Honoring the Self

by Nathaniel Branden

  But we can and do disidentify self with particular choices and operations when we say, for instance, “I regret that I chose to be so irresponsible in that matter, and I am determined to function differently in the future.”

  The self continually evolves, continually shapes itself, continually affects the way it is experienced—by the continuing stream of choices and decisions it makes in the course of living. That is why change and growth are possible. We are not obliged to remain the prisoners of yesterday’s errors, or yesterday’s defaults on the responsibility of appropriate consciousness.

  Our choices do have psychological consequences. The way we choose to deal with reality, truth, facts—our choice to honor or dishonor our own perceptions—registers in our mind, for good or for bad, and either confirms and strengthens our self-esteem or denies and weakens it.

  Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.

  It is apparent by now that the “self” we are esteeming is our mind—our mind and its characteristic manner of operation. This needs to be stressed because self is a term that acquires somewhat different meanings according to context.

  Sometimes when we speak of “my self,” we mean “my person, the totality of my being, including my body.” In a psychological context, self is used most often to mean the totality of those mental characteristics, abilities, processes, beliefs, values, and attitudes that I may or may not consciously recognize as mine. Thus, much of the territory of the self may be subconscious.

  The concept of mind has a narrower application than that of consciousness and is associated specifically with the ability to represent and manipulate reality symbolically, to form and use concepts, to reason, and to construct propositional speech. Mind designates human consciousness (or the human form of consciousness), in contradistinction to the forms of consciousness exhibited by lower animals.6

  Ego (the Latin word for “I”) is the unifying center of consciousness, the irreducible core of self-awareness—that which generates and sustains a sense of self, of personal identity. Our ego is not our thoughts, but that which thinks; not our judgments, but that which judges; not our feelings, but that which recognizes feelings; the ultimate witness within; the ultimate context in which all our narrower selves or subpersonalities exist. Thus, self-esteem might better be termed ego esteem. When we say of someone that he or she has “a strong ego” or “a healthy ego,” we generally mean to imply that that person enjoys good self-esteem.

  Self-concept pertains to an individual’s ideas, beliefs, and images concerning his or her (real or imagined) traits and characteristics, liabilities and assets, limitations and capabilities. As such, it is wider than self-esteem; it contains self-esteem as one of its components. We may think of self-esteem as a circle enclosed within the larger circle of self-concept. Or we may think of self-esteem as the evaluative component of self-concept.

  One of the most powerful influences on self-esteem development is parental upbringing. We turn next to a discussion of some of the key issues in child-parent relationships that tend to affect the quality of self-esteem that evolves. We deal here with influences, not determinants. Ultimately, it is we ourselves who generate the level of our self-confidence and self-respect. After we have dealt with parental and related environmental factors, we will be ready to take up directly our own crucially decisive role in raising or lowering self-esteem.

  *Jungian psychologists use the concept of focused consciousness in a much narrower sense than I do and identify it with the masculine mode of cognition, as opposed to diffused consciousness, which they identify with the feminine. I want to emphasize that that is not the context in which I write. When I speak of the choice to focus or not to focus, I mean seeking to expand consciousness in some way or allowing consciousness to remain at inappropriately low levels of intensity and clarity.

  *It is closest to the concept of volition proposed by Ayn Rand but differs from hers in that Rand identifies the choice to focus exclusively with the choice to think, to engage in a process of explicit reasoning, whereas, as I have already indicated, my own view of the choice to focus is considerably broader.63,64

  3

  Self-Esteem and Child-Parent Relationships

  Every organism depends on its environment, to some extent, for successful growth. While we are able to transcend an adverse environment, our ability is not unlimited, and it is important to understand the kinds of interactions that support or subvert the emergence of self-confidence and self-respect.

  Let me begin with a general observation. A child needs to make sense out of his or her world, and when that need is frustrated again and again, a tragic sense of self and of life is often the result.

  I recall discussing this issue one day with the distinguished family therapist Virginia Satir, who gave an exquisite and appalling illustration of the kind of craziness with which so many of us grow up. Imagine, she said, a scene among a child and a mother and father. Seeing a look of unhappiness on mother’s face, the child says, “What’s the matter, mommy? You look sad.” Mother answers, her voice tight and constricted, “Nothing’s the matter. I am fine.” Then father says angrily, “Don’t upset your mother!” The child looks back and forth between mother and father, utterly bewildered and unable to understand the rebuke. He begins to weep. Then mother cries to father, “Now look what you’ve done!”

