I have a very loud inner critic....and just the other day, I had the image of a small, young, scared girl...and I thought that she was my inner critic...but am now realizing that perhaps she is my inner child who was affected by my inner critic.

I can't seem to yet refer to her as a part of me. It is much easier for me to share about her when she's a separate person. In my therapy, the goal is to become whole. To find the parts of ourselves that we've blocked off and to reintegrate them.

So, perhaps the step of making "her" a part of "me" comes later in the process.