From Inner Critic to Inner Director

Most of us know the Inner Critic. It is the voice that comments on what we do, questions our decisions, points out our mistakes and tells us what we should have done differently. Sometimes it is useful. But for many people it has become so dominant that its judgements are experienced not as one opinion, but as the truth.

In my work with clients, I often say: we don't need to get rid of the Inner Critic. We may need to re-educate it.

After all, the Inner Critic usually developed for a reason. Often it began early in life as an attempt to protect us from rejection, humiliation, failure or disappointment. But it may still be operating according to rules learned in childhood. Its language can be harsh, black-and-white and surprisingly childish: Don't make mistakes. Don't stand out. You have to get it right. If someone is disappointed in you, you have failed.

So perhaps the problem is not that we have an Inner Critic. The problem is that it has been allowed to run the show.

This idea is central to Learning to Deal with the Inner Critic, a ten-session psychodramatic group training that I have developed and refined over several years. I use the metaphor of an Inner Theatre, inspired by Pat Williams's image of the mind as an opera stage and developed further through Moreno's Role Theory. The Inner Critic is only one character in this theatre. There are many others: a Caring Role, a Free Child, a Humourist, an Adventurer, a Pleaser, a Victim — and roles that may not yet have had much opportunity to come onto the stage.

The aim is therefore not to throw one troublesome character out of the theatre. It is to develop a richer and more flexible cast — and to strengthen the Inner Director.

The Inner Director is more than an observer. It listens to the different roles, decides which need more or less space, sets limits when one of them gets out of line, and may invite new roles onto the stage. It also has an educational function. A punitive Inner Critic can gradually learn to express concern, caution or evaluation in more differentiated and constructive ways. The Critic itself can mature.

Psychodrama offers a particularly powerful way of practising this because the inner dialogue does not remain something we merely talk about. Participants bring their inner roles into action, encounter them, reverse roles with them, experience different perspectives and eventually step into the position of the Inner Director themselves.

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Instead of asking “How can I get rid of my Inner Critic?” we can begin to ask “Who is directing my Inner Theatre — and how do I want it to be directed?”