You know the voice. You send an email and it says you sounded stupid. You make a mistake at work and it’s on you before anyone else has noticed. You look in the mirror, or at your bank balance, or at how the conversation with your partner went, and it has an opinion: always the same one, always unkind, and somehow always in your own voice.
Most people try one of two things with it: argue, or obey. Neither works for long. Arguing turns into a second loop of thinking on top of the first. Obeying (working harder, apologising more, shrinking) buys quiet for a while, until the next mistake.
There’s a third option, and it’s the one I use most in the counselling room. It comes from Internal Family Systems, and it starts with a question that sounds strange at first: what is this voice for?
Self-criticism is common, and it’s not harmless
Being hard on yourself can look like a personality trait, or even a virtue: the person who holds themselves to a high standard. But persistent self-criticism is one of the more reliable predictors of depression, and it tends to make therapy for anxiety and depression harder and slower until it’s addressed directly. The reverse is also true: self-compassion is consistently linked with lower depression, anxiety and stress, and it isn’t the same as letting yourself off the hook. Self-compassion, as the researchers who study it define it, is treating yourself the way you’d treat a friend in the same situation, which for most people would be nothing like what the critic says.
So the inner critic isn’t a quirk to live with. It’s worth working on. The question is how.
What IFS says the critic is
IFS starts from the idea that the mind isn’t one voice but several: parts, each with its own job, its own feelings, and its own history. Most of the time this is obvious once you notice it: part of you wants to go to the party and part of you wants to cancel; part of you is furious with your father and part of you still wants his approval.
In that model, the inner critic is a protector. It took on its job at some point (often early, often after being criticised, shamed, or caught out), and the job is to make sure that never happens again. If it gets to you first, nobody else can. If it keeps you small, you can’t be knocked down. If it stops you trying, you can’t fail in front of anyone.
That’s why it’s so hard to argue with. You’re not debating a belief. You’re arguing with a part of you that is, in its own way, frightened for you.
This is a model, not a proven map of the mind. IFS has early clinical trial evidence and promising pilot results for trauma, and it’s used widely in trauma work, but the research base is still developing. What I can say from practice is that the shift it makes, from fighting the critic to understanding it, is one clients feel quickly, and it tends to hold.
Working with the critic instead of against it
What follows is the shape of the work. Some of it you can try on your own; some of it goes better with someone in the room.
Notice it as a part, not as the truth. The first move is small but changes everything: there’s the critic instead of I’m useless. You’re not agreeing or disagreeing. You’re noticing that a particular voice, with a particular tone, has started up, and that you are the one noticing it, which means you are not it.
Get curious about it. When does it show up? What does it say, word for word? Where do you feel it in your body: chest, throat, stomach? Whose voice does it sound like, if you’re honest? Most people find the critic has a fairly short script and a recognisable trigger, and that alone takes some of the weight out of it.
Ask what it’s afraid would happen if it stopped. This is the turning point in IFS. Not “why are you so mean” but “what are you worried about?” The answers are surprisingly consistent: you’ll get hurt again. You’ll embarrass yourself. You’ll be rejected. You’ll get lazy and everything will fall apart. Whatever the answer is, it tells you what the critic is protecting.
Find out who it’s protecting. Behind a critic there’s usually a younger, more vulnerable part, one that felt humiliated, unwanted, not good enough. The critic’s harshness is an attempt to keep that part from ever being exposed again. In IFS these are called exiles. You don’t need to go looking for them on your own, and with a history of trauma it’s better not to; this is the part of the work that belongs in the counselling room. But knowing they’re there changes how the critic sounds. It stops being an enemy and starts being a bodyguard who never got told the danger passed.
Let it know you’re here. As the critic feels understood rather than fought, it usually softens. It may not stop; it doesn’t need to. Many people find that, over time, the same part that used to say you’re going to fail becomes the part that says let’s think this through. Same vigilance, different tone. That isn’t a trick you perform on yourself. It’s what happens when a part no longer has to shout to be heard.
What this looks like in practice
Someone comes in because their anxiety is out of hand. Fairly quickly it’s clear that a big share of the anxiety is being generated by a voice that runs a commentary on everything they do, and that the voice sounds a lot like a parent, or a coach, or a first boss. We don’t try to silence it. We get to know it. We find out what it’s afraid of, and what it’s protecting. The anxiety comes down, not because the critic was defeated, but because it’s no longer working alone.
That’s the pattern I see most often, and it’s why I work this way. It also fits with something I’ve written about before: we repeat the emotional patterns that once kept us safe, long after they’ve stopped being useful. The critic is one of those patterns. It can change.
When to get help with it
If your inner critic is loud enough to be shaping your decisions (what you apply for, who you let close, whether you can rest), or if it’s sitting alongside anxiety or depression, that’s reason enough to bring it to counselling. If it’s tied to something that happened to you, it’s a reason to do this work with someone rather than alone.
Book an appointment online or get in touch if you’d like to ask something first. Sessions are in person in Langley or online across BC.