When choosing a therapist, it is important to consider their Areas of Practice. specializes in:

When choosing a therapist, it is important to consider their Areas of Practice. specializes in:

When choosing a therapist, it is important to consider their Areas of Practice. specializes in:

Loneliness continues to be a problematic internal experience for many Americans, and you can read more about this reflection here. The current trends of our American loneliness landscape continue to indicate that loneliness impacts people across all ages. A contemporary study from the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) demonstrates that Americans over age 45 tend to suffer from chronic illness whereas the recent Cigna study indicates that young adults age 18-22 experience feelings of loneliness and being in poor health far more than senior citizens, indicating that they have become one of the loneliest generations. “The most broadly accepted definition of loneliness is the distress that results from discrepancies between ideal and perceived social relationships,” according to the Encyclopedia of Human Relationships. The word “perceived” captures the unique descriptor and makeup of the psychological effects of loneliness. Unlike physically being alone and within isolation, loneliness is a subjective feeling and perception. It involves a certain way of seeing ourselves and the world around us, and we can feel lonely in a wide array of social settings and circumstances.

Understanding Loneliness

Some studies have shown that individuals who struggle with loneliness might actually perceive the world differently. University of Chicago Researcher John Cacioppo even found structural and biochemical differences in the “lonely brain.” His research revealed that a lonely person can experience more difficulty recognizing positive events and have more trouble picturing the thoughts of others or “mentalizing.” Another University of Chicago study found that “lonely individuals are more likely to construe their world as threatening, hold more negative expectations and interpret and respond to ambiguous social behavior in a more negative, off-putting fashion, thereby confirming their construal of the world as threatening and beyond their control.” In order to better prepare and challenge the inner critic of the voice of loneliness, we must acknowledge the spiral of critical thoughts that occur within the theater of a lonely individual’s mind that become expressed toward themselves: 

  • “No one really cares about you.”
  • “You’re such a burden. Who wants to be around you?”
  • “Don’t put yourself out there. You’ll only be rejected.”
  • “Just stay home tonight. You’re too tired to be around people right now.”
  • “No one ever understands you anyway.”
  • “You’re going to embarrass yourself.”
  • “She doesn’t want you to ask her out.”
  • “He has just forgotten about you.”

Inner Speech

Self-directed language, coined by the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky when studying children in the 1920s, is known more broadly as the “inner speech” or private speech of the mind that has various functions in creating imaginations, forming alternative personal realities, boosting self-motivations, accentuating memories, and running a personal commentary about daily experiences. Children first learn their inner speech through social dialogue with others, first out loud, and then eventually in their heads. One researcher identifies that inner speech can occur at the speed of 4,000 words per minute, and this is ten times faster than verbal speech. Our inner speech uses characteristics of dialogue, but it can be more condensed without using full sentences to talk to ourselves, and the conversation with ourselves can occur very rapidly. Inner speech has a diverse set of roles that include motivation, emotional expression, and self-understanding. This silent and ongoing internal dialogue within ourselves may be instinctual, conscious or not, and it may or may not become internalized into words, but the inner dialogue certainly has an impact.  

In commonplace social interactions, taking heed to the voice attacks of the inner critic can take its emotional toll, usually resulting in isolation, avoidance, or reassurance-seeking in negative ways that may not be developmentally congruent. Mental strength is a very needed asset when learning how to challenge the voice attacks of the inner critic. Author Amy Morin shares that, “Your mind can be your biggest asset or your worst enemy.” Uneasiness, restlessness, and awkwardness are some of the subjective experiences when responding to these voice attacks of the inner critic. Those within the behavioral health field understand the critical inner voice to be a well-integrated pattern of negative thoughts toward one’s self and others that is at the root of an individual’s maladaptive behavior. It represents an overlay on the personality that is not natural or harmonious but learned or imposed from without. The critical inner voice is not an actual voice that speaks to us, rather it is experienced as those self-limiting thoughts and attitudes that exist in all of us and keep us from achieving our goals.

