Join this interactive learning experience on March 4th!
Don't miss this upcoming presentation on Calming the Inner Critic: Working with Punitive Introjects, Ego States, and Dissociative Parts. Reserve your seat!
Workshop Description
Everyone experiences an inner critic, based on negative messages from authority figures and from ourselves in reaction to unrealistic expectations of perfection and emotions such as fear, shame, contempt, or envy. In this workshop we will explore an integrative approach to understanding and working with a wide range of inner criticism, punishment, and harshness in our clients, but also in ourselves as therapists. In complex trauma this natural phenomenon can become more intense, overwhelming, and sometimes more dissociated.
We will explore how these inner aspects develop, and understand their several functions of protection, avoidance, and attempts to gain or maintain validation and care from others. We will discuss how to understand and manage several different types of aggression toward others that are evoked by inner criticism. Participants will have an opportunity to explore their own inner critic with compassion as a step toward helping clients learn to deal with their own. Our ability to reflect on our own tendencies toward self-criticism and perfectionism will support our capacity to work with these experiences in our clients.