I
The Dynamics of
Self-Esteem
1
Self-Esteem in Human Life
“The greatest evil that can befall man is that he should come to think ill of himself,” wrote Goethe. While he may have been defying certain religious beliefs, he was acknowledging a profound truth about human nature.
The greatest barrier to achievement and success is not lack of talent or ability but, rather, the fact that achievement and success, above a certain level, are outside our self-concept, our image of who we are and what is appropriate to us. The greatest barrier to love is the secret fear that we are unlovable. The greatest barrier to happiness is the wordless sense that happiness is not our proper destiny. This, in simplest statement, is the importance of self-esteem. So we must begin by understanding what self-esteem means.
Unfortunately, like so many other terms in psychology, there is no generally agreed-upon definition. And the assumption that we all know what it means is mistaken. If we were to ask anyone what self-esteem means, we might receive an answer such as, “I feel competent, sure of myself,” or “I like myself,” or “Thinking I’m superior to other people.” The first two statements would not be wrong but would be incomplete; the third would simply be false.
A person who does not feel competent in the performance of some particular task, such as flying an airplane, designing a computer program, or operating a business, does not necessarily suffer from poor self-esteem. But a physically healthy person who feels fundamentally inadequate to the normal challenges of life, such as earning a living, most certainly does. A person who feels undeserving of some particular award or honor, such as the Nobel Prize or universal adulation for having dashed off a fairly simple love song, again does not necessarily lack good self-esteem. But a person who feels undeserving of happiness, who feels unworthy of any joy or reward in life, surely has a self-esteem deficiency.
Self-esteem is a concept pertaining to a fundamental sense of efficacy and a fundamental sense of worth, to competence and worthiness in principle. “I trust my mind to make the choices and decisions that will guide my life” is a very different statement, in terms of self-esteem, from “I feel very confident to deal with the problems posed by molecular biology.” “I feel entitled to assert my own legitimate needs and wants” is very different from “I am entitled to 10 million dollars.”
High self-esteem can best be understood as the integrated sum of self-confidence and self-respect. Self-confidence is consciousness evaluating the efficacy of its own operations when applied to the task of understanding and dealing with reality. Am I competent to know? Am I competent to choose? To chart the course of my life? To satisfy my needs? Self-respect is the feeling of personal worth. Is it appropriate that I should be happy? That others should find me lovable? That I should be treated with respect? That my needs and wants should matter to those who are close to me?
In sum, self-esteem is an evaluation of my mind, my consciousness, and, in a profound sense, my person. It is not an evaluation of particular successes or failures, nor is it an evaluation of particular knowledge or skills. Thus, I can be very confident of myself at the fundamental level and yet be uncertain of my abilities in specific social situations. And, conversely, I can outwardly revel in my social savoir-faire, yet inwardly be self-doubting and insecure.
Going still further, I can be universally loved and yet not love myself. I can be universally admired and yet not admire myself. I can be widely regarded as brilliant and yet think myself intellectually inadequate. I can be a high achiever and yet feel like a failure, because I have not lived up to my own standards.
Living up to my own standards is, as we shall see when we consider the factors that enhance or diminish self-esteem, an essential condition of high self-esteem. The notion that my self-esteem is simply a function of how others see and evaluate me is false.
I have said that positive self-esteem is the experience that I am competent to live and worthy of happiness—or, to express the same thought a little differently, that I am appropriate to life and to its requirements and challenges. It would be more precise to say that positive self-esteem is the disposition to experience myself in this way, since, like any other feeling or state, it is not experienced with equal intensity at all times. Self-esteem is an orientation toward the self. Self-esteem is the ultimate ground of consciousness, ground to all particular experience; this is the single most important thing to be understood about its role in human psychology.
To experience that I am competent to live means that I have confidence in the functioning of my mind. To experience that I am worthy of living means that I have an affirmative attitude toward my right to live and to be happy.
In contrast to this experience, to have poor self-esteem is to feel that I am inappropriate to life, that I am wrong—not wrong about an issue or a piece of knowledge, but wrong as a person, wrong in my being. I thus respond to the challenges and joys of existence with a fundamental sense of inadequacy and unworthiness.
Of course, I may elect to judge myself by such relatively superficial criteria as success or failure at specific tasks, my ability to elicit love, admiration, or approval, and so forth. But to do so is already to have a problem in self-esteem, as we shall see when I discuss pseudo-self-esteem.
Besides which, the people we are most likely to admire are precisely those who manage to persevere in faithfulness to their own vision, without a good deal of positive reinforcement, without the understanding of others, their approval, or their applause—in fact, often in the face of hostility and opposition. When we see those who possess a fundamental certainty about themselves that remains relatively untouched by the vicissitudes of life, we sense that an unusual psychological achievement is involved; we may or may not identify that what we are looking at is high self-esteem.
