This page explains how therapy for low self-esteem can be effective and transformative. Low self-esteem can be debilitating and can have a serious negative impact on all areas of your life. It develops from life experiences that shape negative beliefs and opinions about your own worth. It is not something that you are born with. The good news is that because low self-esteem is a learned set of core beliefs, and because it was learned, it can be unlearned and transformed.
What is extrinsic and intrinsic self-esteem?
Extrinsic self-esteem is when a person has a feeling of personal worth that is largely dependent on external validation, personal achievements, or how others perceive them. This is when someone needs to display material wealth, designer clothes or to boast about their personal successes. Relying on outside sources of validation has a high risk of triggering chronic anxiety, constant fears of failure, potential burnout, and an exhausting compulsion to persue new achievements and accomplisements, just to feel okay.
People who derive their sense of personal worth from external sources often measure success by ranking themselves against their peers. Comparing themselves like this can be tiring. It can lead to a reduction in serenity and peace of mind, damaging relationships and greater emotional instability. Even when the goal is met, the boost is only temporary; if it fails, self-esteem crashes.
In contrast, instrinic self-esteem is when that sense of personal worth comes from internal values or genuine self-acceptance. This is when there is no showing off about their possessions or achivements as they feel good enough without the need to boast. The focus in their life is on separating who you are from what you do or possess. Self identity is not wrapped up in a job title, the amount of money in the bank or the car on the driveway. When we make ourselves the same as our roles we are devastated when those roles are taken away.
Origins of low self esteem
The legendary psychotherapist Donald Winnicott once said that therapy is more effective when you look for two things. One thing that did happen in childhood, that should not have happened. One thing that didn’t happen that should have happened.
Children have two fundamental needs in childhood, attachment and authenticity. Personality develops as a coping mechanism. If you didn’t receive sufficient attention as a child in the family system you will become focused on getting it in later life.
Likewise, if you didn’t get enough approval then you will be consumed by winning approval. If getting approval becomes the goal then the risk is that authenticity will be suppressed. People are not doing this consciously but such behaviours are behavioural adaptations.
In human history, being cast out from the group threatened survival and usually meant actual death. People-pleasing as a behavioural adaptation can, therefore, be seen as an evolutionary mechanism. It is seeking to guarantee social acceptance and to avoid abandonment.
Self esteem and social interactions
People with strong levels of self-esteem will stop and pause and typically take at least 30 seconds to reflect on a contentious social interaction. They will ask themselves before reacting, does something need to be said, does it need to be said by them, does it need to be said, by them, and now? This automatically slows everything down and affords an opportunity to respond in an appropriate manner.
People with low self-esteem often react in the moment when they perceive that they are being disrespected, challengened or being dismissed. They typically feel a sense of powerlessness and end up reacting in an agitated way. Aggression can be a maladaptive way to reclaim a sense of control and authority over a situation or a relationship, ensuring that they cannot be manipulated or hurt. They perceive neutral or minor interactions as direct threats to their already fragile sense of personal worth.
How therapy can help
Since behavioural adaptations are learnt rather than being unchangeable personality traits, they can be unlearned.
Psychotherapy can help you to establish and set effective personal boundaries. The process of therapy can assess why you get triggered by someone else’s behaviour. Perhaps there is a wound from your background that gets touched and leads you to avoid confrontation with such people? This can be occurring unconsciously and it can be useful to investigate why someone stirs these feelings of fear.
A useful exercise in therapy is to ask where in life are you not saying “no”? What is the impact of this on your life? What is the hidden belief behind (not) saying “no”? Who would I be if I could actually say no, in an assertive manner? These questions can help to unpack what is being dragged around from your past personal history.
Therapy could be about bringing awareness to these past wounds within a safe private space. This can give the opportunity to heal these emotional scars. When you work on past hurts you will be less likely to get triggered by the toxic behaviour of others in the future.
Noel Bell is a UKCP accredited psychotherapist and can be contacted on 07852407140
