A clear way of understanding the concept of self-esteem is that proposed by Branden (1993), corresponding to "a fundamental sense of effectiveness and an inherent sense of merit", and explains it again as the integrated sum of confidence and self-respect. It can be differentiated from self-concept and from himself, in that the former concerns the thought or idea that the person has internalized about himself as such; while the self understands that space and time in which the Ego is recognized in the vital life experiences that identify it properly, something like the "me".
Formation of Self-esteem
The starting point for a child to enjoy life, initiate and maintain positive relationships with others, be autonomous and capable of learning, is in the self-worth or self-esteem. To speak of self-esteem is to speak of perceptions, but also of emotions deeply rooted in the individual. The concept contains not only a set of characteristics that define a subject, but also the meaning and the value that the subject consciously or unconsciously gives it.
The understanding that the individual achieves of himself - for example, that he is sociable, efficient and flexible - is in association with one or more emotions regarding such attributes. From a certain age (3 to 5 years) the child receives critical, sometimes destructive or unfounded, opinions, appreciations and - why not say it - about her person or her actions. His first sketch of who he is comes, then, from the outside, from intersubjective reality. However, during childhood, children cannot make the distinction of objectivity and subjectivity. Everything they hear about themselves and the world constitutes a unique reality. The judgment "this boy has always been sick and clumsy" comes definitively, as an irrefutable truth, rather than as a rebuttable assessment.The formation of self-esteem begins with these first sketches that the child receives, mainly, from the attachment figures, the most significant at his early age. The opinion "rude child" if it is spoken by the parents in a recurring, indiscriminate way and is accompanied by gestures that emphasize disqualification, will have a profound resonance in the identity of the child.
In the composition of personal worth or self-esteem there is a fundamental aspect that is related to affect or emotions. It turns out that the minor feels more or less comfortable with the image of himself. You may like it, feel fear, experience anger, or make it sad, but ultimately, and whatever it is, it will automatically present an emotional response consistent with that self-perception. Such is the component of "worth", "valuation" or "estimate" itself. In a very rudimentary way the child is aware of possessing - whether he wants it or not - a certain character or personality and that does not go unnoticed, it causes him a feeling of greater or lesser discomfort. Furthermore, it is more likely that he identifies very clearly the displeasure caused by knowing himself "shy", without having a clear idea of what exactly that means.He only knows that he doesn't like it or is bad.
Only in adolescence, from approximately 11 years of age, with the establishment of formal thought, the young person will be able to conceptualize his sensation of pleasure or displeasure, adopting an attitude of distance from what he experiences, testing the fidelity of the traits that he himself, his parents or his family have conferred on him his personal image.
Being identity a central theme of this stage, the adolescent will explore who he is and will want to consciously answer questions about his future and his place in the world. The emerging crisis will have a devastating effect if the young person has arrived here with a poor or low personal evaluation. Obtaining a positive self-evaluation, which operates automatically and unconsciously, allows a healthy psychological development in the child, in harmony with her surrounding environment and, especially, in her relationship with others. In the opposite situation, the adolescent will not find a favorable terrain -the one related to her affectivity- to learn, enrich her relationships and assume greater responsibilities.
Development of Self-esteem
Building a positive self-esteem goes hand in hand with the various developmental tasks that an individual must accomplish throughout his childhood, adolescence, and beyond. As in a gear process, various parts must fit and fit to form a harmonious whole. Such pieces are not only shaped by environmental influences, but also by the physical health and maturation of the organism. For each evolutionary phase, different types of demands arise in the child, they are needs related to his exploration instinct, the desire to belong to a reference group, have respect for others, control his immediate environment, be useful and transcend, among others. To the extent that these needs obtain their timely and corresponding satisfaction,They will stimulate in the child or adolescent the feeling of achievement and confidence in their own abilities.
Regarding the family environment, Clemes and Bean (1998) propose four conditioning factors for this process to proceed normally or in a balanced way.
Bonding
The child needs to feel a part of something, be it his family, his siblings, or a gang. For him it is necessary to know that there is someone who cares about him, that he is necessary and important to another. Bonding is also related to feeling that you have objects that are significant to you and that belong to you. You need to be listened to, taken into account, to be able to participate and give your opinions. The degree of bonding will be closely related to the warmth, the openness to accept him and provide him with security, understanding and even the sense of humor that the people around him express and that he considers important. The connection is necessary at the same time with places and circumstances that give the child satisfaction.
