So many clients come with problems and concerns that are difficult to deal with, but often the difficulty is compounded by an internal self-critical voice. It's as if dealing with the problem itself isn't bad enough. Then, on top of that, there's this layer of very harsh, judgmental self-criticism. When I speak to my clients about this voice, and they reveal the things it says to them, they are always the harshest, meanest sort of comments; comments they would never dream of thinking about another person, let alone saying. But for whatever reason, this internal voice, the Critic, feels free to say such cruel things to themselves.

The work of psychotherapy can be to uncover and understand how and where that critical voice arose. So often, it is a part of us which exists in an attempt to keep us safe and to help us survive. It is based on the logic that if I can be mean and harsh enough to myself, I can keep myself in line, and then I won't receive the mean and harsh judgments from others. I will be accepted and acceptable. The Critic always has a reason to exist. For autistic people and people with ADHD, so often they have experienced being left out, rejected, mocked, and ridiculed. They learn to develop an incredibly harsh inner critic as an attempt to warn them and prevent them from doing and saying things that risk these experiences.

But the problem comes when this voice takes on a life of its own and starts contributing to life's difficulties, not protecting us from them. The Critic becomes another thing to defend ourselves against. And so often, the way we defend ourselves is to make life smaller. To withdraw, to step away from opportunities, to choose the safe option, whether or not the safe option is actually the one we want.

I'm a big believer in the power of a compassionate inner voice – an internal voice where we speak to ourselves with care and understanding. Perhaps we can begin to trust ourselves that we don't need a harsh taskmaster always on standby to hit us with his most horrible, mean words? Perhaps we can trust ourselves that we're doing our best, and that when things go wrong, meeting it with compassion is just as effective a way of keeping us on track.

So how do we build a compassionate voice? How do we evict the Critic and usher in someone kinder and gentler?

Firstly, I would say that the goal is not to evict the inner critic. The goal is to get curious about how the inner critic arose, what purpose it serves, and to start to feel thankful and grateful for the ways in which it has kept us safe and accepted throughout our lives. But also, gently, to start to say to that Critic: “Thank you for all that you've done, but you can stand down. I've got it from here.” And we don't replace the inner critic with inner self-compassion. Instead, we just try our best to start to get comfortable with speaking to ourselves in this new and unfamiliar way.

This can be a challenging process. From personal experience, I remember my attempts to begin a practice of self-compassion. I would say kind and warm things to myself, affirmations, and feel like a complete dickhead. It felt weird, untrue, unbelievable somehow. But, spurred on by the research around self-compassion, especially the work done by Paul Gilbert, I decided to make a conscious effort to introduce self-compassionate talk into my life. I would listen daily to a few minutes of affirmations on YouTube and repeat them back. It didn't feel true, but you know what? That didn't matter. My inner critic told me it wasn't true, but somewhere deep within me, some smaller, quieter part heard me saying these things.

The practice of affirmations is just that - something you practise. You don't have to believe it right from the beginning; you just have to do it. So each day, I would take just a couple of minutes to say affirming things to and about myself. After a short while, the silly, self-conscious feeling I had started to evaporate, and it began to feel like “just something I did.” I still didn't fully believe the truth of each of the affirmations, but occasionally one would hit home and ring true. Then, a short while after that, I started to notice that, in fact, I did believe the content of these affirmations. Somehow, incrementally, without me really noticing, I had started to believe these positive, affirming, and compassionate things about myself.

When we lift ourselves of the pressure of believing it and just say it anyway, over and over again, somehow it allows the belief to sneak around the corner and past our inner critic. Now, when I make a mistake, do something wrong, or forget something, I’m not mired in debilitating shame for days or weeks at a time, constantly ruminating and feeling like absolute shit about myself. Instead, effortlessly, I speak to myself in a soothing way. I remind myself that I'm only human, that everyone makes mistakes, and somehow it becomes easier to put measures in place to prevent mistakes like that happening again.

So it's not necessarily about getting rid of my inner critic or replacing it with something different. For me, it has just been a practice. I urge you to find some set of affirmations and start to say them to yourself, just holding the possibility that maybe, perhaps, there could be a tiny kernel of truth in what you're saying. Don't worry if you don't believe it yet. Just commit to practising it for a minute or two each day, and you may well find that, in time, you begin to relate to yourself differently.

The difficult situations you face may not be changed, but you can relieve yourself of the burden of harsh, cruel self-criticism on top of dealing with the situation.