You know the voice. The one that says you’re not good enough, who do you think you are, you’re going to get this wrong. It tends to get loudest at exactly the wrong moments, before a big meeting, when you’re putting yourself out there, when you’re already tired and stretched thin.
Most of us assume the goal is to shut it up. To finally silence it and get some peace. But what if that harsh voice isn’t actually working against you? What if, in its own clumsy way, it’s trying to look after you?
A protector in disguise
In the kind of therapy I practise, we don’t treat the inner critic as a flaw or a fault to be corrected. We understand it as a protective part of you, one that formed for a reason, usually a long time ago.
Somewhere along the way, that part learned that if it could get in first, pointing out your shortcomings before anyone else could, keeping you small, talking you out of the risk, it might protect you from something that once felt unbearable: rejection, failure, embarrassment, disappointment.
It’s not being cruel for the sake of it. It’s running an old survival strategy that made sense back when it first switched on. The problem is that it’s still working overtime, long after you’ve outgrown the situation it was built for.
Whose voice is that, really?
One of the most useful questions you can ask your inner critic is: whose voice does this sound like?
Often the tone traces back further than we expect — a parent, a teacher, a coach, a group of kids at school, a culture that told you not to get “too big for your boots.” Sometimes the critic is carrying shame that was never even yours to begin with, passed quietly down through a family that was doing its best to protect you from being hurt the way they were.
When you start to hear the voice as something you absorbed rather than something that’s simply true about you, it begins to loosen its grip.
It uses your own strengths against you
Here’s the part that surprises people. Your critic knows you intimately, better than almost anyone. And it tends to take your genuine strengths and turn them into weapons.
Are you intelligent? “Then there’s no excuse for getting this wrong.” Do you care deeply about people? “So how could you let them down like that?” Do you hold yourself to a high standard? “You should have done better.”
The very qualities that make you you become the stick you beat yourself with. Recognising that pattern is a quiet turning point, because it shows that the critic isn’t pointing at the truth, it’s twisting something good.
Why “just challenge the thought” may falls flat
You’ve probably been told to argue back with the critic… find the evidence against it, talk yourself out of it. Sometimes that helps. But just as often it doesn’t, and there’s a reason.
There’s usually a tiny grain of truth buried in what the critic says, and that grain is enough to keep the whole thing believable. You can’t quite win the argument. And even when you do, it becomes just one more thought lost in the tens of thousands passing through your mind each day. The voice doesn’t respond to being out-argued. It responds to being understood.
What do we do then…?
You don’t need to win a fight with your inner critic. You need to change your relationship with it. A few starting points:
Name it. When the voice starts up, try noticing: “Ah — that’s my critic.” Simply naming it creates a little space between you and the voice, so you’re no longer fused with it.
Get curious instead of arguing. Ask what it’s so afraid of. What does it think will happen if it goes quiet? What is it trying to protect you from? You’ll often find something surprisingly tender underneath.
Notice the feeling beneath the words. The critic usually sits on top of a vulnerable feeling — shame, fear, a sense of not being enough. That feeling is the thing that actually needs care and attention, not more criticism.
Speak to yourself the way an ally would. Not forced positivity or “just think happy thoughts” — a steady, protective, grown-up voice. The kind of thing you’d say to a friend, or to a younger version of yourself who was doing their best.
Watch for the pattern. The critic tends to flare in predictable situations: deadlines, being seen, closeness, comparison. When you can see it coming, it holds less power over you.
You probably won’t silence it completely… and that’s okay!
Here’s the honest part. The inner critic doesn’t usually pack its bags and leave for good. It quietens, then flares, then quietens again. Even people who’ve done years of their own work will tell you it still has its moments.
But that’s not failure. The aim was never to destroy it. It’s to build enough distance and enough compassion that when the critic speaks, it stings less, holds less authority, and no longer runs the show. Over time, it becomes background noise rather than the voice you live by.
When it might be time for support
If your inner critic has taken the wheel… if it’s tangled up with anxiety, perfectionism, burnout, or old wounds that talking alone hasn’t quite shifted… this is exactly the kind of work I do alongside my clients.
Approaches like Internal Family Systems, schema therapy and EMDR help us get underneath the voice: to understand what it’s protecting, to gently reprocess the experiences that gave it its power, and to build a warmer, steadier relationship with yourself.
You don’t have to keep fighting that voice on your own. If any of this feels familiar, I’d love to help.
Violeta Blengio
Psychologist
The Wellness Emporium
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