  Let us look at this scene more closely. The child correctly perceives that something is bothering mother and responds appropriately. Mother acts by invalidating the child’s (correct) perception of reality. Perhaps she does so out of the desire to “protect” him, perhaps because she herself does not know how to handle her unhappiness. If she had said, “Yes, mommy is feeling a little sad right now; thank you for noticing,” she would have validated the child’s perception. By acknowledging her own unhappiness simply and openly, she would have reinforced the child’s compassion and taught him something profoundly important concerning a healthy attitude toward pain. Father, perhaps to “protect” mother, perhaps out of guilt because mother’s sadness concerns him, rebukes the child, adding to the incomprehensibility of the situation. If mother is not sad, why would a simple inquiry be upsetting? And why should it be upsetting in any event? The child, feeling hurt and helpless, begins to cry. Now mother screams at father, implying that she does not approve of what he has done in rebuking the child. Contradictions compounded, incongruities within incongruities. How is the child to make sense out of the situation?

  The child may run outside, frantically looking for something to do or someone to play with, seeking to erase all memory of the incident as quickly as possible, repressing feelings and perceptions. And if the child flees into unconsciousness to escape the terrifying sense of being trapped in a nightmare, do we blame his well-meaning parents for behaving in ways that encourage him to feel that sight is dangerous and that there is safety in blindness?

  An ordinary story, without villains. No one is likely to imagine that the parents are motivated by destructive intentions. But in choosing to deny simple reality, they give the child the impression that he exists in an incomprehensible world where perception is untrustworthy and thought is futile.

  In considering the many parental messages that may have a detrimental effect on a child’s self-esteem, there is probably none I encounter more often in the course of my work than some version of “You are not enough.” Unfortunately, early in life all too many of us receive this message from parents and teachers. You may have potential, but you are unacceptable as you are. You need to be fixed. (“Here, let me adjust your hair,” “Your clothes aren’t right,” “Smile,” “Let me rearrange your posture,” “Stand straighter,” “Lower your voice,” “Don’t be so excited,” “Don’t play with that toy, play with this toy,” “What’s the matter with you?”) One day you may be enough, but not now. You will be enough only if and when you live up to our expectations.

  Sometimes the message “You are not enough” is communicated not by criticism but
by excessive praise. If a child feels overpraised, if his or her accomplishments are perceived exaggeratedly by loving parents (“Listen to Jimmy play the piano! We’ve got a Horowitz in the family!”), the result is a feeling of psychological invisibility and the sense that who I really am is not enough.28,29,30

  The tragedy of many people’s lives is that in accepting the verdict that they are not enough, they may spend their years exhausting themselves in pursuit of the Holy Grail of enoughness. If I make a successful marriage, then I will be enough. If I make so many thousand dollars a year, then I will be enough. One more promotion, and I will be enough. One more sexual conquest, one more doubling of my assets, one more person telling me I am lovable—then I will be enough. But I can never win the battle for enoughness on these terms. The battle was lost on the day I conceded there was anything that needed to be proved. I can free myself from the negative verdict that burdens my existence only by rejecting this very premise.

  Children who experience being loved and accepted as they are, who do not feel their basic worth is continually on trial in their parents’ eyes, have a priceless advantage in the formation of healthy self-esteem, as the work of Virginia Satir, Haim Ginott, and Stanley Coopersmith (to cite only three eminent specialists in this field) eloquently testifies.76,77,28,30,41

  Interestingly enough, the best work that psychologists in general have done with regard to self-esteem has been in the area of child-parent relations, with the emphasis on what parents can do to contribute to the growth of healthy self-esteem. Stanley Coopersmith’s The Antecedents of Self-Esteem is the most scholarly and the best-researched study in this area.

  One of the most interesting facts of the Coopersmith study is a negative finding: namely, that a child’s self-esteem is not related to family wealth, education, geographic living area, social class, father’s occupation, or always having mother at home. Stated in the positive, what is significant is the quality of the relationship that exists between the child and the significant adults in his or her life.

  Coopersmith found four conditions most often associated with high self-esteem in children:

  The child experiences full acceptance of thoughts, feelings, and the value of his or her being.

  The child operates in a context of clearly defined and enforced limits that are fair, nonoppressive, and negotiable—but the child is not given unrestricted “freedom.” In consequence, the child experiences a sense of security as well as a clear basis for evaluating his or her behavior. Further, the limits generally entail high standards, as well as confidence that the child will be able to meet them, with the consequence that the child usually does.*

  The child experiences respect for his or her dignity as a human being. The parents take the child’s needs and wishes seriously. The parents are willing to negotiate family rules within carefully drawn limits. In other words, authority, but not authoritarianism, is in operation.

  As an expression of this same overall attitude, they are less inclined to resort to punitive discipline (and there tends to be less need for punitive discipline), and more inclined to put the emphasis on rewarding and reinforcing positive behavior.

  The parents show an interest in the child, his or her social and academic life, and they are generally available for discussion when and as the child desires it.

  The parents themselves tend to enjoy a high level of self-esteem. Since the way we treat others generally reflects the way we treat ourselves, this last finding is hardly surprising.

