The Inner Critic is the part of you that judges you, demeans you, and pushes you to do things. It tends to make you feel bad about yourself.

Many of you know that we created an Inner Critic questionnaire over a year ago, which shows which of the seven types of Inner Critics are a problem for you. You can read a report on each of your problem Critics, to learn how it operates and what to do about it. You can then profile each Critic and create an Inner Champion for yourself to help deal with attacks from this Critic and to support you in being yourself and feeling good about yourself.

So for about 1300 people have taken this questionnaire on our website. We want to reach a larger audience, so we have created a version of the questionnaire that is a Facebook quiz. This makes it very easy for Facebook users to take the quiz and then tell their friends about it.

Please take the quiz on Facebook http://apps.facebook.com/inner-critic/ and if you find it valuable, tell your friends. If you have taken the questionnaire before, you can just click to it and invite your friends without having to take it again!

Jeanette had a bad case of low self-esteem. Even when she was a child, all her teachers were puzzled by this. She was smart and musically gifted but had absolutely no confidence. She never auditioned for the orchestra or for school plays even when she was encouraged to do so. As she got older and this pattern continued, she ended up holding minimal jobs that didn’t come close to tapping her native talents. She just assumed that she wouldn’t amount to anything. Every time she had an inclination to reach out and try something challenging, she experienced a sinking feeling in her chest and a gray cloud descended on her, so she gave up on the idea.

One afternoon Jeanette’s friend Lynn was having a very bad day; she complained to Jeanette of heaviness in her heart. Lynn was talking about a critical voice that she heard inside of her. Suddenly something clicked with Jeanette; she realized that she recognized the voice her friend was describing. It lived inside her, too! It was saying critical things like: “You aren’t any good. You can’t do it. Don’t even try.” She had always just assumed that this was the truth about her. She had never viewed these harmful messages as coming from a separate part of her psyche. She recalled how she longed to try out for high school musicals but this other voice spoke so forcefully that she didn’t dare. Read the rest of this entry »

This help sheet outlines the initial steps in working with an Inner Critic part. You can use this in working on yourself or facilitating a partner.

P1. Accessing the Critic
If the Critic is not activated, imagine yourself in a situation in which it judges you.
Get an image of it and hear what it says to you.

P2. Unblending from the Criticized Child/Critic
Check to see if you are feeling bad about yourself or are believing that you are deficient.
Options for unblending: Read the rest of this entry »

In the 90′s, the concept of healing your inner child was popularized by writers such as John Bradshaw in Homecoming and Charles Whitfield in Healing the Child Within. These approaches were significant innovations at the time, giving people a very personal and relational way to heal childhood wounds. However, they have now been supplanted by an powerful method of psychotherapy called Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS). In this article, I describe the advances in inner child work that come from IFS. Read the rest of this entry »

A reader writes:

I notice that there were blog entries about both the Inner Champion and the Inner Mentor.

I had thought that the Inner Champion was just a new name for “Bonnie’s” Inner Mentor but from what I understand now they are two separate parts. The Inner Mentor is the Inner Critics POSITIVE helpful role to guide us when needed.

AND because I had just read that…. Read the rest of this entry »