To the extent that we trust the efficacy of our mind, we persevere when faced with difficult or complex challenges. And we are likely to succeed more often than fail, confirming and reinforcing our sense of efficacy. High self-esteem seeks the stimulation of demanding goals. To the extent that we doubt the efficacy of our minds, we do not persevere. And we are likely to fail more often than succeed, confirming and reinforcing our negative self-evaluation. Low self-esteem typically seeks the safety of the familiar and undemanding.
For example, two persons go to work in the same office. The first seeks to learn everything relevant to the job for which he has been hired, to expand his knowledge continually, and to keep searching for more effective ways to do the tasks he has been given. The second is concerned primarily with not drawing negative attention to himself; beyond that, his policy is to get by with as little effort as possible; to him, a job is a refuge, not an opportunity. The first will not be bewildered by his success; the second may profess to be bewildered by his failure.
If I enjoy healthy self-esteem, I value rather than am threatened by that same trait in others. People with poor self-esteem end up in the company of their own kind; shared fear and insecurity reinforce negative self-assessments.
And if I feel lovable and deserving of respect, I treat others well and expect them to treat me well. But if I feel unlovable and undeserving of respect and I am treated poorly, I put up with it and feel it is my fate.
Low self-esteem tends to generate depression and anxiety. To feel that I am significantly devoid of efficacy and worth is almost inevitably to experience existence as frightening and futile.
And while good self-esteem is only one of the elements necessary for happiness and does not necessarily guarantee happiness in and of itself, a high level of self-confidence and self-respect is intimately related to the ability to enjoy life and to find sources of satisfaction in our existence.
High self-esteem is a powerful force in the service of life.*
We need to distinguish the concept of positive self-esteem from the concept of pride, since the two are often confused. Self-esteem, as we have seen, pertains to an inner co
nviction of our fundamental efficacy and worth. Pride pertains to the more explicitly conscious pleasure we take in ourselves on the basis of and in response to specific achievements or actions. Positive self-esteem is “I can.” Pride is “I have,” and the deepest pride we can experience is that which results from the achievement of self-esteem, for self-esteem is a value that has to be earned—and has to be maintained.
Pride is a positive emotional experience, just as self-esteem is. It is not a vice to be overcome but a virtue to be attained—a form of honoring the self. If, however, one subscribes to the view that human beings are unworthy by nature (for example, if one thinks of humanity as “all equally miserable sinners in the sight of God”), then of course one speaks of “the sin of pride” and warns that “pride goeth before a fall.” But this is a perspective I do not share; indeed, I regard it as malevolent and antilife.
Is it possible to possess too high a level of self-esteem? Not if we understand that we are speaking of authentic self-esteem, a genuine, organic experience, and not some overinflated pretense at self-value aimed at concealing a deficiency.
No one would ask, “Is it possible to enjoy too high a level of physical health?” Health is an unqualified desirable. So is positive self-esteem.
Genuine self-esteem is not competitive or comparative. Neither is genuine self-esteem expressed by self-glorification at the expense of others, or by the quest to make oneself superior to all others or to diminish others so as to elevate oneself. Arrogance, boastfulness, and the overestimation of our abilities reflect inadequate self-esteem rather than, as some people imagine, too high a level of self-esteem.
In human beings, joy in the mere fact of existing is a core meaning of healthy self-esteem. It is a state of one who is at war neither with self nor with others.
When we meet a person for the first time, often one of our earliest impressions, or assessments, concerns that person’s self-appraisal, although we are usually not aware of this. We are not always right, of course, and we may revise our estimate when we know the person better. But from the beginning, almost like animals, we intuit one another’s level of comfort and happiness with the self—one another’s level of self-confidence and self-respect. The way we respond depends not only on the other person’s level of self-esteem but also on our own.
Since this process of appraisal is usually subconscious, or largely so, even for psychotherapists, I have found it personally challenging to articulate at least some of the overt criteria by which I judge when I don’t know the intimate details of another person’s life.
Curious to compare my criteria with those of other professionals, I solicited responses from psychologists across a fairly wide intellectual spectrum—from transpersonal psychologists to humanistic psychologists to psychoanalysts to clinicians of a behavior-therapy orientation. I found a good deal of correlation, although different persons inevitably emphasized different traits or characteristics.
Listed below are a number of behaviors, usually easily discernible, that pertain to positive self-esteem.
The individual’s face, manner, way of talking and moving project joy in being alive, a simple delight in the fact of being.