Singularity
It corresponds to the need to know someone particular and special, even if he has many things similar to his brothers or other friends. The notion of singularity also implies space for the child to express herself in her own way, but without surpassing others. The condition of uniqueness also implies the respect that others show him and that will be for him a parameter of the seriousness with which they consider him. Another characteristic, which promotes uniqueness, is related to the incentive to the imagination. Allowing him to create and invent helps him recognize how different his contribution can be, encourages his flexibility and appreciation of his own abilities.
Power
The feeling of power implies that the child believes that he can do what is planned and that in most cases he will succeed. In the exceptions, that is, when you do not achieve what you set out to do, it will be vitally important that you understand the true reason for the impediments and how they relate to your future purposes. He needs to have basic means, on which he is in charge. The child develops self-confidence when he is allowed to decide on things that are within his reach and that he considers important. Power is also related to knowing how to control oneself under certain circumstances, such as frustration or overwhelm. When you learn a new skill, you need to be given the opportunity to practice what you have learned. Allow you to solve problems for you.
Guidelines
The guidelines are related to the sense that the child gives to his existence and what he does. It requires positive models, that when you imitate them you obtain satisfactory and encouraging results, through which you learn to distinguish the good from the bad. Children are like sponges to whom he considers important. The way they - the models - act, what they say and how they say it, will leave an indelible stamp on their retina.
Ethical patterns, values, habits, and beliefs are transmitted through attachment figures. Knowing why changes occur, what meaning work has and what things are valued when deciding, will allow you to operate with confidence, predicting that if you act in a certain way, you will achieve what you set out to do. Order and rules - within reasonable limits - are especially important to create in the child the feeling of guidelines or guides, which will allow him to conduct himself, organize time, plan and solve problems.
Coorpersmith (1967) raises some different conditioning factors, with certain similar aspects, but which are complemented by those already stated.
- The child experiences an acceptance of his feelings, thoughts, and the value of his existence. The child moves within well-defined, but fair, reasonable, and negotiable limits. In this way you experience a sense of security. These limits imply possible standards of conduct to reach, so the child has the confidence that she will be able to act and evaluate her behavior according to that stick. She does not enjoy unlimited freedom; the child has respect for her dignity as a person. Parents take the child's opinions and demands seriously. They are willing to negotiate family rules, within certain limits. They exercise authority, but not authoritarianism. They are constantly interested in him and are willing to talk to him when he wants to. Parents themselves have positive self-esteem.
The absence or distortion of any of these conditioning factors will affect the way the adult sees himself and others. The lack of guidelines in the individual will lead to disinterest, maladjustment, acting irresponsibly and based on diffuse values. Lack of power will instigate dependency, a feeling of inferiority and insecurity. The relationships that the individual will seek to establish will have a connotation of submission and / or arbitrariness, since they will want to obtain the greatest control with the least effort. The adult who was limited in her demand for uniqueness, will present marked inhibitions in her social contact, will be inflexible and exacerbated in her desire for perfectionism. The little or no connection will manifest itself as an attitude of resentment, lack of generosity,narcissism and / or a marked distrust of others.
However, these conditions are far from becoming rules. In the phenomenon of resilience, Kotliarenco (1994) states that there are cases of children who, despite growing up surrounded by an environment with social risk factors and living permanently in stressful situations, manage not to adapt to the models of their environment. And, against all odds, they get to have a healthy life, achieve academic goals, personal fulfillment and economic achievements. Some authors have explained this process with the presence of a basic determining factor: affectivity. The fact that these children receive unconditional affection from at least one person can be a positive intervention factor that alters the course of development, protecting these minors from environmental aggression.
In the best case, the presence of the determining factors in the family bed will allow a vigorous development that will be completed successively - rather than simultaneously - thanks to the cooperation of other agents of vital importance, such as the group of friends or gang, the first affective relationships with the opposite sex, the school and other institutions or reference groups. Thus, at the end of the process we will find a full adult who meets a series of attributes that are not easily detected.
In the gestures, expressions and movements of this adult, harmony and happiness are observed. Achievements and failures are exposed in the same way, directly and frankly. They are open to criticism as they are flexible and interested in making the most of life's possibilities. The adult with positive self-esteem is able to work incessantly for the goals that have been set, is conscious, and at the same time responsible for her actions. Spontaneity is present in her, she is happy to receive expressions of affection, while nothing limits her to offering her own expressions of affection.
In terms of body and gestures, it is possible to identify certain indicators that reveal the presence of an adult with positive self-esteem. Some of them, adapted from Branden (1993) are listed below.
- Vivacious and bright eyes. Clear gaze The voice modulated with intensity appropriate to the situation. Clear pronunciation. The face exhibits a natural color and a smooth skin (except in cases of illness). The chin is naturally erect. The jaw, neck, shoulders and extremities are relaxed. The posture is erect, the walk is resolved.
