Some types of Inner Critics mainly tell you who you should be–the Perfectionist, the Taskmaster, and the Molder. They try to make you be a certain way in large segments of your life–perfect, hard working, or fitting a certain mold. Other types mainly tell you what you shouldn’t do or feel–the Inner Controller, the Underminer, and the Guilt Tripper. These tend to be more specific. They prohibit certain types of feeling or action–impulsive, addictive behavior, courageous risk taking, actions that harm others. It’s less clear where the Destroyer fits in. It tries to keep you from being alive and here, but it’s prohibitions aren’t so specific; they affect most of your life.

I wonder if there is something important about this distinction among types of Inner Critics. Any thoughts?

At any given moment, you are either in Self or you blended with a part—a protector or exile. When you are judging yourself, you are blended with an Inner Critic part. When you are feeling bad about yourself, you are blended with a Criticized Child part. In fact, you are often blended with both the Critic and the Criticized Child at the same time.

You can only work successfully with an Inner Critic if you aren’t blended with it or the Criticized Child. When you unblend from a Critic, it doesn’t mean that the self-judgment disappears or you stop feeling bad about yourself. It means that you aren’t completely taken over by these feelings. You have some space inside that is separate from them. You don’t fully buy into the idea that you are inadequate. You can see that this is just a part of you that is attacking you rather than believing it is the truth about you. For example, if your Inner Critic says that you are a loser and will never find love in your life, you recognize that this is simply an attack from this part of you. It isn’t the truth.

Though you may still feel sad or ashamed, when you are unblended with the Criticized Child, you aren’t dominate by these feelings. You have a place in you (Self) that is feeling solid and OK. From this place you can view these feelings and understand these attacks and work with them. You may feel hurt to hear this message that you are a loser, and you may feel some hopelessness about your love life, but that isn’t all you feel. You reside in a place that is deeper than those emotions, a place of calmness and curiosity.  This is not the final solution to your Inner Critic problem. It is just a preliminary step that gives you enough space to deal with the problem.

This is a continuation of the last few blogs on the Inner Critic, the Pattern System and enforcement. We can look at three levels of Perfectionist.

1. A healthy version of the Perfectionist will help you make your work excellent and your life organized without being extreme or punitive.

2. The Perfectionist will go overboard in these things by going for extremely high standards, causing you to overwork or be obsessive. However, it may just try to be perfect without self-criticism.

3. The Perfectionist Critic will push you to be perfect, often using harsh, judgmental language. It will attack you when you aren’t perfect enough.

I hope these distinctions help you in your work on this part. I would love to hear your feedback on this series of blogs.

In the last blog, I showed how the Inner Critic is in the Self-esteem dimension of the Pattern System. Each of the seven types of Inner Critics also resides in a dimension of the Pattern System. Let’s look at the Perfectionist:

The two polarized protectors are the Perfectionist and the Sloppy Part, which just does tasks in a cavalier way, not caring about how well they are done or the consequences. The healthy version of the Perfectionist is the Inner Mentor who helps you to do things in an excellent way without judgment or extremes. It is caring and supportive and knows when something is good enough. The healthy version of the Sloppy Part is the Inner Champion who supports you working in an easy flowing way without sacrificing quality. And it also supports your feeling good about yourself. Read the rest of this entry »

The Pattern System is a way of understanding different types of parts and capacities in the human psyche and how they are related to each other. (See  for more details.) There are various dimensions in the Pattern System such as self-esteem, power, intimacy, and accomplishment. Each dimension involves two polarized IFS protectors and two related healthy capacities. (There is also an exile involved, but I will leave that out of this blog.)

In the Self-esteem Dimension, the two polarized protectors are the Inner Critic, which tears down your self-esteem, and the Prideful Part, which tries to build it up by impressing other people or having grandiose ideas of how special you are. The healthy capacities are the Inner Champion and the Inner Mentor. The Inner Champion is the healthy version of Pride because it supports your self-esteem as your birthright. It reminds you that you are valuable just for being yourself and you don’t have to achieve anything or be anything in order to feel good about yourself. Your Inner Mentor is the healthy version of the Inner Critic because it helps you improve yourself in areas where you need that, but it does this with complete self-acceptance, kindly support, and encouragement. Your Inner Champion and your Inner Mentor naturally go together. They are integrated instead of fighting each other the way Pride and the Critic are.

Your goal in Inner Critic work is to develop your Inner Champion to support your feelings of self-worth, and to transform your Inner Critic into an Inner Mentor that functions like a good parent in helping you to grow.