I think it is also possible (in fact highly likely) that you are being too hard on yourself. That you think you have to change in order to be acceptable and that that might be precisely what is the barrier to change. I have this problem (I think most people do) where I have this double standard of what other people need to do in order to be acceptable, and what I need to do in order to be acceptable. Basically... Other people don't really need to do anything at all. They are worthy of respect and compassion just in virtue of being. When it comes to me, on the other hand, I think I'm just inherantly unworthy of respect and compassion just in virtue of being. If I work really really really hard so that I'm five times 'better' than everyone else, however, then maybe I can earn the right just to have just a little teeny tiny bit of respect and love.

One way around this is for me to practice thinking of myself objectively. Mindfulness can really help with this. There are different kinds of mindfulness exercises that you can do. Basically, mindfulness is about focusing attention. Attention is like a flashlight and it illuminates objects that fall under its scope. Attention is also like a flashlight in that there is always an object of attention just like how a flashlight is always illuminating some object or other. Attention is also a bit like a muscle in the sense that you can learn to have more control over it (where it attends and the degree of focus) with practice. (Practice actually changes / strengthens) pathways from higher cortical processing areas).

When you don't have much control over your attention then sometimes the flashlight automatically attends to things in the periphery and the flashlight kind of swings around all over the place. Or we see something that isn't very nice and the beam kind of fixates on that. The beam can change too so that you have attention distributed over a larger space of objects but none of them are particularly clear or you can kind of focus the beam over a narrower range of objects and they are illuminated more clearly and in focus. Practicing mindfulness exercises is like doing stretches to strengthen and gain more control over the movement of muscles. So you can choose to attend to helpful things and choose to divert your attention from unhelpful things and you can alter the degree of focus.

Some of the mindfulness exercises are 'first order' exercises. That is when you become mindfully aware of objects of experience that are in the world. You could choose to become mindfully aware (to focus your attention on) an object like a shell or a leaf. A sunset or the way the park smells. Most people typically start with becoming mindfully aware of those kinds of first order objects. There are also 'second order' exercises where there instead of the object of attention being something external, the object of attention is your experiences themselves. It is the difference between attending to the shell (first order) and attending to your experience of the shell (second order). Second order exercises also include focusing your attention mindfully on your thoughts, feelings, mental images etc.

What is interesting about these second order exercises is that it involves treating your mental states and experiences as objects. There are some exercises that can help with this. Linehan describes one where you visualise three layers of coal carts moving along before you. Coming in from the right and exiting stage left. When you become aware of a thought then you put it in one of the top coal carts and you can observe it moving across before you and exiting stage left. When you become aware of a feeling you put it in one of the middle coal carts and watch it exiting stage left. When you become aware of a mental image you put it in one of the bottom coal carts... That is a fairly tricky exercise but there are lots of exercises like that. It involves appreciation that you (the attender) are not your thoughts, feelings, or mental images / experiences. You are the attender and your thoughts, feelings, and mental images / experiences are simply objects of your attention and you can strengthen your ability to choose what to attend to. Over time... It can help one learn to see ones mental contents (and by extension behaviours etc) more objectively in the same way that we see other people objectively. Part of self soothing is doing for us what we would do for another if we saw them in distress. One part of the brain soothing the other part of the brain.

I tried to find something on the analytic / continental divide. It is hard. It is a political issue, I guess. Here is one opinion:

http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/analytic.asp

I was reading this article yesterday and I thought you might be interested. It is about the persecutor / victim / protector roles and about the inner critic (like how you are hard on yourself). I really got a lot out of it. I don't know how much time you have... But if you (or anyone else) wanted to discuss it, then that would be terrific.

I don't think I can link to the article directly as if you follow the link to the article it will open a PDF.

If you go to here:

http://www.controlmastery.org/

You can scroll down to Thomas, 2005

Take care.