Diagnostic Elements of Self-Esteem
There is some correspondence between the traits that identify the neurotic personality, described by Horney (1984) with respect to what has been described up to now as low self-esteem. In the first place, the urgent need or excessive dependence on the approval or affection on the part of others. That craving is particularly noticeable, even if it is shown under the cliché "and who cares." The neurotic adult wants to receive affection, but at the same time, he collides with his own inability to feel it or offer it. He may be excessively kind and eager to help everyone, but between the lines it can be distinguished that he acts under compulsion and not by spontaneous affective heat. On the other hand, there is insecurity, which leads him to feel less or act in an inappropriate way. They have feelings of inferiority,ideas of incompetence and ugliness that may not be really grounded or right.
These impressions and feelings can appear under the facade of worries and regrets or, as compensations of praise and boasts about themselves. Neurotic personalities also have inhibitions in their self-assertion. That is, difficulties in expressing with confidence what they feel or think, in expressing justified criticism, making decisions, explicitly opposing or giving instructions. They have to cover up all these needs with euphemisms or elaborate ways. However, the defect in self-assertion can occur in the opposite direction, presenting the individual in an overwhelming, intrusive and hostile way. They are easily deceived or offended, to which they respond with presumptuous and offensive demands.
The attitudes that describe the adult with deficiencies in his self-esteem would be present, in some way, in the neurotic personalities. In the latter, fear and anguish are key pieces that move the individual to develop defensive mechanisms against such fears and alternative solutions that entail enormous energy waste for them. In a subject with low self-esteem, fear is also present, but it is also a fear of both winning and losing, because what you get from your attempts will not have the "real quality", but rather a substitution, which dictates your own perception of himself.
Once this complexity is established, the individual with low self-esteem devises special modalities in order to achieve the affection that he longs for. It does this through bribery, the call to charity, invocation of justice or through threats. In each of them the hostility quota is growing. Without wanting to caricature his efforts, the way in which this individual raises his demand for affection can take the form of cliches or graffiti. The briber seems to say "I love you, therefore you must love me and leave everything for me"; the call to charity seems to express "you have to love me, because I suffer and am helpless"; in the invocation of justice the message is "I have done all this for you and what have you done for me?"; on the other hand, the one who threatens directly poses "if you do not love me, then you will see". Finally,When the previous resources are no longer working, the call can be "Anyway, nobody loves me anymore, so I better stay in this corner, so that nobody despises me."
It is highly feasible that the affection dedicated to such people arouses distrust and anxiety in them. They react as if yielding to that free and sincere expression captures them in a web of suffering, and may even panic at the suspicion that someone offers sincere affection.
In the adult with low self-esteem, it is possible to recognize some of the following indicators, proposed by García, D´Anna et al. (1999).
- Harsh and excessive self-criticism that keeps the individual in a state of hypervigilance and dissatisfaction with himself. Hypersensitivity to criticism, for which he feels exaggeratedly attacked, or injured. She tends to blame failures and frustrations on others (extra punitive) or the situation (impunitive). She cultivates stubborn resentments against her critics. Chronic indecision, not for lack of information, but for exaggerated fear of being wrong. Unnecessary desire to please, for which she does not dare to say a "resounding no." The fear of disliking and losing the good opinion of the petitioner is even greater. Perfectionism, as an enslaving self-demand to do "perfectly" everything he tries. This leads to an inner breakdown when things don't go as smoothly as required. Neurotic guilt,by which he is accused and condemned with respect to conducts that are not always objectively bad; He exaggerates the magnitude of his mistakes and faults and / or regrets them indefinitely, without ever fully forgiving himself. Floating hostility. That is, irritability on the surface, always on the verge of exploding even for minor things. Attitude of the hypercritical to whom everything feels bad, everything displeases him, everything disappoints him, nothing satisfies him Defensive tendency. It is a generalized negative (he sees everything as black: his life, his future and, above all, his self) and a general lack of appetite for the joy of living and of life itself.That is, irritability on the surface, always on the verge of exploding even for minor things. Attitude of the hypercritical to whom everything feels bad, everything displeases him, everything disappoints him, nothing satisfies him Defensive tendency. It is a generalized negative (she sees everything as black: her life, her future and, above all, her self) and a general lack of appetite for the joy of living and of life itself.That is, irritability on the surface, always on the verge of exploding even for minor things. Attitude of the hypercritical to whom everything feels bad, everything displeases him, everything disappoints him, nothing satisfies him Defensive tendency. It is a generalized negative (she sees everything as black: her life, her future and, above all, her self) and a general lack of appetite for the joy of living and of life itself.
