‘Introjection’ explained as parents warned of worrying teen phenomenon

It’s not uncommon to hear a critical inner voice, but how it came to be may be unexpected.

The one telling you to work harder when you’re already exhausted. The one insisting you shouldn’t need help. The one reminding you that you could have done better.

In psychology, this process is called introjection and it’s a concept that’s being talked about a lot more.

Introjection describes the process by which we absorb the attitudes, expectations and values of the people we depend on, often before we're old enough to question them.

The APA Dictionary of Psychology describes introjection as a process in which an ‘individual unconsciously incorporates aspects of external reality into the self, particularly the attitudes, values and qualities of another person or a part of another person’s personality’.

More simply, introjection can be described as the psychological process that creates the inner critic, or negative self-talk, after absorbing the external beliefs or voices of others, such as parents, teachers, or society to the point where they feel like your own.

One fascinating area of psychology looks at the inner critic and where it comes from (Getty Stock Image)

In our day-to-day, that could sound like your inner critic telling you that you're not doing enough.

As psychodynamic psychotherapist Alison Gee explained to Stylist in an article exploring 2026 psychology trends and buzzwords, these inherited expectations and critiques can later show up as an internal sense of obligation, the feeling that we must achieve, accommodate others or never show vulnerability.

“We may feel a powerful sense of obligation that does not quite feel chosen,” Gee says. “Someone might feel they must always achieve, must never show need or must be endlessly accommodating, even when this creates issues or exhaustion.

“A useful starting point is to notice the inner moments that begin with ‘I must’. Then ask where that voice comes from and whether it reflects your own values or someone else’s hopes and fears.”

Writing for Psychology Today, psychoanalyst Roberta Satow explores the idea further, describing the critical inner voice as an ‘introject, an internalised version of the voices and attitudes of significant people in our childhood.

In other words, the person berating themselves for getting something wrong may, in some sense, be repeating a voice they learned much earlier in life. Satow illustrates this through people's reactions to making mistakes on the tennis court: some immediately berate themselves, while others are able to reassure themselves.

She suggests that these reactions can offer a glimpse into the voices we have internalised.

It is one reason parents are so often warned to be mindful about how they criticise their children: a passing comment can become, over time, part of the voice a child uses to analyse themselves.

Children don't simply hear what their parents say about them, they can absorb it, eventually turning an external judgement into an internal one.

Parents are being warned about how they give feedback to their children (Getty Stock Image)

Why does this happen? Writing for Psychology Today in 2013, psychotherapist Andrea Mathews explains that children see their caregivers as ‘mirrors’.

“Children are highly intuitive and receptive, and ‘sensitive’ children are even more so,” Mathews writes. “But what they typically do with what they receive is wrap it around themselves as identity. Why? Because it’s their way of trying to control their environment while simultaneously accepting what they think are their mirrors.”

And this has been happen for a very long time. A 1984 study of 883 high-school students found that the more criticism teenagers perceived from their parents about a particular behaviour or attitude, the more likely they were to see that trait in themselves , whether 'lazy', 'selfish' or otherwise.

This doesn’t necessarily mean we consciously being told these things. According to Bristol Counselling and Psychotherapy, it is a process that is largely unconscious.

For example, a child who brings home a disappointing exam result and is told they're ‘not trying hard enough’. As time goes on, that external criticism can become internal: “I’m lazy. I’m a failure.” The original voice has become their own.

However, introjection isn’t always negative. There can be ‘helpful and positive beliefs we gain from parents, care-givers, teachers and peers as we develop’.

Therapy can help work out which of our beliefs are actually ours, and which have been quietly inherited from someone else.