Monitoring Self-Criticism

Cognitive-behavioral therapy approaches have been effective in reducing self-criticism and consequently lead to an increase in self-esteem and self-confidence. However, before initiating therapy, one needs to assess and monitor the self-criticism via a log.

What to Do

Complete a daily charting with the headings of situation, self-critical thoughts, consequent feelings and behaviors, and rational responses. This would enable you to provide your therapist with essential information. If you have decided to use self-help only, having a log is even more important, because it is a crucial partner in your self-improvement.

What to Include

The situation would include what happened to bring out your self-criticism. Self-critical thoughts would include the thoughts these situations elicited. Consequent feelings and behaviors include what came later in the form of your feelings and behaviors, after the self-criticism.

The rational response is what would come later, when you eventually begin to work on dealing with the self-criticism.

Example

Here’s an example of what the log would look like.

Maintaining this log would provide you with a broader picture of what leads to your critical thoughts and what comes after. It would help when you finally get to working on self-criticism.