Well, there are probably many different beliefs about this. My work took me a year in mindfulness therapy once a week. It was pretty profound work and I learned a lot.

They say in dream psychology / Jungian based, that all the people you see and meet in your dreams are you. I have the same opinion of the people in my head. Sometimes we attach a face or voice to them because some part or qualities of it resembles the outside person. And it's a normal human trait to put faces to everthing.

Up to you how you deal with it. But the inner critic can do some serious damage to an already fragile bp mind. We can end up beating our self up and hating ourself, when we already have enough challenges and that doesn't help matters. More positive self talk is a bp tool that helps me.