  Yet some children have emerged from the most appallingly oppressive childhood environments with their sense of self heroically intact and their self-esteem high. Other children, from warm, supporting environments in which a sense of self seems to have been admirably nurtured by parents, grow up ridden with self-doubts and insecurities.82

  After carefully elucidating such antecedents of self-esteem as his studies could disclose, Coopersmith goes on to observe, “We should note that there are virtually no parental patterns of behavior or parental attitudes that are common to all parents of children with high self-esteem.”

  Parents and teachers are not omnipotent with regard to a child’s self-esteem, but neither are they powerless. Let us continue, therefore, to consider the nature of such influence as they have the ability to exercise.

  I often tell parents, “Be careful what you say to your children. They may agree with you.” Before calling a child “stupid” or “clumsy” or “bad” or “a disappointment,” it is important for a parent to consider the question, “Is this how I wish my child to experience him- or herself?”

  If a child is repeatedly told that he or she mustn’t feel this, mustn’t feel that, the child is being encouraged to deny and disown feelings or emotions in order to please or placate parents. Normal expressions of excitement, anger, happiness, sexuality, longing, and fear are treated as sinful or otherwise distasteful to parents, and the child may disown and repudiate more and more of his or her self in order to belong, to be loved, to avoid the terror of abandonment.

  Overprotective parents may also cripple self-esteem in a child. Forbidden the risk taking and exploration essential for healthy development, the child intuits that he or she is inadequate to the normal challenges of life, is inherently unfit for independent survival.

  Sometimes, when a child’s parent dies or the parents divorce, the child feels painfully abandoned and may conclude, “Somehow it’s my fault.” Unless the child is helped to understand that the death or divorce was in no way caused by his or her behavior, a verdict of “I am not enough” may spread like a poison within the child’s psyche.

  To a child who has had little or no experience of being treated with respect—of being seen, attended to, listened to, trusted—such self-disrespect feels natural. We tend to go on giving ourselves the messages that our parents once gave us.

  Some years ago (1969–1970), thinking about and researching the essential nutrients for healthy growth and self-esteem, I developed a set of questions that I then proceeded to explore intensively with a number of psychotherapy clients. The list was refined to the items presented below, all of which were found to have significance for the emergence (or nonemergence) of self-confidence and self-respect.*

  The questions were, in effect, a device for journeying into the childhood origins of their self-concept in general and their self-esteem in particular.

  The clients were asked first to answer the questions as best they could, then to cite examples in support of their answers, then to describe exhaustively all the emotions that the memory of those examples invoked, and, finally, to meditate on the conclusions drawn from these childhood experiences.

  I was not (and am not) assuming that all their important conclusions from childhood were drawn on the basis of experiences with their parents. I merely considered this one worthwhile avenue of investigation.

  The significance of these questions will be most apparent if the reader attempts to answer them personally.

  When you were a child, did your parents’ manner of behaving and of dealing with you give you the impression that you were living in a world that was rational, predictable, intelligible? Or a world that was contradictory, bewildering, unknowable?

  Were you taught the importance of learning to think and of cultivating your intelligence? Did your parents provide you with intellectual stimulation and convey the idea that the use of your mind can be an exciting adventure?

  Were you encouraged to think independently, to develop your critical faculty? Or were you encouraged to be obedient rather than mentally active and questioning? (Supplementary questions: Did your parents project that it was more important to conform to what other people believed than to discover what is true? When your parents wanted you to do something, did they appeal to your understanding and give you reasons, when possible and appropriate, for their request? Or did they communicate, in effect, “Do it because I say so”?)

  Did you feel free to express your views openly, without fear of puni
shment?

  Did your parents communicate their disapproval of your thoughts, desires, or behavior by means of humor, teasing, or sarcasm?

  Did your parents treat you with respect? (Supplementary questions: Were your thoughts, needs, and feelings given consideration? Was your dignity as a human being acknowledged? When you expressed ideas or opinions, were they taken seriously? Were your likes and dislikes, whether or not they were acceded to, treated with respect? Were your desires responded to thoughtfully and, again, with respect?)

  Did you feel that you were psychologically visible to your parents, seen and understood? Did you feel real to them? (Supplementary questions: Did your parents seem to make a genuine effort to understand you? Did your parents seem authentically interested in you as a person? Could you talk to your parents about issues of importance and receive concerned, meaningful understanding from them?)

  Did you feel loved and valued by your parents, in the sense that you experienced yourself as a source of pleasure to them? Or did you feel unwanted, perhaps a burden? Did you feel hated? Or did you feel that you were simply an object of indifference?

  Did your parents deal with you fairly and justly? (Supplementary questions: Did your parents resort to threats in order to control your behavior—either threats of immediate punitive action on their part, threats in terms of long-range consequences for your life, or threats of supernatural punishments, such as going to hell? Were you praised when you performed well, or merely criticized when you performed badly? Were your parents willing to admit it when they were wrong? Or was it against their policy to concede that they were wrong?)