeutic, particularly where the critic was quite intense.