Modern Psychotherapy and Buddhist Thought

Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Psychology - Consulting, Therapy, grade: 2.1, Churchill College, Cambridge (-), language: English, abstract: As a final research topic of exploration, I have chosen to explore the Inner Critic due to its clear prevalence in the lives of my clients, but also for its presence in my own personal life, which has often kept me from realizing a dream or finishing a project. For as long as I can remember I have heard friends and family say to me: 'David, you are so hard on yourself!' It wasn't until I began my own psychotherapeutic work that I was able to see the truth in these claims and to concern myself with how to dampen the Critic's voice. Of great surprise and interest to me was the discovery that at the root of healing Inner Critic wounding is critical compassion: the instrument of self-compassion. Taking a historical view of psychology it is possible to argue that the root of the concept of the Inner Critic lies in the work of Jung and is related, although not the same as Jung's concept of the Shadow. Young-Eisendrath and Dawson (2008, p.98) write of ... that unwelcome side of our nature that Jung calls the shadow. This is made up of all the tendencies, motives and characteristics that we have barred from consciousness, whether deliberately or not. The admission of the shadow is the sine qua non of individuation.