Blue Gum Centre for Psychology and Psychotherapy

10/02/2026

Mode Spotlight: Punitive Critic Mode

In Schema Therapy, modes are the moment-to-moment emotional states and coping responses we experience. Today, we’re focusing on the Punitive Critic mode (also known as the punitive parent mode).

This mode sounds like an internal punisher. It tells us we deserve criticism, shame, or punishment. The narrative of the punitive critic is often an internalised message we heard as a child. It often develops in environments where mistakes were met with harsh consequences, or we experienced rejection or humiliation. When activated, this mode uses language that is attacking, shaming, and unforgiving. It can make even small errors feel like proof that we are “bad,” unworthy, and fundamentally flawed.

Living under the Punitive Critic can be exhausting and painful. It often fuels chronic shame, anxiety, depression, or self-sabotaging behaviours. Unlike the Demanding Critic, this mode rarely motivates growth — instead, it keeps us stuck in fear and self-blame.

The Healthy Adult mode plays an important role here. It recognises that punishment does not lead to healing or growth. Instead, we learn to respond to ourselves with accountability without cruelty, offering ourselves understanding and self-compassion. Learning to soften the Punitive Critic is a powerful step towards building self-acceptance.

10/02/2026

Great opportunity for bulk billed group sessions on peri-menopause.

29/01/2026

29/01/2026

Edited to add: the person in the photo is me, not one of my kids. I'm the human. The other ones are Milo (meow) and Olivier (squark).

I read a thing today from someone.
I didnt know them. They are autistic.

They said that accommodations and autonomy are good in theory, but it's the job of Autistic people to learn to tolerate discomfort. That we need to get good at that. Because we're going to need to do it forever. Because the world is hard. So we should focus on 'pushing through' instead of building skills to understand our needs and accommodate.

Mm. That did not sit well with me.

Yes, we are going to experience discomfort.
Yes, as autistic people existing in a world not designed for us, we experience discomfort. It happens. It is unavoidable.

That doesn't mean we don't learn how to accommodate. That doesn't mean we fry our nervous systems trying to 'get used to' the pain and overwhelm. Plenty of us have done that forever. It doesn't work. It just breaks us.

We experience the discomfort anyway.
It happens anyway. It always happens.
We 'build discomfort tolerance' every freaking day, anyway. It comes with living. It comes from existing. We are already good at it.

We don't need to practice it intentionally.

Like I have said before, I'm not going to go out in the hot Australian sun for hours so I can get used to the discomfort of sunburn.

I'm going to put sunscreen on.

It made me angry.

Em

29/01/2026

‘Pushing through’ and ‘getting on with it’ were the skills that were prioritised.
‘Being fine and compliant’ was a thing that I practiced.
I was so, so good at being quiet, agreeable, perfect.

I would be much better off now if these skills (pictured) had been prioritised, or even talked about at all.

Because I have needed them as an adult.
And I don’t have them.
And that has left me more vulnerable and powerless than I ever thought I would be.

Yes?

Em

29/01/2026

Today my body gave up.
It seems to once a month (lines up with hormone garbage).

Intense fatigue, aches, light-headedness, muscle heaviness, fogginess, breathing that’s not the best. Very little useable brain.

I spent most of the day in bed.
Because I didn’t have much choice.

Rest and coregulation were pretty much it today.
Darkness. Water. Pain meds. Sleep. Cuddles.
No demands.
It was a yuck day.

Our kids need ways to tell us when they have days like this.
Sometimes the words are hard.

Visuals can make it easier.
Make sure you have them?

Em 🌈

29/01/2026

You can't always see the effort that we're putting in. Much of it is invisible.

Huge effort doesn't always equal huge output, productivity, or success.

Doesn't mean the effort wasn't there.

If we can't be *sure* how much invisible effort someone put in, would we not just. Assume the best? Take a kind stance? Give that person grace? Be empathetic? Be curious?

