Assessing Self-Critical Patterns and the Factors Maintaining Them

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is the assessment of all of those factors that, in a given case, are pertinent to selecting effective strategies of intervention. Once general inquiry has revealed that pathological self-criticism is at the heart of a client’s problems and is to be the focus of therapeutic efforts, two general areas must be assessed. The first of these is the precise nature of the patterns of self-criticism being exhibited by the individual. Is he or she engaging in self-degradation, the imposition of perfectionistic standards, excessive harshness and punitiveness, eternally penitential behavior, or some other idiosyncratic pattern? The second area for assessment is factors that influence the individual to do what he or she is doing. This category includes (1) the purposes or goals that individuals are trying to achieve by their pathological self-critical behavior, (2) the specific situations that tend to elicit this behavior, (3) pertinent elements from their social learning histories, and (4) influences from the broader culture.

Pragmatics stands as the essential criterion, for the principle standard for adequate assessment is that it contain what is required for the [therapeutic] tasks at hand.

Richard Driscoll (1984, p. 126)