A model that pops up in several places (e.g. this book, this paper) is that these kinds of shoulder advisors show up as a kind of a preventative measure. If there are real people who would criticize or berate you for doing specific things, then your brain learns to predict when they would do that, and starts creating that criticism internally. That way, the inner critic may prevent you from doing the thing and thus spare you from being punished by the external critic who’s being modeled.
In that case, one approach is to simply try to talk to your inner critic and ask it what it’s trying to achieve and what it’s afraid would happen if it didn’t say the things it did. Sometimes it may be possible to get it to notice that e.g. avoiding the abusive family member’s judgment isn’t very important anymore, because you’re no longer living with that person, getting it to ease off.
A model that pops up in several places (e.g. this book, this paper) is that these kinds of shoulder advisors show up as a kind of a preventative measure. If there are real people who would criticize or berate you for doing specific things, then your brain learns to predict when they would do that, and starts creating that criticism internally. That way, the inner critic may prevent you from doing the thing and thus spare you from being punished by the external critic who’s being modeled.
In that case, one approach is to simply try to talk to your inner critic and ask it what it’s trying to achieve and what it’s afraid would happen if it didn’t say the things it did. Sometimes it may be possible to get it to notice that e.g. avoiding the abusive family member’s judgment isn’t very important anymore, because you’re no longer living with that person, getting it to ease off.