Even though self-compassion and self-protection are associated with well-being and mental and physical health, qualitative research in this area is very rare. As no study has compared self-compassionate and self-protective responses during the two-chair technique, the aim was to analyze participants’ subjective responses in reacting to self-criticism during the technique and compare self-compassionate and self-protective statements. The research sample comprised 80 participants; 60 women and 20 men (M = 23.86; SD = 5.98). The investigation underwent consensual qualitative analysis. The results showed four main domains for self-compassion and self-protection: cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and interpersonal aspects. In several cases, the participants utilized self-compassion and self-protection simultaneously or subsequently, and both types of responses to some degree supplemented each other or were intertwined. Self-protection and self-compassion are complimentary. Only by combining these two constructs can individuals assertively protect themselves while being kind to themselves and others. In the case of self-compassion, the results confirm several findings from previous studies, but in the case of self-protection, this is the first more detailed exploration of this construct because it has not been studied sufficiently to date.

Level of self-criticism has a significant impact on people’s psychopathology because severe self-criticism activates the sympathetic nervous system, and that further stimulates the physiological and psychological stress response which lead to impairment of mental health and wellbeing (Singer & Klimecki, 2014). Therefore, self-criticism is widely studied, but authors use mainly quantitative approaches which allow generalisation of knowledge but do not allow in-depth insights into the phenomenon. Hence our research aim was to identify the kinds of statements individuals utter when self-criticizing using the two-chair dialogue technique which enable to expose inward dialogues people lead with their self-critical parts. Out of 80 participants, the 20 most expressive participants were selected for the analysis: 15 women and 5 men (M = 27.7; SD 7.60). The data were analysed using Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR; Hill et al., 1997) with three members of a core team and one auditor. We identified three domains of self-criticism – Emotional (mainly inadequacy, fear, contempt, and disgust), Behavioural (mainly hurting and neglecting others, stating one’s shortcomings and motivating oneself), and Cognitive (primarily generalized judgements about one’s negative traits and reactions, perceived judgements by others or based on comparisons with others, and judgements relating to criticized situations and the effects of these). Expanding on the qualitative knowledge in the area of self-criticism would make for better planning and the provision of better treatment for highly self-critical people by mental health professionals.