Padraig O'Morain's guide to managing life
How would you like it if I walked up to you and informed you that you were a miserable low-life, incompetent, a failure, beyond all redemption and a total, absolute and utter waste of space?
Would you take me off your Christmas card list? You bet you would.
Now think of some of the names you call yourself. Are they as bad? I think they probably are. Are they worse? I bet they are sometimes. We are all beset by an internal critic. This know-all criticises us relentlessly: you should have got a better education, you should do your job better, only a fool would wear blue socks with those trousers, and so on.
Freud noticed that everybody seemed to have this strict, stern critic which he called the super-ego. Other psychologists, such as Eric Berne, who developed Transactional Analysis, characterised the critic as a "witch parent" or a "critical parent" in the personality.
Well, I characterise the critic as a useless, no-good, do-nothing pain in the ass, and that's being nice about it.
The bad news is that the critic will always be there, like a grumbling relative who won't go home. Listen to that grumbling relative and you could lose your peace of mind.
The good news is that you can neutralise your critic and begin to treat yourself with respect. The first step is to realise that the judgments you make about yourself in your mind are not necessarily correct. The critic in your mind may tell you that you're a no-good louse because you shrank your trousers in the washing machine but that doesn't mean the critic is right. You're a human being who makes mistakes: all that's required is a new pair of trousers, not burning at the stake.
When you catch these judgments being made you can contradict them. What, you can ask the critic, have you ever done? Have you ever lifted a finger around here? Have you ever put bread on the table? No. Would you like to take over for a day while I stay in bed?
No? Shut up, then.
One of the best techniques I have come across for counteracting the critic is taught in personal development courses run by the Health Promotion Services section of the Western Health Board (WHB). People who have done the WHB courses mention this technique again and again.
The way it works is that you imagine a cassette tape which started recording all the negative messages about yourself the moment you were born. When the critic has the upper hand, that cassette tape is playing all the time.
Now imagine flipping the cassette over. On the other side you tape all the good things you know about yourself and what you have done. When you notice that old, negative tape playing, flip it over mentally and start playing the positive tape instead.
It takes a little practice to get into the habit of doing this: but it's well worth the effort as many people who have tried it out can testify.
Try it and see what happens. Meantime, adopt the motto of US psychiatrist Dr William Glasser, who developed Reality Therapy: "I never criticise myself: I have people who do that for me."
pomorain@irish-times.ie
Flip the cassette
We criticise ourselves more savagely than we allow anybody else to criticise us. To fight back against this pointless and damaging self-criticism, try the cassette technique.
Visualise a mental cassette which, on one side, contains all the negative things you have ever thought about yourself, or that were ever said to you, since you were born. Whenever you hear that negative tape playing in your head, flip it over and begin to record a list of the positive things you've done and of all the good things about you. Eventually you will weaken the hold of the critic in your mind and lay the foundations for liking yourself.
Padraig O'Morain is a journalist and counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.