Taming the Inner Critic

Understand it → Work with it → Respond with compassion → Sustain the change

The inner critic can be a powerful and persistent presence in our clients’ lives — shaping how they see themselves, influencing their choices, and contributing to shame, self-doubt, perfectionism and anxiety. Yet beneath the critical voice there is often a complex mix of learned beliefs, protective strategies, expectations and fears.

This four-part experiential CPD series takes practitioners on a journey from understanding the inner critic to helping clients develop a different and more sustainable relationship with it. Across four two-hour workshops, participants will explore where the inner critic comes from, how to work with it therapeutically, how self-compassion can offer an alternative response, and how to consolidate these changes over time.

Each workshop builds on the previous one, while offering practical learning that can be integrated into existing therapeutic practice.

1. Understand It

Inner Critic: Differentiating Protective and Harmful Voices

Inside the Inner Critic: Understanding Its Origins and Purpose

Before we can help clients change their relationship with the inner critic, we need to understand it.

The inner critic can be a powerful and persistent presence in our clients’ lives — shaping how they see themselves, influencing their choices, and contributing to shame, self-doubt, perfectionism and anxiety. Yet beneath the critical voice there is often a complex mix of learned beliefs, protective strategies, expectations and fears.

This experiential two-hour CPD workshop invites counsellors and therapists to explore what lies beneath the inner critic and how it develops and maintains its influence. Participants will consider the difference between healthy self-reflection and destructive self-criticism, explore common forms and functions of the inner critic, and develop a more nuanced understanding of what clients may be communicating when they say, “I’m my own worst critic.”

The first workshop in the Taming the Inner Critic series establishes the foundation for the journey: understand it. By recognising the critic’s patterns, origins and possible protective functions, practitioners can begin to move beyond simply challenging what the critic says and develop a deeper understanding of what may be happening for the client.

Description supplied by the event organiser.