by Ruth Berlin, LCSW-C
and Abby Rosen, Ph.D.

There is a voice within each of us, the Inner Critic, that sometimes sounds like Chariton Heston in the Ten Commandments or the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz or sometimes like a seemingly concerned God-like parental voice that proclaims judgment on our actions, thoughts, feelings and our bodies.

This Inner Critic is a member of an inner family of voices or selves within us. It is as if we have an ongoing Board of Directors meeting taking place in our heads which we are usually not conscious of This `Board' may include such inner selves as the workaholic, the spiritual seeker, the playful child, the pusher, the perfectionist, or the rebellious adolescent, just to name a few. At any given moment we become identified with one or more of our inner selves. It is as if for a little (or long) while, these selves climb into the empty Chairman's seat and act as if they are in charge of our lives. The Inner Critic often keeps the chairman's chair quite warm, tyrannizing us by telling us what we should and should not do and how badly we are doing what we are doing!

Just as an orchestra needs a conductor for the symphony to come together, so too a board of directors needs a chairman of the board. A chairman who is not a board member with vested interest - a separate voice who can listen to all the different board members, take in their input and then make choices and decisions as to what is best for the entire company. Most of us function in the world at the whim of our inner board members without an inner chairman.

Psychologists Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone, developed a process called Voice Dialogue that is a way of working with these inner selves of ours, including the Inner Critic. In Voice Dialogue we work on developing the `chairman' part of us, which we call our Aware Ego. The Aware Ego is `aware' of what is going on within our inner family of selves and is able to weigh all options, in contrast to us getting stuck in the perspective of one of our inner selves and thinking that is the way it is for us.

Most of the time we live life identified with one or more of our selves, which in voice dialogue we call our primary selves - what we often consider our `personality' For example, we may think to ourselves, "oh I'm just a workaholic; that is just my personality, who I am. I can't change!" In the process of being identified with such selves, we disown other parts of ourselves that our primary selves aren't crazy about, for example, the workaholic may say," Some people are just lazy beach bums, would never do that!" The disowned self, the inner voice that t sent to Siberia is the beach bum which in fact lives within us, a silenced voice.

The goal of Voice Dialogue is to become aware of our inner family of selves, to separate out from them so they don't control us and cause us to disconnect from other parts. Then we are able to make choices about our lives from an aware ego. The Aware Ego, the chairman, can, for example, help us to balance our lives between the workaholic and the beach bum within us. The chairman can also keep the inner Critic in line.

The way we use Voice Dialogue to tame the Inner Critic, is by:

1. Listening for its voice in our thoughts and singling them out-the thoughts are generally in `f statements, but when you are trying to separate out from the critic it is helpful to reframe the thoughts into `you' statements, for example: "gee that was really stupid, what did I (you) do that for?"..." did I (you) buy the nordic track for a museum piece- I (you) surely look like it!"... "don't you think its time to get your eyes done?"... "face it I (you) just don't have what it takes to be promoted"... "I (you) paid all that money for that workshop and I (you) don't even use what I (you) learned" ..."if I (you) meditated more regularly maybe I (you) would get somewhere spiritually what did I (you) eat that for!?"..."when are you going to stop wasting time and get on with it?" Label your inner critical thoughts as your Inner Critic. Write down what the Inner Critic says to you. By doing this you are actually separating out from the critic and developing an Aware Ego.

2. Dialogue with the Inner Critic. In voice dialogue a facilitator will have you move to a separate chair to `talk' to your critic-this process makes separating out this part of us very clear. Ask your Inner Critic what it is trying to accomplish - often the answers are revealing, for example, they may say, "I want to make sure that you won't be rejected or that you are the best you can be:' Often the Inner Critic doesn't realize that its criticisms don't actually accomplish its goals. The Inner Critic was born usually in our childhood as a way of making sure we were acting in a way that we would be safe and loved. Its core is an anxious child trying to make sure we are ok. By becoming aware of the Inner Critic, we can find healthier ways to work with the underlying anxiety.

3. Read Embracing Your Inner Critic by Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone. Do the exercises they recommend.

4. You can also work with a trained voice dialogue therapist.