There are few moments in relationship as charged as hearing critical feedback—especially from someone whose opinion matters. A single comment can land like an accusation, ignite defensiveness, or stir old shame. Before we consciously register the words, something in us contracts: a shield rises, an argument forms, or a quiet withdrawal takes place.
From a depth-psychological perspective, these reactions are not failures of maturity—they are clues. They often point to earlier landscapes: old wounds around worth, unmet needs for approval, childhood dynamics where “being wrong” meant humiliation, rejection, or consequence. Feedback rarely lands in the present alone; it awakens the past.
The work of “hearing” feedback is not merely a communication skill. It is a relational task—both with the other person, and with the inner figures who rise in protest.
Defensiveness Is Often a Protector, Not a Problem
Deflection, rationalizing, minimization, shutting down—these are strategies that once kept us safe. They can still feel necessary.
But when they become automatic, they prevent us from meeting the moment as adults standing in the present. We answer from the child, the punished student, the shamed sibling—rather than the grounded self we are becoming.
Before changing defensiveness, we honour its purpose:
It protected you once.
It may even be trying to protect you now.
The task is to ask—protecting me from what?
A Depth-Centered Way of Receiving Feedback
Pause — Notice the inner movement.
Is there heat, collapse, anger, confusion? Which younger part just walked into the room?
Name the inner figure, not the opponent.
“This is the part of me that fears being seen as foolish.”
“This is the worker who learned mistakes weren’t allowed.”
“This is the child whose voice was dismissed.”
Naming the inner response is not indulging—it is differentiation.
It allows you to stay in the present while acknowledging the past.
Get curious before you defend.
Not: “Are they right?”
But: “What touched me?”
“What story did this feedback awaken?”
“What fear does it expose?”
Separate the feedback from your identity.
The critique may be about a behaviour, not your being.
If we fuse the two, every correction becomes an existential threat.
Return with your adult voice.
From regulation, not reactivity:
“Thank you for trusting me with that.”
“I need a moment to sit with this.”
“I’d like to understand more about your experience.”
This is not compliance—it is presence.
Why This Matters
Because every relationship has feedback woven through it—romantic, familial, professional, internal.
If we cannot hear truth without armouring, we restrict intimacy.
If we cannot offer it without attacking, we restrict safety.
When we learn to stay present, neither collapsing nor counterattacking, we create space where honesty and connection can coexist.
Being able to receive feedback is not about perfection or perpetual openness.
It is the slow unarmouring of the heart.
A willingness to stay in the room with what we feel, what we fear, and what might be true.
It is not self-betrayal.
It is not submission.
It is the practice of relationship.
To the other.
And just as importantly—
to ourselves.
Feedback can be a descent—into old stories, inherited laws, and the echoes of earlier rooms. But with support and curiosity, it can also become a return: clearer, more grounded, and more capable of meeting the moment as it is.