Fluctuating capacity is a very significant thing for neurodivergent people.

It doesn't make sense to assume the worst.
It's actually harmful.

Yes?

Em 🌈

16/12/2025

The gap between the reality of our experience and the ours and others expectations of how it should be over the holiday period can create extra suffering. Perhaps try to change the expectations. Great examples here.

16/12/2025

When terrible things happen, we want to make sense of things for our kids, but we can’t. Not in a way that feels like enough. Some things will never make any sense at all.

But here’s what you need to know: You don’t need to make sense of what’s happened to help them feel safe and held. We only need to make sense of how they feel about it - whatever that might be.

The research tells us so clearly that kids and teens are more likely to struggle after a tr@umatic event if they believe their response isn’t normal.

This is because they’ll be more likely to interpret their response as a deficiency or a sign of breakage.

Normalising their feelings also helps them feel woven into a humanity that is loving and kind and good, and who feels the same things they do when people are hurt.

‘How you feel makes sense to me. I feel that way too. I know we’ll get through this, and right now it’s okay to feel sad/ scared/ angry/ confused/ outraged. Talk to me whenever you want to and as much as you want to. There’s nothing you can feel or say that I can’t handle.’

And when they ask for answers that you don’t have (that none of us have) it’s always okay to say ‘I don’t know.’

When this happens, respond to the anxiety behind the question.

When we can’t give them certainty about the ‘why’, give them certainty that you’ll get them through this.

‘I don’t know why people do awful things. And I don’t need to know that to know we’ll get through this. There are so many people who are working hard to keep us safe so something like this doesn’t happen again, and I trust them.’

Remind them that they are held by many - the helpers at the time, the people working to make things safer.

We want them to know that they are woven in to a humanity that is good and kind and loving. Because however many people are ready to do the hurting, there always be far more who are ready to heal, help, and protect. This is the humanity they are part of, and the humanity they continue to build by being who they are.♥️

14/12/2025

Sometimes, feeling out of step with the world is exactly the sign you’re still sane. Jeanette Winterson’s insight cuts through the noise of our frantic times, reminding us that the trouble often isn’t inside us but in the world we’re trying to navigate. She’s not just offering comfort; she’s flipping the script on what it means to be broken.

Winterson’s work from ‘Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit’ to her memoir ‘Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?’ has always explored the tension between an individual’s inner truth and a world that often feels fractured and hostile. Her writing refuses to pathologize difference or discomfort; instead, it invites us to consider how the world itself might be askew. This perspective feels urgent today when so many wrestle with anxiety, despair, and a sense that the social order is unravelling.

This idea finds resonance in the work of Rafia Zakaria, particularly in ‘Against White Feminism’, where she challenges the dominant narratives of normality by exposing how racial and colonial histories shape what society deems acceptable or sane. Zakaria’s critique reveals that the pressure to conform isn’t just personal; it’s political. When the world is structured to exclude or marginalize, feeling off might actually be a form of resistance rather than dysfunction.

Philosopher Elizabeth Grosz offers another compelling angle in ‘Chaos, Territory, Art’. She explores how bodies and identities are formed through encounters with disorder, suggesting that chaos isn’t just something to be feared or controlled but a generative force. Grosz’s reflections align with Winterson’s refusal to see discomfort as failure. Instead, both suggest that what we call derangement might be a necessary response to a world that’s itself out of joint.

There’s a quiet rebellion in recognizing that sometimes it’s the world that’s cracked, not you. This shift from self-blame to radical empathy invites us to hold space for the discomfort that comes from living authentically in a world that demands conformity. Jeanette Winterson’s words become a call to reframe mental health and social belonging, not as a quest to fit in but as an effort to stay true to what feels real, even when reality itself feels fractured.

In this light, the personal becomes political, and the struggle to stay whole becomes a shared human endeavour. Maybe that’s the kind of clarity we need most right now.

Image: University of Salford Press Office

07/12/2025

Find your Chill this festive season