Article author : Elena Lensu (Psychotherapist).
Specializations: organizational counseling, long-term therapy, trauma care, sexology.
Business Consultant, ex.HRD Pravo.Tech and Rocket10. Author of articles and teacher of the online course "IT-Recruiter" at OTUS .
Why it is important to think and talk about this topic, work consists of interaction with other people, and this leads to the fact that people will criticize and sometimes express dissatisfaction. It is important to understand why it is so difficult to accept criticism, why even developing feedback is sometimes heard as criticism, and how this can be changed in oneself.
Criticism is an indication of only flaws in what has been done .
Do not confuse criticism with feedback, feedback, unlike criticism, consists of positive reinforcement, analysis of negative manifestations / actions and motivation. We list the main causes of a painful reaction to criticism. Manifestations are not mutually exclusive, and can live in your multi-faceted personality together.
1) Low self-esteem.
Inner slogan: “I'm not good enough!”
Self-esteem is how we evaluate and perceive ourselves, opportunities, place among other people.
Etymologically derived from the Latin aestimare, which means "to assign value", i.e. what value we see in ourselves. When the concept of “I'm good” - “good that I am” is present, this is a steady self-esteem. Thought in my head: "Most of what I do is more or less good." With low self-esteem, there is no stable concept of self.
Basic thought: "I am not good enough, everything I do is bad."
Reaction to criticism:criticism and observation lowers man even lower. Due to the developed habit of humiliating oneself, it is impossible to endure the situation and the idea that it could be otherwise cannot form a positive opinion of oneself. That is, even if they say to a person: “You're done,” “Everything is cool,” for a long time, a person will not believe and accept this.
People with low self-esteem tend to avoid recognizing their own role and responsibility in problems.
Emotions : sadness, sadness, helplessness.
2) Imposter Syndrome
Inner slogan: “Am I not good enough?” Everyone will know about it ”
Impostor Syndrome - achievements, results, and in general everything that surrounds you, are felt as undeserved, not due to personal efforts and work, but only due to crazy luck, coincidences or by themselves.
The person denies his role and influence on situations. The impostor’s syndrome is constantly accompanied by anxiety and fear: “what if they expose?”
Impostor Syndrome is strongly associated with anxiety and fear of failure. When a person works diligently to avoid being caught, this reinforces and paradoxically increases the belief that he is an impostor.
Reaction to criticism: Criticism causes a person to contract in horror, a constant alarm of exposure appears.
Hatred of any remarks, even correct ones, because at this moment a thought rushes through, which causes a constant anxiety of disclosure: "Now they will find out everything ... Well, they did not seem to notice, okay then next time, they will definitely find out" or "Now they will see that you you don't know anything. You won't be so lucky next time. "
Criticism is interpreted only in one direction in the one that is truly important, that is, only in the negative.
Emotions: fear, horror, anxiety
3) Inability to endure someone else's discomfort
Internal slogan: “Someone is unpleasant and this is all because of me!”
Comfortable people are people who have no personal boundaries and they try to do what everyone is comfortable with. The upbringing of such people is in the paradigm - you cannot cause discomfort, show the result. Such people almost completely abandoned their needs, feelings, desires and plans, from themselves.
Usually, the desires of mom, dad, husband, wife, children, bosses, colleagues are realized - just not their own. In order not to accidentally interfere with someone or become the culprit of someone's failure.
Reaction to criticism: "I ruined everything, now it’s difficult and unpleasant for a person because of me, he is uncomfortable."
The focus here is on other people, on their stability and well-being, on caring for the comfort of others, completely ignoring yourself. Feeling guilty is infinitely difficult, so for such people it is painful and unpleasant.
Feelings: guilt, fear, sadness, powerlessness, helplessness.
4) Narcissism
Internal slogan: "Now I will explain why they are wrong!"
Every person has a narcissistic part that helps maintain self-esteem.
People who have a bias in the narcissistic part do not feel their own “I” and build their perception of themselves from the assessment of others. The threat to confirm the external is always equal to the threat to the internal good "I".
Reaction to criticism : Causes rage and powerlessness, because this is not a negative assessment, but a blow to the inner “I”. There is a feeling of defectiveness, and everyone can see and recognize it.
Instead of comments, such a person hears that he is not complete.
Basic emotions:rage that covers up shame (the core feeling in narcissism. Narcissism feeds on the illusion of no failure, to avoid shame).
5) Perfectionism
Inner slogan: “How could I NOT think about it?”
A perfectionist is a person with the feeling that he is good enough. The meaning of life is the constant pursuit of perfection. Constant pursuit of a non-existent ideal. There is a deceptive feeling that once the (non-existent) ideal is reached, everything will be fine.
Reaction to criticism:The perfectionist is faced with his imperfection, and at this moment horror arises, here the opportunity to be “good enough” disappears. It is unbearably painful; living without such an illusion is impossible. External criticism is unbearable for a perfectionist, but internal criticism is constantly harassing himself: “HOW a mistake! I'm not perfect. If an error appears, then I haven't tried hard enough. "
The narcissus and the impostor syndrome have an external focus - “they will know everything”, the perfectionist - on himself: “I know that there is a mistake and it is unbearably painful, anyway, what others think.”
Emotions: terror, frustration, helplessness.
Psychological trauma
It is impossible not to say about psychological trauma- This is an emotional shock, which is accompanied by the strongest experiences, emotions.
The structure of the “normal”, involuntary psyche response to a danger that cannot be avoided is “immobilization”. Traumatic symptoms are the result of the "freezing" of residual energy, which was not found an outlet and discharge - this tension remains in the psyche.
The person begins to unconsciously strive for the same traumatic experience in order to release and discharge this energy.
That part of the psyche, which is "I", becomes very fragile, or stops really developing. A fragile and not resourceful "I" is not enough to process incoming negative signals, and they cause damage again. Sometimes comparable in size to the original injury.
There are many ways how to work and live with it ... we will talk about this in new articles.
In the meantime, you can begin to reflect, the task of reflection is to determine your phenomena and relationships as accurately as possible, as well as find support.
The best way not to engage in criticism is to find inner support. Support is what gives a feeling of stability, reliability, and therefore safety.
What supports are:
- contact with yourself (meditation, massage, understanding emotions, cooking, drawing, everything that helps you not to run and achieve, but to understand what you need)
- people
- house
- body
- rituals
Calm checklist
- Do I sit comfortably (steadily on a chair, legs rest against the floor)
- do i breathe calmly
- what I feel
- do I separate criticism from my personality
- criticism is NOT RATING ME
- non-constructive words bounce off me
- think that the offender is now much harder than me, sympathize and let him go in peace
- do I hear specific cases, or only generalizations
- I'm in the position of an adult
- all your thoughts and describe all your feelings on paper before answering
What do you feel? What do you think? Spit it out on paper, not on a person
The 2 most important questions :
1) What is happening to me at the moment?
- what am I doing?
-What do I think?
-what do I feel?
-How do I breathe?
2) What do I want?
Still have questions? Ask them in a free online webinar, where our instructor will provide you with details on the course.