The Inner Critic: a Systemic Mimic
“For survival, we mimic what is valued and exile what is devalued”. -Susan McConnell, IFS Therapist
In Internal Family Systems Therapy, it’s understood that we have different protective parts of ourselves that work to keep us safe in various ways. A really common type of protector part is the Inner Critic. I’m sure they exist, but I haven’t yet met anyone without an Inner Critic of some kind.
IFS is a systems model, meaning it takes into account the different systems we exist among to help give context and understanding of how we show up and interact with one another in the world. It looks at someone’s situation from a system lens, instead of an individual lens. We are influenced by the rules and norms of the systems we’re surrounded by, whether it’s on a smaller scale (friends, family, school, close community) or on a much larger scale (norms and ideologies of a society).
Protective parts observe information from our environment (both on smaller and larger scales). They then take this information and use it to try and keep us safe. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t, but the intention is to keep us safe from harm.
“For survival, we mimic what is valued and exile what is devalued”. -Susan McConnell, IFS Therapist
Because of the nature of the Inner Critic and how uncomfortable it can be to experience, it can be extremely difficult at first to see how this type of a protector part could possibly have a helpful intention.
As we get to know our own protective parts, how might they be influenced by the systems we’re surrounded by?
Parts take in information from our environment, learning how we think we “should” be, (whether it aligns with our values or not - and often it doesn’t) in order for life to be more manageable.
Often, when we can feel open and curious toward the Inner Critic, we can ask some important questions:
What is it telling you, and where did it learn to say that?
Does it resemble or sound like anyone/any environment you’ve been impacted by?
What is the part’s intention in what it does?
When we can zoom out, and look at the environment/culture/systems we’re surrounded by, we can start to see ourselves as a person…with a body…just trying to exist the best that we can among those systems.
When we view our situation as an experience of being impacted by a system, rather than as an individual failure, we can start to experience greater self-compassion, and we can untangle feelings of shame.
The Inner Critic
a systemic mimic
Common oppressive systems* that the Inner Critic often internalizes messages from include:
Racism: prejudice & discrimination on people based on skin color, race and/or ethnicity
White Supremacy: belief that white people are a “superior” race and should therefore hold the power in society, typically to detriment (i.e. violence, murder, assumed entitlement over) of other racial and ethnic groups. Often includes values of perfectionism, sense of urgency, quantity over quality, power hoarding, individualism, a right to comfort, and more.
Sexism: prejudice & discrimination on people based on their sex, typically toward folks who identify as women and/or femme-presenting
Sizeism/weight stigma/diet culture: prejudice & discrimination on people based on their weight or size; messages about how we “should” eat/move our bodies, often with the intention of shrinking or changing our bodies to reach a moral hierarchy
Capitalism: the need to be “productive”, for profit; internalized capitalism often looks like perfectionism, workaholism, “doing” vs. “being”, struggling with permission to rest
Purity culture: ideas, judgements, & rules around “sexual purity” (i.e. sexual activity, sexual shame, body shame) & often overlaps with ideas of “politeness”, quietness, taking up less space, etc.
Ableism: prejudice & discrimination on people based on their body’s ability and mobility.
Classism: prejudice against folks of a lower social class, and/or preference or assumed entitlement of folks of a higher social class.
Pause, and notice how it feels to identify these. What messages has your Inner Critic internalized from these oppressive systems? How does it impact the way you view yourself or the world? How does it impact how you feel toward your body?
Often, Inner Critic parts are attempting to protect us from/move us away from potential social rejection and exclusion, and move us toward attributes that they perceive will allow us to feel more approval or belonging in our environment. Sometimes they also use an “if I can hurt myself first/worse, then I won’t feel as much pain when/if I’m hurt from others” mentality.
Protective parts’ intentions are always good, but the delivery of them doesn’t always feel good.
The more we can befriend these types of parts, the more we can experience understanding, compassion, and a desire to help these parts unburden what they’ve been carrying.
As an IFS therapist, my work often takes into consideration the different oppressive systems clients have existed within/been impacted by, and helping clients unpack and unlearn harmful messages from these systems that their parts hold. We often find that we didn’t individually choose to internalize things from oppressive systems, but rather they were given to us a long time ago, based on the environment or culture we were in. We have so much choice about what ideas we want to keep, or ones we want to unlearn, and that choice becomes accessible when we can look at these systems critically.
*Not a complete list; these are just a few examples. Check out my Bookshelf for additional recommended resources on these topics.
