the inner critic | undoing depression
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27.06.2013 17:18The Inner Critic | Undoing Depression
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The Inner Critic
If youre like most people with depression, you can really get into the spirit
of raking yourself over the coals. Thats the voice of what I call the Inner
Critic, and its a very big part of depression. Its the voice thats constantly
judging you and finding you wanting. Its the voice that gives you all the
blame when things go wrong. It doesnt forget and it cant forgive. Whats
wrong with you? Get yourself together! Why havent you gotten to work
yet? Youll never amount to anything! Some people, when they first begin
to practice mindfulness, are amazed to discover that this sort of interior
monologue is always going on in the background of their minds. It pops
up most often when youre under stress. Its the voice of fear, looking for a
simple explanation for a confusing situation, and it settles quickly on the
usual suspect.
Theres another part of you that tries to defend against the attacks of the
Inner Critic. I call it the Timid Defender. It cant be effective because it
uses the usual habits of the mind that never work: the same old defense
mechanisms, denial, rationalization, dissociation. Distractions like alcohol
and drugs, overspendingand overeating. It has us trying to escape or
forget about the Critic, but that backfires, because whilewere escaping or
forgetting, were giving the Critic more ammunition. The Critic, it seems,
always knows better. You just make a fool of yourself, pretending to be
something youre not. Kidding yourself. You cant fool me that easily!
This is how misery persists. We make ourselves miserable by
blaming ourselves, then we make ourselves more miserable by trying to
hide or run away from our own consciences. It never works. Therapy
works by changing the rules. Therapy doesnt silence the Inner Critic, nor
strengthen that Defender; instead, it helps people detach from this struggle
and accept that they are only human. When people are beating
themselves up, I suggest theyre being too hard on themselves. When
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theyre in defensive mode, I help them face what theyre afraid of.
A good friend of mine uses the phrase compassionate curiosityto describe
the ideal therapists attitude toward the patient. We begin therapy with a
much more compassionate, kind, understanding stance toward the patient
and his problems than the patient has himself. And we are curious, in a
calm, unafraid waywe want to understand how things got to be so bad,
and we assume that by fearlessly facing reality we will help the patient find
relief from his distress. Compassionate curiosity is the attitude most of us,
depressed or not, need to apply to ourselves as well. What a change that
would be for almost everyone I know!
That battle between the Inner Critic and the Timid Defender is much like
the way inconsistent parents treat their children. When the Defender is in
charge we indulge and spoil ourselves; we let ourselves off the moral hook,
we make promises to ourselves we know we wont keep. But that Inner
Critic is still there, waiting for our defenses to slipas they always do
ready to condemn us, always finding that we dont measure up. We
vacillate between spoiling ourselves and punishing ourselves. And, as with
children who are raised that way, we end up frightened and traumatized,
with no self-esteem and a lot of self-hate. Compassion replaces all that
with patience, gentleness, love, grace, mercy, concern. It suggests giving
up judging and replacing it with empathy, a willingness to face the truth
and all your feelings about it, without fear but with confident strength.
Curiosity suggests a little cool detachment from the emotional heat, adesire to understand objectively why we feel what we feel, why we do what
we doespecially when its troublesome or self-defeating. Why did I get
angry just then? Whats making me so blue today? We look at ourselves,
not to torture ourselves, not to give ammunition to the Critic, not with
desperation for a quick fix, but with compassion, sincere interest, and the
belief that there are answers that make sense. No matter how nonsensical
our behavior, no matter how odd our feelings, there are always reasons
and knowing the truth will help set us free. We look a little deeper than
usual, with more objectivity, and we dont just slap ourselves on the wrist
and make an empty promise to do better next time. Why? Whats
bothering me? Why am I afraid to look? We understand that our feelings
are just human; they wont destroy us or drive us crazy. Most likely, they
are tapping on our shoulder, trying to tell us something important.
When were bouncing around between the Inner Critic and the Timid
Defender, whos at the controls? Whos running our lives, making our
decisions? Its like we have the Three Stooges up in our heads. Moe the
brutal sadist, torturing us while the ineffectual Larry whines pathetic
excuses. Curly, the id in this metaphor, full of appetites and drives, causes
all the trouble in the first place. Nobodys in charge of our lives, and the
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plane is yawing and swooping all over the sky, never getting anywhere and
always in danger of crashing. We need a wise, calm, resourceful pilot to
step in and get rid of these characters. Yet we need to find him within
ourselves. Thats where mindfulness comes in.
As I said, we start picking on ourselves because were afraid; we have
stresses we dont know how to handle. But no one has a stress-free life.
Sickness, loss, financial problems, job problems are things that all of us will
have to deal with. Yet in reviewing new cases week after week at our
mental health center, I was constantly struck by how often bad luck had
played a major part in contributing to peoples psychological problems. I
often wonder if I would be coping as well as my patient if Id had the same
string of experiences. Stress is the backdrop to all our lives now; bad luck
is often the tipping point. Contemporary society is so different from what
our bodies and minds were designed for that were in a state of perpetual
stress, which constantly floods us with stress hormones, and constantly
pushes us back down over that invisible cliff into depression and/or
anxiety. Its very difficult for anyone, but especially anyone with
depression, to make the kinds of life changes that will significantly reduce
the stress loadchanging careers, setting goals and following your
priorities, enlivening and enriching your relationships.
Worse still, depression and stress affect our ability to remember,
concentrate, and make decisions. For instance, people who are depressedhave much greater difficulty remembering random information than people
who are not depressed. When given new material, they have more
difficulty connecting it with what they know alreadythe information does
not get organized in ways that help it get learned or recalled. The cognitive
impairment that depression inflicts is most evident on tasks that require
complex processing or independent thinking. Other research has revealed
the neurological mechanisms that result in the depressives hypersensitivity
to errors in simple tasks. Its as if its not bad enough that depression
causes us emotional pain, makes our behavior self-defeating, and drives
others away from us; but because our thinking is damaged, when we try
new pathways in an effort to recover, were handicapped at the outset
because we have more trouble remembering and absorbing information
and were distracted by trivial inconsistencies and errors. Cognitive
therapy perhaps heals some of this damage, by focusing our attention on
our thought processes and making us follow the discipline of logic. But the
brain damage caused by depression and stress can be healed more
directly through practicing a mindful way of life.
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