Self-Therapy for Your Inner Critic - Softcover

Earley, Jay; Weiss, Bonnie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0984392718 ISBN 13: 9780984392711

Publisher: Pattern System Books, 2010

Synopsis

The Inner Critic is the part of you that judges you, demeans you, and tells you who you should be. It undermines your self-confidence and makes you feel bad about yourself. Self-Therapy for Your Inner Critic shows how to convert your Inner Critic into an ally using Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS), a powerful new approach. It is a follow-up to Self-Therapy, a widely-used IFS self-help book, showing how to apply IFS to transforming the Inner Critic. The authors identify seven types of Inner Critics and how to work with each one. You also learn how to evoke your Inner Champion, which is a magic bullet for dealing with the effects of Inner Critic attacks.

In my work with people in a contemplative context, I have found self-judgment and harsh self-criticism to be pervasive, and often paralyzing and debilitating. Jay Earley and Bonnie Weiss have given us a detailed and elegant, yet down-to-earth, framework to help transform such inner criticism. What particularly distinguishes this very helpful book from many others is their understanding of the protective function of the inner critic in its many forms, how the inner critic is not ultimately the "enemy," but can rather, with inner work, become an inner "champion" and mentor. With numerous examples of individuals' successful work with the inner critic, sparkling insights throughout the book, and their clear charting of a path of healing and transformation, Earley and Weiss have provided a very valuable and accessible resource, one that I will recommend to my students.
-- Donald Rothberg, Ph.D., Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Woodacre, California

Jay and Bonnie have pioneered in bringing IFS out of therapy offices and into people's daily lives. This book contains key guideposts for the inner explorer in terms of what to expect when engaging inner critics... I can fully endorse this most recent contribution to their important project of popularizing IFS.
-- Richard Schwartz, PhD, creator of IFS

About this title

From the Author:

From the Foreword
 
This extraordinarily helpful book uses transcripts from real conversations, playful illustrations, checklists, and questionnaires. The authors, both deeply experienced in Internal Family Systems Therapy, clearly show a step-by-step process of diminishing the critic's power and transforming it into an ally through psychological alchemy, which is at the heart of their therapeutic method. They've found the perfect balance point by writing a book that isn't too dense in theory to be useful and isn't too superficial to have much lasting impact.
 
The inner critic is often disguised, defended, and deeply enmeshed within us in contradictory thoughts, feelings, and sensations. In a further sign of the authors' true mastery of the topic, they make this confusing bundle of reactions clear and accessible.
 
The book also shows how we can gain access to parts of ourselves that can bring encouragement, continuous learning and self-correction to our most important activities and relationships. As a consequence, readers can develop themselves into someone with much greater confidence and independence of thought and action.
 
Please jump into this book and take on its activities, at first for yourself; they will bring you immediate relief and learning. Then, if you're someone who works with others, bring the book's practical wisdom to your clients. They will be grateful, well served, and left with much greater self-knowledge and competence.
 
With  gratitude, respect, and admiration for Jay and Bonnie, I wholeheartedly recommend you bring your full commitment and dedication to this book.
 
James Flaherty
Founder of New Ventures West, Integral Coaching®
Author of Coaching: Evoking Excellence in Others

From the Inside Flap:

Reading Self-Therapy for Your Inner Critic has been a treat! As a pastor and a psychoanalyst who uses IFS more and more, I appreciate this book as a resource with enormous potential for healing in a place where so many people suffer--the assaults of their Inner Critic. Its clarity about the different types of Critics was edifying, and the exercises were easy to practice. While reading the book, I was able to become more acquainted with my own Critic parts in a deepening way. Weiss and Earley have made an important contribution to the endeavor of refining the application of IFS to a wider audience.
-- Ann M. Akers, M.Div, LP, NCPsyA, New York City

Jay Earley and Bonnie Weiss's remarkable book will lead you beyond survival and old adaptations and into a life free from the confines of the past. Our Inner Critics are, after all, a way of protecting our inner exiles from further pain, suffering, humiliation and shame. This Critic book shows the path of transforming our Critics to have new roles in our psyche. Self Therapy for Your Inner Critic and it's companion volume, Self-Therapy, could be called the New Bible of Self-Transformation. They give a detailed map to support you in unfolding an adventure of healing--allowing for your flowering, fullness, and joy in living. 
-- Paula Smith-Hamilton, LCSW, PhD, Davis, CA

About this edition

• Publisher: Pattern System Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0984392718
• ISBN 13: 9780984392711
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 210