For many people struggling with anxiety in one form or another, self-criticism is a classic playing-it-safe move.
We criticize ourselves as a way to think that we will be able to control the situation, control ourselves, and control the circumstances of the moment.
How does it really work for you when you spend hours and hours criticizing yourself? How does it really work when you try to motivate yourself by being harder and harder with yourself? Do you do more or less with your life?
Self-criticism doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. It is a habit that is learned; it’s a playing-it-safe move that has been reinforced many times. These self-criticizing thoughts may have come from how other people have spoken to you, from watching the way others speak to themselves or others, or may be the way that you started talking to yourself when things were hard or went south.
What if instead of spending hours and hours criticizing, negatively judging, and putting yourself down, you learn skills to treat yourself with kindness, gentleness, and care as you would treat others?
In this episode, I interview Dr. Dennis Tirch, Ph.D.
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About Dennis Tirch, Ph.D.
Dr. Dennis Tirch founded the Center for Compassion Focused Therapy in the USA. He has been described as one of the country’s foremost experts on CFT and the psychology of compassion.
Dr. Tirch is an author of 6 books and numerous chapters and peer reviewed articles on mindfulness, acceptance, and compassion in psychotherapy.
With Dr. Laura Silberstein-Tirch and others, Dr. Tirch is currently developing a research protocol involving behavioral science and CFT for treating anxiety, worry, and fear-based difficulties through compassionate courage cultivation.
Dr. Tirch serves as:
- President of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS)
- President of The Compassionate Mind Foundation of North America
- Fellow of ACBS
- Founding President Emeritus of The New York City Chapter ACBS
- Fellow & Certified Consultant & Trainer for The Academy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
- Fellow and Past-President of The New York City CBT Association
Dr. Tirch’s work has been covered by numerous media outlets, including: The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New York Post, NPR, WIRED, and O Magazine.
Resources
- The ACT Practitioner’s Guide to the Science of Compassion: Tools for Fostering Psychological Flexibility by Tirch, D., Schoendorff, B., Silberstein, L., Gilbert, P., & Hayes, S.
- The Compassionate-Mind Guide to Overcoming Anxiety: Using Compassion-Focused Therapy to Calm Worry, Panic, and Fear (The New Harbinger Compassion-Focused Therapy Series) by Tirch, D. & Gilbert, P.
- Dennis Tirch at The Center for Compassion Focused Therapy
- Dennis Tirch on Instagram
- Dennis Tirch on Twitter
- Dennis Tirch on Facebook
