What I Help With
Self-Esteem and the Inner Critic
Replace a harsh inner voice built from old experiences with confidence in your real strengths, values and capacities.
Familiar Patterns
What It Can Feel Like
You may be able to recognize other people’s strengths while dismissing your own. I want to understand the voice you hear inside, what it says, and when it becomes hardest to question.
- A constant inner critic
- Feeling like an impostor
- Following scripts others gave you
- Trouble accepting praise
- Comparing yourself to everyone
- Shame that keeps you from looking deeper
Many of our harshest beliefs about ourselves were learned, not discovered.
What you learned in the past may still sound like a fact about who you are. Worry about failing in the future can reinforce it. In the present, we can look at your actual strengths and question the conclusions that have kept them out of view.
What You Want
What Can Change
- A Fairer View
- We look at whether an old judgment accurately describes you now. Your history can be understood without accepting every conclusion you learned about your worth.
- Recognizing Strengths
- You may begin to notice capacities you have dismissed. We connect them to your actual experience, rather than asking you to repeat praise that does not feel true.
- Self-Respect
- We consider how to respond when the critic returns. Your values and needs can have room alongside difficult feelings, without requiring certainty or constant confidence.
From Shame to Self-Respect
You may feel too ashamed to look deeper, afraid that reflection will only confirm what the inner critic says. I understand that concern. We go at a manageable pace, and you have a say in what we approach.
We do not need to turn your history into an accusation. I help you consider how you came to see yourself this way, and what a more accurate understanding might include. Self-respect can begin with making room for your experience without condemning yourself for having it.
Ways We Explore It
How I Approach It
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
We notice harsh thoughts and ask how accurately they describe you. The aim is not praise you cannot believe, but a fairer view grounded in your actual experience.
Insight-Oriented Psychotherapy
We explore how earlier experiences shaped your expectations of yourself. Understanding where a belief came from can help us question whether it still deserves to guide your life.
Strengths First
I listen for capacities you have overlooked or explained away. We consider your values, what matters to you and how you have met difficult moments without giving yourself credit.
Skills for Calming Yourself
Shame can make reflection feel threatening. We practice ways to settle your body and mind so that looking inward becomes more manageable, rather than another occasion for self-criticism.
Who I See for This
I work with adults from their twenties into their nineties. Individual sessions give us room to understand your experience in the context of your life, relationships and hopes.
Couples sessions may be useful when the concern is also affecting how partners relate. We discuss what you want help with and choose a format that gives the work room.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can self-esteem really change in adulthood?
Yes, we can work on learned beliefs in adult life. We begin with your real strengths and the experiences that make them hard to recognize.
What is the inner critic?
It is the harsh voice that judges your thoughts, actions or worth. We can explore where it came from and how you respond to it.
Is this the same as being confident?
Not exactly. Confidence can concern a particular task. Self-esteem involves how you see and value yourself, including when something is difficult.
Related Pages
Related Reading
Why Do I Keep Replaying the Past?
When old moments keep returning, I look at what your mind is trying to solve and what you have come to believe about yourself.
Read the GuideMore to Explore
- Strengths-Based Therapy
Explore a strengths-based approach with David Johnson in Seattle: noticing existing capacities, clarifying values and choosing practical goals.
- Trauma-Informed Care
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- Setting Therapy Goals
Explore how to turn broad hopes into useful therapy priorities with David Johnson and revisit those goals as your understanding changes.
- When the Inner Critic Becomes Shame
Explore the difference between noticing a mistake and turning it into a judgment about your whole self, with David Johnson in Seattle.
- Building Self-Compassion
Consider a more fair-minded response to mistakes and difficulty, without dismissing responsibility or forcing positive thinking.
- Self-Worth After Separation
Explore the judgments a separation can bring about your worth and how to distinguish a relationship’s ending from your whole identity.