The individual is able to speak of accomplishments or shortcomings with directness and honesty.
The individual is comfortable in giving and receiving compliments, expressions of affection, appreciation, and the like.
The individual is open to criticism and comfortable about acknowledging mistakes.
The individual’s words and movements have a quality of ease and spontaneity.
There is harmony between what the individual says and does and how he or she looks, sounds, and moves.
The individual exhibits an attitude of openness to and curiosity about new ideas, new experiences, new possibilities of life.
The individual is able to see and enjoy the humorous aspects of life, in self and in others.
The individual projects an attitude of flexibility in responding to situations and challenges, a spirit of inventiveness and even playfulness.
The individual is comfortable with assertive (not belligerent) behavior.
The individual preserves a quality of harmony and dignity under conditions of stress.
Of course, this list is by no means exhaustive, and not every person of high self-esteem exhibits each of these traits to the same degree; but the list does reflect some of the essential indicators by which one can assess how a person feels about him- or herself.
We respond to the sum total of what a person presents. For example, a relaxed, well-balanced posture and hard, chronically staring eyes tell a conflicting story. No single trait or characteristic, judged out of context, is ever conclusive.
In addition to the foregoing, and supplemental to it, there are specifically physical indicators of a person’s level of self-esteem (subject to the same qualifications made in the above paragraph about psychological indicators).* These are:
Eyes that are alert, bright, lively.
A face that is relaxed and (barring illness) exhibits natural color and good skin vibrancy.
A chin that is held naturally in alignment with the body.
A jaw that is relaxed.
Shoulders that are relaxed and erect.
Hands that are relaxed, graceful, and quiet.
Arms that hang in a relaxed, natural way.
A posture that is relaxed, erect, well balanced.
A walk that is purposeful (without being aggressive and overbearing).
A voice that is modulated, with an intensity appropriate to the situation, and with clear pronunciation.
Observe that the theme of relaxation occurs again and again. Relaxation implies that the individual is not hiding him- or herself, is not at war with who he or she is, whereas chronic tension conveys a message of some form of internal split, some form of self-denial or self-repudiation, some aspect of the self being disowned or held on a very tight leash.
The human voice is often a profoundly eloquent indicator of an individual’s level of self-esteem. People with high self-esteem are willing to take responsibility for what they say; therefore, they are willing to be heard; therefore, they are willing to speak clearly, not unnecessarily loudly or aggressively. Their speech is appropriate.
It is easier to grasp that self-esteem is important in human life than to grasp why it should be. Why does the need for self-esteem arise in the first place? Lower animals do not have such a need; why do humans? What are the distinctive facts of our nature that give rise to this need? Why must we judge ourselves at all?
We cannot fully understand the meaning of self-esteem until we have answered these questions. We cannot appreciate the standard by which self-esteem is to be gauged—and the steps by which one builds or rebuilds it—until we understand the roots of the need, the reasons for its existence.
The reasons are far from self-evident—and yet, in all the psychological literature, I have never even found the problem addressed.
This is the issue to which we shall now turn.
*An excellent review of some of the most significant research concerning how the level of our self-esteem affects our interpersonal relationships may be found in D. E. Hamachek’s Encounters with Others: Interpersonal Relationships and You.
*This list of physical indicators is adapted from one sent to me by George Leonard and prepared by two of his colleagues, Joel and Susan Kirsch. Most of the professionals with whom I spoke mentioned some of the physical indicators on this list. The Kirsches named them all.
2
The Need for Self-Esteem
Our specific level of evolutionary development as thinking beings makes the process of self-evaluation inevitable and supremely important to us. From this process, we need to emerge with positive self-esteem. Since thinking is involved here and since thinking is an act of choice, attaining positive self-esteem is often a struggle of heroic proportions.
In this chapter I will justify the concept of the heroi
c, as well as the concept of self-esteem, by exploring our ability to think, our choice to do so, and the consequences for our existence.
For every organism that possesses it, consciousness is the basic means of survival—the ability to be aware of the environment in some form, at some level, and to act appropriately. Here I use consciousness in its primary meaning: the state of being conscious or aware of some aspect of reality.
Like every other species that possesses awareness, we depend for our survival on the guidance of our distinctive form of consciousness, our conceptual faculty. To learn to grow food, to construct a bridge, to grasp the healing possibilities of some drug, to conduct a scientific experiment, to understand the teachings of a sage—all require a process of thought.
To respond appropriately to the complaints of a child or a spouse, to recognize that there is a disparity between our behavior and our professed feelings, to learn how to deal with hurt and anger in ways that will heal rather than destroy—all require a process of thought.
Honoring the Self Page 2
