We are used to looking for signs of toxicity in the outside world — in the manipulations of partners or devaluation by loved ones — but the harshest critic and the most sophisticated "gaslighter" often hides within ourselves. How is our internal voice formed, why do we forbid ourselves from simply being sad or afraid, and is it possible to change long-internalized patterns in adulthood? We talk with Treatfield psychotherapists about "toxic relationships" with oneself.
We talk a lot about toxicity in friendships or romantic relationships, but can we talk about "toxic relationships with oneself"? Does it happen that "a person gaslights themselves," systematically devaluing their own reality and feelings? How can we recognize these mechanisms, and how do they feel and manifest?
We are used to identifying "red flags" in others: manipulation, devaluation, control. We know what gaslighting looks like from the outside — when someone tries to convince us that our feelings are "wrong" and that the pain is "just in our heads." But sometimes the most complex and hidden abuse settles within ourselves.
This is a situation where the same person plays the roles of both the abuser and the victim. Psychotherapists call this self-gaslighting — the systematic devaluation of one's own reality.
What does this mechanism look like in life? Often we look for enemies outside, not noticing how we ourselves become our own harshest censors. Self-gaslighting begins where you forbid yourself from feeling what you feel.
Our emotions are like a compass needle indicating where we are safe and where we are losing ourselves. Self-gaslighting acts like a powerful magnet placed next to this compass. The needle starts spinning chaotically: you feel resentment or fatigue, but the internal voice instantly "resets the settings": "You imagined it," "Others have it worse." As a result, you stand in the middle of your own life and don't know where to move because you no longer trust your instruments.
It always looks like an endless internal doubt. You feel tired, but a voice immediately appears: "You're just being lazy, look how much others manage to do." You feel resentment, but you immediately stop yourself: "Don't be so sensitive, the person didn't mean anything bad, there's something wrong with you." This is internal censorship that passes judgment on your emotions even before they are lived through.
How to recognize these "toxic relationships with oneself"? Self-gaslighting is insidious because it masks itself as "common sense" or "demandingness toward oneself." However, a professional perspective allows us to notice it through specific manifestations:
- Constantly searching for "objective reasons" for emotions. You don't allow yourself to simply be sad — you definitely need a "weighty reason." If the reason, in your opinion, is insufficient, you begin to blame yourself for "weakness."
- Doubting your own memories. "Was it really that painful? Maybe I'm twisting everything?" You start acting as a lawyer for your abusers and as a prosecutor for yourself.
- Double standards of kindness. There is a very simple test: every time you say something harsh to yourself, ask: "Would I say this to my best friend if they were in this situation?" If the answer is "no" — you are dealing with self-gaslighting. For some reason, we show much more mercy toward others than toward ourselves.
- Bodily ignorance. When your body is literally screaming about tension — through a lump in your throat, clenched jaws, or chronic fatigue — you continue to convince yourself that everything is "normal" and you just need to "endure a little longer."
Why do we do this? It's not a "bad character trait." It's a survival method we once learned. Often we learn to devalue ourselves because in our past, our feelings were not heard or were considered "inconvenient" for those around us. We simply made that external critical voice our own to prepare for blows from the outside. We attack ourselves first, hoping that this way we will become "more perfect" and others will have nothing to pick on.
But as a result, we lose contact with reality. Because our only real support in the world is our sensations and feelings. And if we tell ourselves every time "you imagined it," we are left alone in a void where there is nothing to lean on.
Instead of advice: The way out of the cycle of self-devaluation does not lie through another "struggle" with oneself. On the contrary — it begins where you stop fighting.
This is the path to reclaiming the right to your own truth. Simply to notice the moment when the magnet starts to deflect your compass needle. Simply to acknowledge: "Right now it hurts, and I did NOT imagine it." Simply to acknowledge: "I have the right to this emotion, even if it doesn't seem logical to me."
Psychological work on this topic is not about changing yourself or becoming a "better version." It is about finally taking your own side. Because the relationship with yourself is the only romance guaranteed to last a lifetime. And it depends only on us whether there will be a place for support, safety, and trust in this relationship with ourselves.
What does the way we talk to ourselves "in our own head" depend on, and how is it formed — with what words and in what tone? Why do we form a "secondary evaluation of feelings": for example, when we feel sad and then start getting angry at ourselves for this sadness or feel ashamed of getting anxious. How can we break this circle of "feelings about feelings"?
We talk to ourselves the way we were taught in childhood and in every environment we find ourselves in. Often we no longer even notice whose "voices" are sounding in our heads and determining our attitudes toward ourselves as beings who feel or experience something.
We evaluate our feelings the way they were once evaluated by those around us. Some experiences may be taboo or unacceptable, sometimes accompanied by certain beliefs. For example, "don't laugh so loud, you'll cry later," which can be translated as "fear your joy and pleasure, and fear tears even more." In reality, there is no direct relationship between events that cause joy and events that cause sadness. Moreover, they can exist in parallel.
