About the Skeptic / Doubter  Personality Subself

     Can you think of someone who is often skeptical about people, new ideas, changes, and events? Such people doubt or oppose other people's opinions and perceptions if they differ from their own. Skepticism ranges between mild and occasional to "significant" to vehement and frequent. 

     Excessive doubting may come from an active Skeptic personality subself  who is dedicated to protecting Inner Kids and the host person against pain and loss from unwise or naive expectations and assumptions.  

     Some fear-based people also develop a protective Cynic/Pessimist subself which sees the worst in people and situations, and/or a Catastrophizer subself, who sternly forecasts the worst possible things will surely occur. A Worrier and/ or Judge may augment any of these common Guardian subselves. These may be separate subselves or one all-purpose personality "part." They're all fiercely pro-tective of  various Inner Kids. They believe the Manager subselves won't or can't protect the Kids, so they must do so. This is one reason trying to  persuade a skeptic to "see both sides of things" or "have a glass-half-full" out-look will never cause a permanent attitude shift. The Skeptic/ Doubter also guards against too much influence by Optimist/Idealist and Fantasizer subselves.

     Until choosing to recover from false-self wounds, fear-based people can be over-controlled by the Skeptic / Doubter. This inhibits healthy risk-taking and accepting or initiating needed change, and can cause others to c/overtly avoid the "negative" person. True wound-recovery promotes the Inner Children to be reliably protected by the Manager subselves, freeing the Guardians to relax and accept more useful personality roles. As this happens, skeptical people become more balanced in seeing the world as an interesting blend of "good and bad." Ultimately, they may become realistic optimists.               More detail /   close