Criticism is a major factor in most relationships, and much of this is related to our Inner Critics. This article looks at when your criticism is directed at someone else, and how your parts react when someone criticizes you.

The Judge

Most of us are judgmental of other people at times, even if we don’t always express the judgments. We will call the part of you that criticizes others your Judge, to distinguish it from your Inner Critic. However, remember that this is just a category. In some cases, your Inner Critic might turn its judgments on others, thereby becoming the Judge.

We often become judgmental of others in order to protect the Criticized Child, which is the child part of you that gets hurt by inner or outer criticism. Something happens that triggers the pain of the Criticized Child. Maybe you feel rejected by someone, or perhaps you don’t do well on a test or project. This triggers your Criticized Child to feel inadequate or worthless, and it may also trigger your Inner Critic to attack you. Sometimes your Judge may jump in to protect the Child, by criticizing the person who rejected you or the person who gave you the test. If you can prove to yourself that they are at fault, your Criticized Child doesn’t have to feel bad. And this also counters the Critic’s judgments of you.

The Judge could also come up to protect a different exile. Perhaps someone doesn’t give you what you need from them on a day when a part of you was feeling particularly needy. This brings up pain in one of your exiles, so you judge that person to protect against this pain.

This doesn’t mean that it is never valid to notice shortcomings in other people, but we often criticize them to ward off our own underlying pain or self-attacks. That is when it is the Judge part operating. The Judge can be just as harsh and punitive as the Inner Critic, and it can be just as painful for someone else to received judgment from you as it is for you to receive it from your Inner Critic. In fact, this is a major factor in most relationship difficulties. Often both people are judging each other, triggering the pain of their exiles, and then protecting by more judgment, causing a viscous cycle of arguments and fights.

There is a cluster of parts related to the Inner Critic. The Judge is polarized with the Critic and protecting the Child.

Reacting to an Outer Critic

We will now discuss what happens when someone criticizes you. This tends to trigger most of the parts in the cluster.

The Criticized Child gets activated because it believes the criticism and feels bad about itself.

The Inner Critic may become activated because it sees a chance to criticize you more. It may say, “See I told you that you were no good. This proves it.” Of course, it often becomes triggered in an attempt to protect the Criticized Child because its job is to protect against outer criticisms. It doesn’t see that it is just making the Child feel worse.

The Inner Defender often gets triggered in an attempt to protect the Child. It argues with the person who judged you in an attempt to prove them wrong and exonerate the Child. It is now a Defender.

The Judge may get in on the act, supporting the Defender in protecting the Child. Not only is the judging person wrong, but it is actually their fault, not yours. This, of course, will often trigger the other person’s Criticized Child, and then their Defender and Judge, making them criticize you more. You can see how this could easily lead to a knock-down, drag-out fight. The more you have healed your Criticized Child and transformed your Critic, the less likely you are to get caught this way.

It is worth remembering that you may have this reaction to someone even if they aren’t judging you. All it takes is that your parts perceive them as judging you. Or they may be judging you a little bit, and your parts may perceive them as being very harsh. This is often how a fight starts. Minor acts of judgment lead to reactions, which trigger greater judgments, and around and around you go.