Hi everyone.

The following exercise is taken from Beverly Engel book, Healing your emotional self. It helps I think in recognizing the inner critic. Sometimes it just feels frightening just to discover that the inner critic does not belong to you!!, so you might want to do this exercise when you feel grounded and composed.


"The following is an adaptation of a Gestalt Therapy exercise. It was developed to expose the inner self-critical dialogue that many of us have going on in our heads without realizing it.
1. Sit comfortably with your eyes closed. Imagine that you are facing a mirror and are able to look at yourself as you sit in the chair. Notice how this image—this person who is facing you—is sitting. What are you wearing? What kind of facial expression do you see?
2. Now criticize this image of yourself as if you were talking to another person. It works best if you talk out loud. Tell yourself what you should and shouldn’t do. It will help if you begin each sentence with, “You should __________ ” or “You shouldn’t __________ .” Criticize yourself for several minutes, allowing everything you can think of to come out. Pay close attention to your voice as you criticize yourself.
3. Imagine that you change places with the person facing you—the image of yourself in the mirror. Become the person who was criticized and answer the charges. What do you say in response to these critical comments? What does the tone of your voice express? How do you feel as you respond to these criticisms?
4. Switch roles and become the critic again. As you continue this dialogue, be aware of what you say, how you say it, the tone of your voice, and how you feel. Pause occasionally to listen to your words and to let yourself experience them.
5. Continue to switch roles whenever you feel like it, but continue this dialogue. Notice what is going on inside you as you do this. Notice how you feel both physically and emotionally in each role. Does the voice that is doing the criticism sound like anyone you know? What else are you aware of in this interaction? Continue this dialogue for a few minutes longer and notice any changes as you continue.
6. Sit quietly and review all that transpired during this dialogue. You may wish to write down your feelings and insights. For example, you probably experienced some kind of split or conflict between a powerful, critical, authoritative part of you that demands that you change, and another less powerful part of you that makes excuses, apologizes, or evades the issue. It may seem that you are divided into a parent and a child. The parent (or, in Gestalt lingo, the “topdog”) is always trying to get control to change you into something “better,” and the child (or “underdog”) is continually evading these attempts to change. You may have noticed that the demanding, critical voice sounded like one of your parents or perhaps someone else in your life who makes demands on you, or another authority figure who controls you."