Investigating The Inner Critic: Superego Pathogenesis
Why We Talk Harshly To Ourselves, and Tips To Manage
All of us have some form of inner critic in our minds. Without a critic that questioned our decisions, we’d be bound to make bad choices, act out of alignment, and step outside societal norms — when it’s best we don’t — .
That said, some of us have an inner critic that is overtly harsh, judgemental, and ultimately restrictive.
When my inner critic is running wild I struggle making it out of bed. It demands action from me and claims I’m a failure if I don’t listen to its orders. Counterproductively, this only creates stress and breeds procrastination. I lie in bed frozen, my inner critic demanding I move, and my body shuts down under emotional stress.
Maybe it would be fine if the critic let up — but when I try to take action it’s still there. It demands perfectionism, you see, so it only rests as long as I’m clearing the bar it sets. Any less and I’ll feel its brunt with thoughts that trigger shame in me. “That wasn’t good enough”, “Your writing doesn’t make sense”, “You’re not as talented as you once were”, it says.
It can feel like you can’t win against this critic.
In a way, you can’t.
I wanted to speak about the origins of the harsh inner critic today.
I’ve been reading Pete Walkets CPTSD: From Surviving to Thriving lately. In it, he gives a psychological basis to the inner critic that I liked.
Today we’ll look at:
The origins of a harsh inner critic
How to manage your harsh inner critic.
The Origins of A Harsh Inner Critic: Analytical Psychology
In Freudian analytical psychology, the psyche is broken down into 3 parts: The ID, EGO, and SuperEgo. The ID represents our unconscious and instinctual needs and desires and the Superego represents conditioned ideals and judgments about who we should be and what we should do.
Our Ego acts as the integrative agent between the ID and Superego. It distills down the impulsive urges of the ID and weighs the judgments of the Superego to express what those around us perceive to be our sense of self — which is actually a colrodron of mental processes.
What you need to know about the Superego is that it is idealistic. When its needs aren’t met, or when we don’t meet its bar for moralism, we face the brunt of it in the form of self-critical thoughts laced with shame, anxiety, and disappointment.
A healthy Superego can serve as a useful guide towards morally just actions. In this sense, you can think of it as our moral compass. When the superego is underdeveloped the risk is reckless and impulsive behaviors that go unchecked; when it’s overpowering, we risk being overtly concerned with who we are, what we’re doing, and our place in the world.
There needs to be balance, which is something that childhood trauma throws out the window.
To help illustrate this, I’ll talk about myself and my theory as to why I have a raging inner critic.
Developmental Trauma & The Superego
If the Superego is the moralistic bar by which our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are weighed against, my Superego leaves no room for error. It’s punishing, and will reprimand my sense of self (Ego) for making decisions that step outside of what my super-ego has been taught is right/wrong.
Whilst all of us will share commonalities in our Superego’s moralistic viewpoint due to societal pressures (like pursuing a creative profession vs a corporate 9–5), what bar our Superego sets, what it deems important and how harshly it will berate us, is influenced by our upbringing.
I can look back on my childhood and recognize that I experienced many confusing and painful experiences during key developmental stages.
As such, I learned early to associate my identity with something bad. Thoughts and behaviors that otherwise would be deemed acceptable or “normal” were coded as harmful.
The result was the presence of a strict and restrictive Superego that reigned down critical thoughts that pushed my expression into silence.
To those outside they may have thought that introversion was my nature, but it wasn’t.
A part of me, my Ego, wanted to express who I was but my Superego wouldn’t allow it. I fear I’ve spent a good deal of my life in a battle between who I want to be and what my mind says is possible.
When The Superego Dominates:
A restrictive Superego can serve us for some time. It kept me safe during a period where being myself wasn’t an option. As is the case with most childhood adaptations, though, they become maladaptive in adulthood.
A Superego in control restricts the healthy ego from developing. The rules and regulations prescribed by society, family, and trauma condition our Superego so strongly that our identity becomes our Superego, and all its neruosies.
To regulate our Superego would mean to combat the critical thoughts and uncomfortable emotions it pushes down on us, but when you’ve learned that your expression is dangerous, this is difficult.
Something that might appear easy to someone else, like feeling safe in a relationship, becomes extremely difficult to do with a restrictive Superego.
Tips For Calming Your Inner Critic
1. Disidentifying with the Superego: When we recognize that critical voice as our superego, we can disidentify from its messages. You are not the critical voice, rather that voice is an amalgamation of all the painful messages of your past that taught you weren’t good enough, couldn’t be yourself and express your needs, and were a danger to those around you. When we identify too strongly with this voice, we allow our Superego to take over.
2. Possitive Reframing: Possitive reframing is the act of being aware of the presence of critical thoughts and counteracting them with positive affirmations— something Pete Walkers speaks to in high regard as something that helped him. Personally, I’ve found that arguing back with my inner critic only spurs it on and leads to an internal war with my critic.
3. Grieving: Pete speaks to emotional release as a powerful way to decrease the inner critic. He theorises that part of our Superegos ferocity is down to unresolved emotional pain that needs to be grieved. So long as the original pain is not felt, our Superego will remain stuck in its panic loop, critiquing and suppressing our expression to maladaptively keep us safe, as it was programmed too.
4. Disconfirming Evidence: When we’re feel strong enough to do so, challenging ourselves with actions that conflict with our Superego’s bias, over time, will lead to possitive change. So long as we are acting within our Superego’s constrictive world-view we won’t grow. This is challenging, as we;ll actively trigger our Superego, but through effective stress management we can teach it that it does not have control, and that we are safe to explore our authentic expressions.
Thank you for reading this article. I appreciate your time and interest in my work!