IJSP Number 6, 2024

32 The way in which the "inner critic" is usually understood and treated in everyday psychology reveals two serious biases. Firstly, the "inner critic" is usually viewed in isolation from the person to whom the criticism is directed - but there is no "inner critic" without an "inner recipient of criticism", as we would like to call this position for the sake of argument. 4 And secondly, criticism is usually seen exclusively as pointing out mistakes and shortcomings, i.e. again in isolation from the other task of critical assessment and evaluation, namely to identify what is successful and what not, and what are the conditions for this or that. Let us first turn to the counterpart of the "inner critic". If we see the "task" of the critical function of the human being as being to accompany themselves and their movement in the world with critical assessment and evaluation in order to be able to make appropriate corrections in good time and "stay on course", then it is clear that this requires not only a good development of the function of critical accompaniment, but also a good development of the function of receiving, processing and responding to this critical accompaniment, even if this involves errors or shortcomings. However, criticism in such a factual sense will only be accepted and used as such by someone who understands it as such. Someone who only knows criticism as a personal put-down, on the other hand, will not be able to accept and use even the most objective criticism as such. And it will only be understood and used as such if it is entirely appropriate to the situation and not a case of unobjective criticism aimed at personal belittling and humiliating. Finally, there are also many other varieties of criticism that lie "somewhere in between" or take on special forms. If, for example, self-criticism turns into self- abuse , metaphorical comparisons can come into play, whose function in "inner speech" Giuseppe Galli describes as follows: "In this transfer of negative characteristics from an object to the self, a pejorative treatment of the self seems to take place. In fact, however, it can also be a form of self-pity that is intended to evoke compassion in the speaker himself - the person doubles himself, so to speak." [ 17, p. 25; transl. GSt ] If an "inner critic" comes into play, one must always ask the question: Who is the counterpart of this "inner critic" and what happens when the two meet? It makes little sense to commit to a specific pair in advance, such as the "top dog" and "under dog" pair known from Perls' Gestalt therapy. The same argument that Henle already put forward against the lumping together of different functions in the concept of the Freudian superego applies here [ cf. 11; 12 ] . Whether the "inner critic" appears as a "top dog", as a rigid, narrow-minded rider of principles, and 4 It is not at all easy to find a suitable expression for this position. The expression "the inner criticized", for example, would imply that the criticism was either directed against him or that he always experiences criticism as directed against his own person, even if it objectively refers to a certain action. The expression "the person processing the criticism", on the other hand, would imply that the person in question processes the criticism heard in some way, but this is not always the case - they can also "cover their ears". And so on and so forth.