Monday 5 January 2015

The Habit of Harsh Words to the Self




In her book, Ruth Baer identifies self-criticism as a psychological trap. She makes a distinction between constructive self-criticism and unconstructive self-criticism. 

Constructive criticism provides specific insight into what went wrong and what to do differently next time. It’s considerate and respectful and it speaks to both strengths and weaknesses.

Unconstructive self-criticism is vague, inconsiderate, judges the person and is unbalanced.

An unhelpful habit of mine is to be self-critical in the unconstructive way. I need to practise non violent communication with myself.

1 comment:

  1. Powerful comment about the value of turning NVC to oneself. Thank you for this, Jill.

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