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Self-criticism

28 techniques · 11 approaches
ACT
I Notice I'm Having the Thought
I Notice I'm Having the Thought
A core cognitive defusion technique in ACT. Adding the phrase "I notice I'm having the thought that.." creates distance between the thought…
ACT
Thanking Your Mind
Thanking Your Mind
A reframe of thinking as an attempt to help. Even intrusive or badly timed thoughts are framed as the mind trying to protect. The client lea…
CBT
Cognitive Distortions (Burns)
Cognitive Distortions (Burns)
Teaching clients to recognize common thinking errors such as all-or-nothing thinking, catastrophizing, mind reading and discounting the posi…
CBT
Cognitive Restructuring
Cognitive Restructuring
A core CBT technique and the center of cognitive work. The therapist helps the client catch an automatic negative thought, examine its logic…
CBT
Downward Arrow Technique
Downward Arrow Technique
A technique for uncovering core beliefs by repeatedly asking, "If that were true, what would it mean to you?" Starting from a surface automa…
CBT
Reattribution
Reattribution
A technique for reducing personalization and excessive guilt. The client explores all factors that contributed to an event instead of assign…
CBT
Reframing
Reframing
Reinterpreting a situation without denying its reality. The facts remain the same, but their meaning changes. Reframing may focus on context…
CBT
Socratic Questioning
Socratic Questioning
The skill of asking questions instead of giving advice. The therapist does not say, "your thought is wrong," but helps the client reach a mo…
CFT
CFT Chair Work (Two-Chair / Three-Chair)
CFT Chair Work (Two-Chair / Three-Chair)
An experiential technique in which the client embodies different parts of the self by moving between chairs. The key feature of the CFT vers…
CFT
Compassionate CFT Case Formulation
Compassionate CFT Case Formulation
A structured shared map for understanding the client's difficulties through a CFT lens. It explains how early experience shaped the key fear…
CFT
Compassionate Image (Ideal Compassionate Being)
Compassionate Image (Ideal Compassionate Being)
A CFT imagery technique in which the client builds an inner image of an ideal compassionate being and interacts with it. The brain does not …
CFT
Compassionate Letter Writing
Compassionate Letter Writing
A written practice in which the client writes a letter to themselves from the position of the compassionate self or an imagined wise, kind f…
CFT
Compassionate Reappraisal
Compassionate Reappraisal
An adaptation of cognitive restructuring in CFT, carried out from the position of the compassionate self. Unlike standard CBT disputation, c…
CFT
Compassionate Self
Compassionate Self
The central CFT technique — identifying with the "best version of self", the part that holds wisdom, strength, and warmth. It draws on the "…
CFT
Functional Analysis of Self-Criticism
Functional Analysis of Self-Criticism
A technique for exploring the functions of the self-critical inner voice through guided discovery. For most clients, self-criticism is not m…
CFT
Soothing Rhythm Breathing (SRB)
Soothing Rhythm Breathing (SRB)
The basic bodily practice of CFT, aimed at activating the parasympathetic nervous system and the soothing/affiliative system. Slow diaphragm…
CFT
Three Circles Model (Threat-Drive-Soothing)
Three Circles Model (Threat-Drive-Soothing)
A psychoeducational CFT model that describes three evolutionarily shaped emotion-regulation systems: threat, drive/incentive, and soothing/a…
DBT
Non-judgmentally
Non-judgmentally
Building the capacity to see facts without moral labels: not "I am terrible" but "I was late"; not "this is a catastrophe" but "this happene…
Gestalt
Empty Chair Technique
Empty Chair Technique
The client speaks to an imagined person, a part of themselves, or an image, seated on the empty chair across from them. The therapist may as…
Gestalt
Exaggeration Experiment
Exaggeration Experiment
The client takes a negative belief, gesture, or emotion and exaggerates it to absurdity. "I am a failure" becomes "I am absolutely, mathemat…
Gestalt
Two-Chair Technique
Two-Chair Technique
A more formalized version of the empty chair, focused on integrating polar parts of the personality. The client physically moves between two…
Längle
Working with Guilt and Conscience
Working with Guilt and Conscience
In existential analysis, conscience is the phenomenological organ of perceiving "what is right for me in this situation". Längle distinguish…
MBCT
Doing Mode vs Being Mode
Doing Mode vs Being Mode
A psychoeducational model with practical application: "doing mode" is aimed at reaching a goal and removing the gap between "how it is" and …
MBCT
Self-Compassion / Loving-Kindness Meditation (Metta)
Self-Compassion / Loving-Kindness Meditation (Metta)
The client deliberately directs wishes of kindness and care toward themselves, using phrases like "May I be well". Self-compassion in MBCT i…
MBSR
Loving-Kindness Meditation / Metta
Loving-Kindness Meditation / Metta
A meditation in which the participant in turn directs wishes of well-being: first to the self, then to close ones, neutral people, difficult…
REBT
Rational Role Playing / Rational Alter-Ego
Rational Role Playing / Rational Alter-Ego
The therapist or the client plays a "rational alter-ego" — an inner adviser with rational beliefs. The client plays themselves with irration…
Schema
Setting Limits on Punitive Parent Mode
Setting Limits on Punitive Parent Mode
The client learns to actively reject the internal voice of cruel criticism (the Punitive Parent mode), using the technique of externalizing …
WBT
Self-Acceptance Enhancement
Self-Acceptance Enhancement
Targeted work on the self-acceptance dimension: identifying self-criticism, revising one's attitude toward oneself, and developing self-comp…
Materials are informational and educational and summarize publicly available scientific sources. They are not medical or psychological advice, are not intended for self-diagnosis or self-treatment, and do not replace consultation with a qualified professional.