Search Results for: critical%20inner%20voice

Living Life on Your Own Terms by Lisa Firestone, Ph.D.

…that she actually enjoys kids. Through therapy, she came to identify this critical voice that told her she didn’t want to have children as her mother’s and not her own. As a powerless child, with a mother who frequently referred to her two daughters as “little brats,” abusing them both physically and verbally, it felt safer for my friend to identify with the aggressor and take on the point of view of the person who scared her. By aligning herself…

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The Critical Inner Voice

Evicting the "Obnoxious Roommate" In Your Head

…ssess to varying degrees. Although this isn’t an actual voice we hear, the critical inner voice describes destructive thoughts we all experience toward ourselves, as if a critic is living in our heads commenting on our actions. It was this inner critic that had been telling my sister – a straight-A student – that this time, her grades wouldn’t be good enough. And it was this same critic who told her she wouldn’t get into graduate school in the fir…

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What’s Behind Emotional Overeating?

…us into destructive behavior then pounces on us the minute we mess up. The critical inner voice is a driving force behind an eating disorder, and to challenge an unhealthy relationship with food, a person must deal with this internal enemy. We live in a society that supports being slim, sometimes to the extreme. This unrealistic ideal can be used in the service of our inner critic to put ourselves down, to feel inadequate , or to isolate us from t…

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All Hands on Deck: How We Can Help Someone Who’s Suicidal

…d toward us that we internalized. This “anti-self” can drive us to be self-critical, self-hating, or at its worst, self-destructive. However, each of us also possesses a “real self,” a part of us that is goal-directed, life-affirming, and that wants us to thrive in our lives. The battle between our self and our anti-self is one we all must face when it comes to living our lives to the fullest and being who we have the potential to be. For a suicid…

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Re-Moralizing Your Inner Voice Part Two

…b or a hard-working professional may not be able to make house payments. A critical inner voice will blame the self when, in fact, the individual performed well and the larger system, far beyond and outside of one’s own power, failed its members. This situation is reminiscent of belonging to a dysfunctional family system whose leaders’ inadequacies were swallowed and internalized as our own. It is vital to distinguish massive systemic failures fro…

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Be Your Own Couples Therapist

…. Before the simple matter could be resolved, he was accusing her of being critical and controlling, and she was defending herself and declaring him to be over-reactive and infantile. In these moments of tension, we must take a break and reflect. Don’t feed your feelings of hurt. Instead, step aside and ask yourself what you’re really reacting to and why. Identify patterns – A man recently came into my office, up in arms that his girlfriend was be…

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How to Become More Adult and Successful in Your Life

…your life where you have difficulty maintaining an adult perspective. The “critical inner voice” is made up of a system of negative thoughts, beliefs and attitudes toward oneself and others that predispose varying degrees of alienation. The voice can be harsh, punishing and demeaning, or seemingly positive, self-protective and indulgent. It strongly influences the acting out of self-defeating microsuicidal behaviors that adversely effect one’s lif…

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How to Stop Being a Victim

…elop more constructive approaches to dealing with their anger. Identifying Critical Inner Voices that Promote a Victimized Orientation to Life To move out of the victimized posture, it is important to identify critical inner voices that focus on injustices, such as “It’s not fair. This shouldn’t be happening to you. What did you ever do to deserve such treatment?” These destructive thoughts encourage passivity and helplessness while discouraging a…

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Do You Confuse Admiration with Love? Tales of a Covert Narcissist

…r than someone who is charismatic or the “life of the party”. Identify the critical inner voices or destructive thoughts that promote vanity, “You’re smarter, (better, more beautiful) than most other people. You can accomplish anything you set your mind to.” Also become familiar with thoughts that foster vanity’s down-side, which is low self-esteem: “You’re so unattractive. You’re such a failure. You’ll never amount to anything.” It really clarifi…

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Becoming Your Real Self: Shedding the Baggage of Your Past

…ces” you experience about yourself, others, and the world around you. This critical internal commentary often represents the views of our early caretakers. It can be valuable to reflect on the messages you received from their attitudes toward you, labels you were given in the family, and what each parent actually thought about you. Often, as adults, we are still experiencing our lives through the filter of these negative points of view. Starting t…

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