Abstract
Self-criticism is inherently a form of aggressive, self-directed thinking. The relationships between this maladaptive cognitive style and anger, aggression, and violence have been studied for decades with research fairly consistently documenting significant associations between these constructs across a range of population types. Research in this area generally emphasizes that the interpersonal distress and isolation that are caused by self-criticism and anger are key in leading to negative outcomes like aggression and symptoms of psychopathology; however, research testing the directionality of these relationships is lacking. In this review, we discuss what is known about the connections between self-criticism and anger, aggression, and violence and what is not and provide suggestions for future work. We also discuss the clinical implications of these relationships and review some treatments that demonstrate potential in treating self-criticism, anger, and aggressive behaviors.
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Abbreviations
- BPD:
-
Borderline personality disorder
- CMT:
-
Compassionate mind training
- DBT:
-
Dialectical behavior therapy
- EFT-SCP:
-
Emotion-focused training for self-compassion and self-protection
- EMA:
-
Ecological momentary assessment
- NSSI:
-
Nonsuicidal self-injury
- SEM:
-
Structural equation modeling
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Nagy, L.M., Polk, K.E., Muckerheide, E. (2023). Self-Criticism in Anger, Aggression, and Violence. In: Martin, C., Preedy, V.R., Patel, V.B. (eds) Handbook of Anger, Aggression, and Violence. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98711-4_167-1
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