Taking On Your Inner Critic

Combating loneliness involves battling the inner critic through social connection. Connecting to other people can feel daunting when we feel overpowered under the spiraling effects of our critical inner voice. One of the first steps toward countering loneliness is to befriend ourselves. We can adopt an attitude toward ourselves that we would extend to any friend experiencing the same circumstances. This means catching on to the critical inner voice and recognizing it as an external enemy rather than accepting it as our real point of view. It means responding to this voice with a more realistic, positive, and compassionate outlook. It also implies taking actual active steps to simply ignore its directives. This can be something as simple as taking a walk through our neighborhood, making eye contact, or saying hello to someone we encounter. It can be a practice of asking a co-worker about themselves, meeting up with a friend, or making real time to talk to our family members.

Ignoring our inner critic and seeking connection is not only crucial to the quality of our lives, but new research shows relationships can also help us live longer. These relationships extend beyond our significant other and immediate family to include our friends and the community we create around ourselves. One study from Australia showed that strong social networks might lengthen survival in elderly men and women, and that good friends are even more likely to increase longevity than close family members. While strong friendships may seem like an unsurprising contributor to good health, another study from 2014 revealed that “even social interactions with the more peripheral members of our social networks [i.e. acquaintances] contribute to our well-being.” In other words, finding any way big or small to make face-to-face, human contact is a worthwhile pursuit that we should not be dissuaded from by a distorted enemy within. Any step we take toward connection is a step to weaken our inner critic and shift our perspective, not just toward the outside world, but toward ourselves. 

Here are crisp, precise, and actionable strategies to overcome the voice of the inner critic: 

  • Name your critic: Awareness is the key cornerstone in this battleground. In order to effectively combat these voice attacks of the inner critic, you must acknowledge what it is first telling you, and this allows you to acknowledge the hostility of the mind’s self-attack mode. 
  • Understand how: Making connections to current and past voices (whether friends or family) by listing out all of your negative thoughts within your inner world will help determine where the inner critic originates and how to contrast this critical voice from your authentic sense of self. 
  • Demonstrate the opposite: Differentiating the inner critic’s voice using “you” instead of the first-person “I” will empower you to distinguish the true statements about yourself in contrast to the internal enemy of the inner critic and the voice attacks. i.e. “I’m not social. No one wants to hang out with me” to “You’re not social, and no one wants to hang out with you.”  
  • Identify how your inner critic influences action: Whether the messages of your inner critic are subtle and unnoticed or loud and pronounced, become more mindful of how these messages trigger you into self-limiting behaviors. 
  • Use self-compassion as part of your self-evaluation: Maintaining a more kinder, gentler, and tender attitude toward yourself is important in this process of combating the inner critic. 
  • Receive psychoeducation and get more ideas to combat the voice attacks of the inner critic here

Taking on the inner critic and fighting loneliness will require sensitivity toward yourself to separate former and past voices linked with beliefs and attitudes that no longer serve your core values. Challenging the inner critic will yield great fruit by producing a stronger, secure, and confident sense of self, but leaving it undisputed will lead to a negative self-perception with psychological hurdles. Adopting these strategies can establish a more constructive, dependable, and trustworthy perspective of ourselves. 

Recommended Resources

  • The Voices Within by Charles Fernyhough 
  • Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice: A Revolutionary Program to Counter Negative Thoughts and Live 
  • Free from Imagined Limitations by Robert & Lisa Firestone, Joyce Catlett, & Patt Love 
  • How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety by Ellen Hendriksen
  • 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do by Amy Morin 
  • Ditch Your Inner Critic At Work: Evidence-Based Strategies To Thrive In Your Career by Susan Peppercorn 

Taking on the inner critic and fighting loneliness will require sensitivity toward yourself to separate former and past voices linked with beliefs and attitudes that no longer serve your core values.

By Deepak Santhiraj , Licensed Clinical Social Worker

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