Do you really need your inner critic to stay motivated?
Expert tip from Russell Kolts
Part of helping clients work with shame and self-criticism involves getting curious about the functions the client ascribes to their self-critic. Clients can sometimes have real resistance to addressing self-criticism:
- “I need my self-critic to keep myself on track and stay productive.”
- “If it wasn’t for my self-critic, I might never get anything done.”
- “I need my self-critic to keep me accountable.”
These responses capture a common obstacle to addressing self-criticism: the idea that the client needs the self-critic to keep them motivated, on-task, and productive in accomplishing life goals. We can see how this comes about – sometimes when we call ourselves a flabby piece of crap, we go to the gym (although we’re more likely to retreat to the couch or the refrigerator).
But in addition to reinforcing a shame-based way of relating to the self and generally making us feel bad, this way of understanding self-criticism is based in a flaw of reasoning – it assumes that beating ourselves up is the only way, or perhaps the best way to motivate ourselves to take positive actions in our lives. The problem is that it puts us under aversive control, with our behaviour being motivated to reduce or avoid a punishing experience (the critical voice) rather than being about improving our lives.
In CFT, we’re all about helping clients discover how to motivate themselves to take helpful actions to improve their lives and their self-image – by learning to engage themselves compassionately and motivate themselves in a way that is about taking care of themselves and moving toward the life they want to have rather than reluctantly struggling in the attempt to temporarily silence that cruel inner voice.
This approach involves developing a compassionate understanding of how we came to engage with ourselves in this way – and the positive intentions behind the unhelpful critical strategy – and then developing a compassionate inner voice which will help us work with the shame we carry and help us motivate ourselves to take bold steps in our lives that are validating, supportive, and encouraging, and which help us build enduring habits that improve our lives and our self-esteem.
Join Russell to learn some practical strategies
Russell’s CFT for shame and self-criticism online training course will explore the use of compassion-focused therapy (CFT) to support clients in addressing cycles of self-attacking. It will feature mini-lectures around key concepts, alongside role-play and experiential exercises that will allow participants to reflect on and deepen their own understanding of shame and self-criticism.