Or "only bad people get angry," which makes the feeling of anger dangerous. Although in fact, anger as such, like other emotions, can signal a need (to restore a violated boundary, to protect oneself, to be noticed, a need for clarity, etc.). Danger may be carried by the actions actually taken, sometimes impulsively, rather than the feeling itself.
So-called double messages also have a strong influence on the attitude toward one's feelings and experiences. This is when a child or teenager is expected to do something that adults do not do themselves, while conveying something completely opposite to their words. Or when the intonation and facial expressions do not match the text being spoken. This forms internal confusion in the attitude toward oneself and one's experiences.
A phenomenon such as neglect or emotional neglect, in the long term, leads to a similar attitude toward one's own experiences and the emotions of others. They were and remain dangerous and can disrupt important relationships, so they must be rejected, controlled, and preferably stopped being felt altogether.
One can generally say a lot about what parents were taught by their parents and dive into the history of several generations. This adds understanding and even compassion for their experience. But understanding others does not help with one's own emotional rollercoasters and does not change the attitude toward them, at least not instantly or in the short term. Because such changes are always a certain, rather complex process that lies in the emotional plane. The cognitive plane, to which understanding belongs, can become the impetus that starts this process, but the environment that will support you on this path is also important.
Evaluating your feelings is, in a sense, an automatic action. In therapy, we work with the awareness of such impulsive reactions and learn to pause between the impulse and the reaction. When a therapist speaks sincerely about their attitude toward you at the moment when you are experiencing something, they act as a certain environment that promotes the formation of a different attitude toward yourself in certain states that might have irritated you or in which you evaluated or even devalued yourself. Then we try to find another form and choose a new action.
Objects or items can be evaluated. You are, first and foremost, a human being, and the relationship with yourself involves both the emotions you feel and your attitude toward yourself. And relationships are always broader than evaluations.
Can we change the relationship with ourselves in adulthood, especially if we have been used to criticizing ourselves literally since childhood? Can anything be done about this independently, and where does this path of change begin?
Who among us has never criticized themselves, or who has never conducted an internal dialogue on one occasion or another — about their appearance, mental abilities, the correctness of actions, the appropriateness of what was said and done, or even about their own sanity in general?
Internal dialogue is part of everyday experience. We all talk to ourselves, have an opinion about ourselves, and a certain attitude in various life situations. We all have a relationship with ourselves, but it happens that it is not always good, supportive, or loving.
And some people think worse of themselves than others and have a deeply rooted level of self-criticism. Some even believe that the task of self-criticism is to help them… But that is not so. The internal critical voice negatively affects the functioning of the personality. Constant self-criticism is perceived by the brain as a hostile attack.
As Paul Gilbert, a professor of clinical psychology in the UK, explains: "The body physically responds to self-critical thoughts by spiking levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which can lead to health problems."
Scientists researching the role of upbringing (development) experience on mental health believe that people prone to hostile self-criticism often faced shaming, excessive control, expectations of high performance, constant criticism, bullying, or harsh treatment by others in childhood.
Back in 1971, American psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut, in his self psychology theory, argued that the core of identity and a sense of integrity is formed through the empathetic attitude of parents, satisfying three basic needs of the child: mirroring (recognition), idealization, and twinship (belonging). A satisfied need for recognition (mirroring) — being seen, heard, desired, and a special child for one's parents — becomes a source of self-respect and a sense of dignity, confidence in one's strength, and satisfaction with achievements. The self-respect of such a person will not require intense nourishment from others.
Modern Slovak scientists conducted a study in 2025 on effective practices for overcoming the inner critic, as a result of which they identified 6 types of self-criticism, grouped into 3 general themes depending on the trigger (specific situation) that causes such criticism. I will briefly describe them here:
1. I am okay, but I need improving.
1) Teamster. Always in a hurry, driven by the desire to do more, better, or something differently. This is accompanied by a constant fear of missing out on something in life. Such people are characterized by perfectionism, a desire to achieve something, and a striving for improvement to become a better, more valuable person.
2) Non-feeler. Self-criticism of one's own emotions, condemnation of emotionality, trying to restrain and control emotions. Emotionality is perceived as a threat; one's own experiences and feelings are constantly criticized. Needs normalization of feelings and emotions.
3) Worrier — expects something to go wrong, so they worry and feel the need to be prepared for a potential threat or problem. If the person finds themselves in a situation with a financial threat or a threat of falling ill (virus), or an unpredictable or uncontrollable situation (war, pandemic), they criticize themselves for the inability to prevent, control, or reduce the risk. Excessive anxiety increases self-criticism, so they need to find relief through reducing the uncontrollable (action plan) and through developing self-compassion.
2. I am okay, but improving would help.
1) Not good enough for self. The inner critic says that "you are not good enough for yourself; be better than you are now." That is, the person has a fantasy, an idea of how they should be, but in reality, they do not reach that image. The critical voice appears in cases of personal failure (procrastination). The person constantly compares themselves, evaluating by their own unattainable standards.
