A great reminder that in real life, as Jordan mentioned, we need to over-encourage and affirm to be sure our necessary criticisms aren’t over-internalized.

I find this fear really interesting because it’s something none of us like, but for the vast majority of us, it doesn’t go to an extreme level. If it does, i’s super important to explore the possible reasons behind this fear and make sure what we land on for our character makes sense for them.

I liked the mention of ‘trust’ here: ‘Receiving harsh criticism from a trusted individual’ as a trigger for the fear.

I think fear of criticism goes back to trust often, generally (not trusting that the person giving the criticism has one’s best interests at heart).

Many people who have this fear have experienced punitive environments such as a controlling parent for whom nothing is ever ‘good enough’. It can create a deep-seated desire to please.

In an ethics of care, the criticizing/feedback-giving person should always strive for a mixture of honesty and care/sensitivity, if possible. There was some study where they found for each negatively-worded criticism, a person needs to hear three positive/praise-like pieces of feedback to regain trust and a sense of it being a good interaction.