ABSTRACT
Most group-living species evolved with feature detectors to be very sensitive to social rank position. They can challenge those they estimate they can win against but submit to those more powerful than themselves. Hence, this chapter explores how the competitive social mentality has within it a set of evaluative attack-submissive algorithms which can be recruited into self-monitoring and self-criticism. As a result of early life experiences and social contexts, individuals who are prone to feeling inferior, are also prone to self-criticism. What can fuel self-criticism is a monitoring of our social connectedness and fear of being seen as inferior or undesirable and thereby marginalised or rejected. CFT tends to focus on careful functional analysis of self-criticism, its hostility and then the fear behind self-criticism. This chapter outlines some of the different and varied dynamics of self-criticism, offers a description of a guided discovery functional analysis and how to move people towards compassionate self-correction.