2) Not good enough for others. Internal criticism arises from the desire to be better in the eyes of others. The difference from the previous type is that the person compares themselves with idealized others — and not in their own favor.
Both subtypes must learn to regulate self-criticism through self-perception and self-compassion; they need to recognize themselves and protect their own dignity ("I am doing what I can").
3. I am not okay, and it's hard to be different. "You cannot be yourself." This is an inner critic with self-disgust and disgust toward one's own situation. It is characterized by self-hatred, self-attacks, and constant self-reproach.
Awareness of self-criticism is an important step for processing it, as there is a possibility that the person will then stop doing something or change it.
Self-hatred as a form of self-criticism is characteristic of clinical cases. It manifests more destructively, is based on disgust, and is characterized by a dislike for oneself and an aggressive/sadistic/persecuting desire to cause oneself pain (for example, "I don't like being me"; "I got so angry at myself that I want to hurt or injure myself").
Such people may experience difficulties both with self-compassion and with receiving compassion.
Psychotherapeutic approaches in working with destructive self-criticism are based on the conviction that the inner critic will not change or disappear on its own, so active interaction with it is needed: awareness, cognitive and emotional processing, and work with beliefs and reaction patterns.
Mentioned research:
Amelia Tait. How to finally silence your inner critic, according to psychologists
Šoková B, Greškovičová K, Halamová J, Baránková M. Breaking the vicious cycles of self-criticism: a qualitative study on the best practices of overcoming one's inner critic. BMC Psychol. 2025 Mar 18;13(1):266. doi: 10.1186/s40359-024-02250-2.
How does psychotherapy work on improving the relationship with oneself and correcting internal dialogue? Is it a matter of mindfulness, or do specific techniques exist? What role does a therapist play in working with the inner critic and the client's attitude toward themselves?
Toxic relationships with oneself are an internal reality for many, in which a person becomes for themselves not a support, but a source of constant frustration, criticism, and devaluation. This is not always noticeable from the outside, as people can look successful, socially adapted, and caring toward others. But inside, a voice sounds that constantly evaluates, compares, and is rarely satisfied. Such internal dialogue is often filled with phrases like "I'm not good enough," "I could do better," "it doesn't count," "others succeed, but I don't." A person lives with an inner critic who gives no right to mistake, rest, or weakness.
Such relationships with oneself do not arise by chance. They are formed very early, in childhood, in contact with important adults. The figure of the mother or the one who performed her role is particularly significant here. If the mother was emotionally cold, detached, critical, or could not show love in a way that was understandable and palpable to the child, it leaves a deep mark. The child is completely dependent on the adult and cannot question their behavior. For the child, it is dangerous to think that the mother does not love or is incapable of loving. Therefore, the psyche finds another explanation: "something is wrong with me," "I'm not good enough to be loved," "I need to try harder."
This is how internal patterns are formed — stable ways of perceiving oneself and the world. They become a kind of internal landmark by which a person lives already in adulthood. If love in childhood was conditional, depending on behavior or achievements, the person begins to believe that their value is also conditional. They constantly try to earn acceptance — from others and from themselves. Unfortunately, such an internal bar is usually unattainable, so the feeling "I am insufficient" remains constantly in the background.
Over time, the external voice of criticism is interiorized, meaning it becomes internal. What a mother or another significant adult once said begins to sound inside as one's own thoughts and our internal voice. Even if this person has long been gone or their influence has diminished, the inner critic continues to act. It can mask itself as rationality, motivation, or "common sense," but its function remains just as destructive: to control, devalue, and not allow relaxation.
The paradox is that such relationships with oneself often seem normal. They are familiar, and the psyche perceives the familiar as safer, even if it is painful. A person may not notice how harshly they treat themselves because they are simply not used to anything else. Moreover, sometimes there is a fear that without this internal pressure, they will lose control, become lazy, or achieve nothing.
Changes in these relationships begin with awareness. It is important to learn to notice exactly how the internal voice sounds, in which moments it is activated, and who exactly it reminds you of. Gradually, one can learn to separate oneself and this voice, understanding that this is not the entire personality, but only a part that formed as an adaptation to past experience. It is also important to give yourself the right to various emotions, even those that previously seemed "unimportant" or "inappropriate." This helps restore contact with one's own needs.
Forming a more supportive relationship with oneself is a process that takes time and often occurs in interaction with other people, for example, in therapy or in safe close relationships. Through new experience, another internal voice gradually appears — softer, more attentive, and accepting. It does not arise immediately and does not become perfect, but over time it can take up more space.
Toxic relationships with oneself are not a sentence or a personality characteristic. They are a consequence of the conditions in which the psyche was formed. And although this internal script can be very stable, it is not unchangeable. A person is capable of gradually building another way of being with themselves, one that will be more alive, supportive, and honest, and that is exactly what we work on in therapy.
