The Problem of Criticism

I started the problem-solving probe by asking Antonio the problem question, “Tell me what problem holds you back and prevents you from achieving your goals.  That’s when he said, “I just hate criticism, whenever I’m criticized I feel like a failure, I feel like I’m a 9 year old boy again being put down and made ‘bad’ for doing something wrong or what someone thinks is wrong.”

Listening to him and giving him space to talk out his problem, I followed up by ask the outcome question.  “So Antonio, what do you want?  What would you like to achieve in this conversation that will make an important difference for you?”

“What do I want?  I want people to stop criticizing me or, maybe be able to prevent them from criticizing.  That would make my life so much better.”  

And if they don’t or you cannot prevent them, then what?

            “Well, I guess I would want the ability to handle criticism better.”

I then repeated what Antonio said, “So you want criticism to stop, or the ability to prevent it, or at least to handle it better.”  He said “yes, exactly.”  So I then asked the conversation question.  “What conversation then should you and I have?  What would be the subject of that conversation?”

“The conversation would be ... to find the resources to stop the criticize or to not let it affect me so much; it really bothers me, it actually stresses me out so I try my best to act and talk so no one will criticize me.”

That led to the symptom question.  “Tell me about how criticize affects you so much.  What symptoms do you suffer from the criticism?  What goes on in your mind or body when the criticism affects you?”

“Lots of things.  I feel like a failure, I feel guilty and stressed out.  And because of that I avoid people and I hold back from doing things that I want to do.  I guess the worse is the stress.”  (And how bad from 0 to 10?)  “Oh sometimes it is a 10.  (And most of the time?)  “Most of the time it is 8 or 9.”

Okay, so this problem of criticism has some pretty severe symptoms affecting your mind, your emotions, your relationships, and your choices about moving forward to achieve what you want.  That sounds like pretty painful symptoms. 

“Yes, it is.  And I’ve had enough of that.  I just wish I could get this figured out.”

“For us to figure it out, I now need to ask you a special question, it may be weird, but it will help us solve the problem.”  That’s when I asked the problem-thinking question.  “What is the thinking that creates this problem?  How are you thinking that makes criticism affect you so much?”

“The thinking? ... Okay, well, it’s obvious, criticism is bad, hurtful because it is so powerful, that’s the thinking.  And my problem-thinking is that I’m just too sensitive to criticism.”

While I figured that there was more to it and different from what Antonio said, I went ahead with the required question question.  “Let’s go with that.  If that’s the problem thinking, what is the question that you want answered?  That is, what question do you have, that when it is answered, give you the solution to this problem?”   Then, as typically happens, he repeated the question a couple times as he was getting his head around the question.

“The question ... I think it is, ‘How can I be less sensitive to criticism?’  ‘How can I ignore the criticism so it doesn’t bother me?’”

Finally I asked the assumptive question.  “In the way you are thinking about criticism and wanting to solve it, what are you assuming about criticism, yourself, handling it, etc.?”

“I guess I’m assuming that criticism is bigger and strong than I am, is that what right?”

Having asked the 7 problem-probing questions and gathered that information, I was then ready with a critical question which I hoped would be an Aha! moment which would open his eyes and take him to “the heart of the matter”—the meanings which actually create or generate the problem.  So I asked:

“Antonio, if you knew—really knew and knew without a doubt that what you call ‘criticism’ is just words of another person’s thinking, and not real, not necessarily true, just an opinion which someone was offering you, how easily would it be for you to accept it or dismiss it?”

He asked me to repeat the question and I did—to which he said, “If I knew that, it would be easy to accept or reject.” 

“Good so how clear are you that you do not have to personalize criticism as if those words have anything to do with you as a person, and at best, maybe they say something about some behavior, something you said or did, but never about your person?”

He then asked, “I don’t have to personalize it?  Is that what I’ve been doing?”  I responded, “I don’t know, what do you think?”  “I think I’ve been personalizing the criticism— ah, and that’s the real problem, isn’t it?”   “I would say so, what do you say?”

Problem Analysis

‘Criticism’ is the external condition in the world, the words some person says fair or unfair, informed or uninformed, accurate or crazy, helpful or unhelpful— words that you can accept or dismiss.  Words that you can question or set aside as irrelevant.  Criticism itself is not the problem—thinking that the criticism is real or that you have to personalize it— that’s the problem.  the problem would be personalizing it and associating into it.  A skill would be treating it as ‘just words,’ ‘words to be tested,’ and/or a gift to receive or send back.