What is the inner critic, and how does it relate to the inner child?
The inner critic is the voice in your head that comments, usually harshly, on what you do and who you are. "You always ruin things." "Nobody wants to hear about your problems." "Try harder, you lazy thing." Like the inner child, it is a popular, informal way of describing a part of inner experience. It is not a diagnosis and not a single standardized therapy.
The two ideas tend to arrive together because they describe two sides of the same old relationship. If the inner child is the younger self who needed comfort, patience or protection, the inner critic is often the voice that answered those needs with impatience, shame or fear. When you feel small and ashamed after a mistake, it can help to notice that two things are happening at once: a part of you is hurting, and another part of you is scolding it.
Where does a harsh inner voice come from?
There is rarely one cause. For some people the critic's words are almost a recording of a parent, coach, teacher or older sibling. For others there was no single harsh person, but the household ran on high standards, unspoken rules or unpredictable moods, and a child learned that being careful and hard on yourself was the safest way to get through the day.
Schema therapy, a researched model developed by psychologist Jeffrey Young, gives this a structure. The International Society of Schema Therapy (ISST) describes early maladaptive schemas as broad themes about yourself and other people that develop in childhood and are elaborated over a lifetime. One schema the ISST describes, unrelenting standards or hypercriticalness, is the belief that you must meet very high standards, usually to avoid criticism, and it often shows up as harshness toward yourself and others. The ISST links this family of schemas to a home that was grim, demanding and sometimes punitive, where performance, duty, following rules and avoiding mistakes came before pleasure and rest. The ISST also lists, as one aim of the therapy, learning to fight punitive, overly critical or demanding schemas and modes.
None of this means your parents were bad people or that every critical thought traces back to childhood. Culture, school, faith communities, work and painful experiences in adult life all add to the critic's script. The inner child framing simply invites you to ask whose voice it sounds like, and when you first heard it.
Is the inner critic trying to help?
Sometimes, in a clumsy way. In a 2004 study of 246 female students in the British Journal of Clinical Psychology, Paul Gilbert and colleagues found that self-criticism was not a single process. Some forms centered on dwelling on mistakes and feeling inadequate, and the reasons people gave included a wish to improve or correct themselves. Other forms involved self-disgust and a wish to hurt or punish the self, and the researchers suggested that this second kind may be particularly harmful. Being able to reassure yourself and focus on your positives appeared to work against it.
That small study cannot tell you what is true for you, but the distinction is useful. Many people find their critic is, underneath, frightened: it pushes hard because it learned that being caught out, rejected or punished was worse. Recognizing that does not mean agreeing with it. It can make it easier to answer the critic without hating it, which tends to be more workable than trying to shout it down.
- A critic that says "check that email again or you will be humiliated" may be trying to protect you from an old fear of being shamed.
- A critic that says "you are disgusting" or "you deserve this" is a different matter, and is worth taking to a therapist rather than reasoning with alone.
- A critic that sounds exactly like one particular person can be a clue to where the inner child's hurt began.
What helps when the inner critic turns on the inner child?
Most approaches that work with child-like parts of the self share a common thread: they build a third voice. Gilbert's compassion-focused therapy, which he describes in a 2014 paper as rooted in an evolutionary view of our threat and soothing systems, emphasizes developing people's capacity to access, tolerate and direct caring motives and feelings toward themselves as well as others. Psychologist Kristin Neff describes self-compassion as having three elements: mindfulness, a sense of common humanity, and kindness, offering yourself the warmth you would naturally offer a struggling friend.
In inner child language, that third voice is sometimes called the nurturing adult or the good parent. Reparenting yourself goes into that idea in more depth. A few small practices people use for gentle reflection:
- Name it when you hear it: "That is the critic," rather than "That is the truth."
- Ask what the critic is afraid would happen if it stopped. The answer is often a childhood fear.
- Notice who the critic is talking to. If the answer is a younger you, ask what that child needed to hear instead.
- Speak to yourself as you would to a friend in the same situation, out loud or on paper, even if it feels awkward.
- Keep it short. These are moments of reflection, not a way to dig through painful memories on your own.
When to slow down
If turning toward the critic brings up memories of being hit, threatened, humiliated or neglected, or leaves you feeling numb, far away or flooded, stop and ground yourself in the present: your feet on the floor, what you can see and hear around you. When inner child work feels overwhelming has more on pacing. Early pain is better explored with a trained therapist who can keep the work at a pace you can manage.
How the critic shows up in relationships and at work
The inner critic rarely stays inside. It can make you hear a partner's small request as an accusation, because the critic has already said it first. It can make you over-prepare, over-apologize or avoid asking for help at work. It can also be turned outward: people who are very hard on themselves are sometimes quick to criticize the people closest to them, often in the same words they use on themselves.
If that pattern sounds familiar, people-pleasing and the inner child and inner child wounds in adult relationships look at how these old voices play out with partners, family and friends.
Working on the inner critic in counseling
A therapist can help you hear the critic clearly, trace where it learned its lines, and practice a different response while you are actually feeling the sting, which is harder to do alone. Laura Bass offers inner child work as part of individual counseling for adults in Charlotte and at her part-time office in Columbus, NC, near Tryon. Clients who want it can bring mind-body-spirit work alongside it; that is always their choice. Each person's pace and experience is different, and no approach can promise how it will go.
If you would like to know how Laura works with a harsh inner voice in particular, ask Laura. The inner child work guide has more on the ideas behind this page.
Laura Bass Counseling is not a crisis service. If self-criticism has turned into thoughts of harming yourself, or you are in danger, call 911, or call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
Common questions
Is the inner critic the same as low self-esteem?
They overlap but are not the same. Low self-esteem usually describes how you feel about yourself overall. The inner critic describes an active voice that comments on you, often in specific moments such as after a mistake or before a hard conversation. Some people with fairly solid self-esteem still have a loud critic that switches on under stress.
Should I try to get rid of my inner critic?
Most approaches do not aim to destroy it. Trying to silence the critic by force often turns into a second round of self-criticism. A more common aim is to understand what the critic is afraid of, stop treating its words as facts, and build a kinder, steadier inner voice that can answer it. Over time some people find the critic gets quieter, but that is not something anyone can promise.
Why does my inner critic sound like my mother or father?
Children learn how to talk to themselves partly by hearing how adults talk to them. If a parent's words were frequent, frightening or tied to love being withdrawn, they can become part of your own inner voice. Noticing the resemblance is not the same as blaming your parent. It is a clue about where the hurt began and what the younger you needed instead.
Can self-compassion make me lazy or less motivated?
This is a common worry, and it is often the critic itself talking. Kristin Neff, who has studied self-compassion, describes it as caring about yourself in a way that still allows you to want to change, but because you care, not because you feel worthless. Many people find they can keep high standards while dropping the contempt.