L4:Does Criticism Do More Harm Than Good to People?

A Yoang Woman Who Fears Compliments

Marya, a brilliant graduate student in her early twenties who came for consultation, insisted that she could improve only with criticism. Her reasoning was that she knew the good qualities but that she did not know the bad ones. To have more knowledge of her negative qualities, she believed,would add to her self-understanding and thus enable her to see herself more completely. Marya, in effect, refused to acknowledge and to understand her strengths. She had assembled detailed lists of her negative qualities which she used daily to support an extremely negative view of herself . But they were either exaggerated or unreal.

Despite her attractiveness to others, she convinced herself that she was ugly. When her family bought her new and well-designed articles of clothing (she seldom. bought any herself ), she left them hanging in the closet for weeks before wearing them once. When someone complimented her on what she wore and asked whether it was new, she could honestly answer no. She did not "deserve" to wear new clothes. She could not bear the pain of hearing compliments, of seeing herself as intelIigent, pretty, or worthwhile.

As a child, Marya had received little or no criticism from her parents. She was prized by them. Their major disappointment in her apparently was that she often rejected their overtures of kindness and appreciation, not in anger but in embarrassment, as though she were undeserving. This seemingly mild-mannered young woman, exceptionally courteous and considerate to others, held onto her own negative selfjudgment with tenacity. Finally, friends and interested faculty members quit acceding to her persuasive requests for criticism that they could not honestly give. Instead, they gently but firmly confronted her with her own blindness to what she truly was like.

II . Read
Read the following passages. Underline the important viewpoints while reading.

l. Unfair Criticism
Stuart is a typical sixteen-year-old boy who experienced and suffered from the criticism of an alcoholic parent. It seemed to 5tuart the only thing his father ever had to say to him was, "You haven't got a brain in your head. ?Stuart was a sophomore in high school. It was true he was a poor student, or what his dean called an "underachiever".

Even though Stuart knew he was an underachiever, he would have liked to hear his father say, just once, something else when he brought home his report card other than his usual, "You haven't got a brain in your head."
Stuart was determined to prove to his father he did have a brain in his head. Stuart studied very hard. Some nights it was difficult for him to concentrate on his homework because he could hear his parents bickering in the next room.

"You forgot to pay the mortgage again. The bank is fed up."
"How many times can a person smash up a car? I , m sucprised they haven't taken your license away! "
"If you wouldn't drink so much . . . "
Stuart didn't like the bickering, and wondered if his parents might separate. He wondered, too, because his father was so forgetful about paying the bills, if they might lose their home.
He kept telling himself that if he studied hard, maybe, by some miracle, things would get better at home.

Stuart's determination to concentrate on his school work, in spite of the bickering and worries at home, paid off. His next report card showed a marked improvement. There was even a    personal note of praise from his dean written on the report card.
Proudly Stuart put the report card on his father's desk. Stuart felt happier than he had felt in a long time. He knew that his father could only be pleased with such a report, but more important, maybe now his father would realize that he was intelligent and would start paying some attention to him.