What is Self Esteem?

Self esteem is the degree to which one values oneself. Although the word esteem means high worth or value, self esteem carries with it an evaluative component which is often specified as 'high self esteem' or 'low self esteem' and we evaluate ourselves along this continuum of high to low.

We all have changing experiences and issues over our life time and our self esteem, how we value ourselves, is shaped from these experiences. In some areas of our life we may value ourselves highly, in other areas we may not. Our self esteem can affect the way we feel and think about ourselves, affect our behavior, and have a marked effect on how we interact with others and how we perceive our place in the world.

People who can value themselves in many different areas of their lives, that is, they can perceive themselves as being good at some things and less so at others, tend to have fewer mental health problems and enjoy a varied and enriched life. They hold an accurate view of their talents and do not react badly when not performing well in areas where their talents are not optimal. By valuing themselves people are able to adjust to the challenges that come their way, that is, they are more solid internally and are therefore less affected by critical or stressful events and are able to respond in healthy and more constructive ways.

For some, however, low self esteem reduces well being. This occurs when self evaluation is overly negative across many aspects of life leading to a diminished self worth causing distress and suffering. In order to protect themselves from this distress people with low self esteem may limit risks taken, for example, in social, academic or career opportunities. Defensive behaviors like blaming, getting angry, or maybe becoming a perfectionist may also be expressions of low self esteem. Some may be vulnerable to dependency on drugs and alcohol. Low self esteem can be expressed in grandiose ways too, like bragging, showing off and in 'acting out' behaviors.

Early Development of Low Self Esteem
Early life experiences form the basis on how self esteem is built. From birth we begin to learn where we fit into the world around us. This learning is based on the interactions with our primary care giver, usually mother, and the sense of self that develops is dependent on mother's response to us. As babies we gaze at our mother's facial expressions and learn about safety and danger. We read our mother's responses to our own emotional expressions and build a sense of our own self worth on an emotional level. At this early stage of development, our learning remains out of awareness but importantly is at the core of our internal sense of self that forms our understanding of the world and how we fit into it.

As we grow we develop language and mobility that broadens our social interactions and brings verbal communication to our sense of self. Our parents, siblings, friends, teachers, and others who are important to us, influence our perception of how we are making our way in the world and who we are. We are impacted internally by others reactions to us. Their perceptions and behaviors, what they say or don't say, and their evaluations of us, and our response to them, are all influential in affecting how we value ourselves. Depending on our earlier experiences, we may swallow their reactions to us and add it to our understanding of who we are, or we may reject the other's responses or reactions to us. Over time, with repeated similar experiences, how we come to value ourselves may become generalised across different areas of life and lead to inaccurate and unhelpful self representations, for example, "I am weak", "I am not lovable", etc.

Early life experiences that are common in affecting healthy self esteem development are:

• rigid or harsh family discipline
• parents' having unrealistic expectations
• not fitting in with siblings and class mates
• being bullied
• absence of positive experiences
• family's standing within our community
• failing to meet peer group expectations.

Unhelpful Thinking and Self Esteem
Our life experiences, particularly early experiences, strongly influence the way we value ourselves. We form ways of thinking that become habitual and that repeat the same unhelpful or negative thoughts we learnt through childhood. In addition, we tend to expand the circumstances in which to apply these negative thoughts. While we see our thoughts as facts they are actually distorted thoughts that feed our view of ourselves and continually erode our self esteem. We use these distortions to tell ourselves of our faults when we make mistakes, or when we are under pressure, and when we fear rejection or negative results from our efforts.

There are a number of unhelpful or negative thoughts which can decrease our level of self esteem. Commonly we will overgeneralise when something does not meet our satisfaction. One mistake is amplified to become mistakes we 'always' make. Or we will filter information remembering only the parts of an event that did not go to plan and neglect the more positive areas of the event. Constant comparison with others or blaming ourselves for everything that goes wrong also indicate unhelpful thinking that can decrease our self esteem.

Everyone's view of themselves and the world has been shaped by early experience and it becomes difficult to envisage that there are other ways of viewing who we are. We have had this view for so long we often remain unaware that we could change our thoughts and perceptions and improve our lives.