Although low self-esteem does not mean or is synonymous with psychopathology, as a trait it is found in a series of disorders of a psychological nature, as a central symptom, complementary or in combination with others. The ICN-10, for example, distinguishes in the etiology of social phobias, which are often accompanied by low self-esteem and fear of criticism.
In the adult and the older adult, self-esteem continues to condition satisfaction, regardless of the central theme of each of these stages. As it is constituted by relatively permanent perceptions and affections about oneself, an important part of personal self-esteem moves without major alterations throughout life, while the same suffers slight modifications. The most significant decreases in self-worth are closely related to the intensity, duration, meaning, and amplitude of the triggering stimulus; just as stress takes different severity indices, depending on the spectacular nature of the trauma and its recurrence. The loss of a loved one, for example, can have a significant impact on the emotional life of their closest relatives.The feeling of guilt - present in the partner or the father - occurs after the loss, becoming an incessant source of mortification and helplessness, to the point that he develops an important resentment against himself. The chronic lack of work can gradually awaken a feeling of intolerable boredom, eating away at the certainty that the subject can have about his true abilities.
Whether consciously or not, judging and rejecting yourself causes tremendous pain. A normal adult, in such conditions, is inhibited from taking social, academic or professional risks. Along with his emotional life, sexuality suffers from major disorders. As noted above, the adult sets up defensive barriers. You can rage on yourself and the world or plunge into a perfectionist endeavor. Or turn to alcohol or drugs.
In the diagnosis of self-assessment it is possible to recognize two types of problems. For each of them, therapeutic intervention requires different modalities.
Low situational self-esteem
It manifests or covers only specific areas within the life of the subject. For example, a person may trust himself as a father, in the social circle, as a brother of a certain creed and as a sexual partner, but he may have serious apprehensions or zero expectations of achieving achievements within his profession.
Low Characterological Self-esteem
This decrease usually had its origin in early experiences of abandonment, disqualification, abuse or mistreatment. The feeling of "bad", "guilt", "undeserving" or "incompetence" is more global, tending to cover various aspects or areas of the person's life. In these cases, the person with low self-esteem appears permanently and generally inhibited. For example, a sullen subject, who verbally assaults those who work with him, imposes an excessive demand on himself, tries to influence public life, does not make a stable commitment to a sexual partner, etc.
Therapeutic Considerations
Can self-esteem be recovered? From Greek mythology, the history of the artist who sculpted the statue of a beautiful woman came to our times. He worked so hard at his creation that when he finished it, he could not fall in love with such a deity. The Goddess Venus took pity on her supplications and in reward for her virtuosity gave life to the statue. From the myth, Bernard Shaw wrote the play Pygmaleon. In it, a teacher decides to transform a rustic woman into a distinguished lady, thanks to the obstinate teaching that she provides in her use of language. My Fair Lady is the name of the musical comedy that later became famous. If one person's expectations can influence the behavior of another, that influence is also possible when such hopes come from the same person.Own destiny can be created if there is a firm determination in people to realize it. Perhaps it is necessary to start by understanding how the ideas and feelings that each one had about himself in the past came to be transformed into reality today. But what happened to us on the way?
From psychology itself we receive messages about how desirable it is to train a child with a "strong ego", who "has personality" or "character". However, having such an idea about yourself is only an abstraction or idea. To the extent that the budding young person or the adult himself is concerned and pending this fixed idea about himself, he loses contact with his real experience as it flows. While this idea takes away the sleep of a good part of the population, there are those who already believe that they are dressed in "character", they seem automatons, useful to society, rigid and predictable.
Our adults begin to identify with an idea of themselves rather than with the reality of their current feelings and experiences. His life is divided between image and reality, between what he thinks he is and what he really is. A kind of fragmentation of consciousness occurs in the adult, because when she tries to achieve her purpose - work, financial, professional, etc. - she becomes prey to fear of failure. Then the need arises to impress favorably, because he does not want to spoil his image in who cares. Expectations and fears are perpetuated consecutively, in a kind of spiral. The adult wants to reach the criterion of estimation or acceptance against his own fears, although that criterion bears no relation to his true essence.
In Gestalt therapy, the aim is precisely to unite these fragments of man into a coherent and harmonious whole. For this therapeutic aspect, it is possible to recompose the communication between ideas about oneself with real experiences. The ability to insight allows us to re-know the sensations and experiences, giving the individual a new opportunity, that of accepting that experience as it is.
There are exercises to expand your own state of consciousness…
Bibliography consulted
- Clemes, Harris & Bean, Reynold; "How to develop self-esteem in children". Editorial Debate, 1998. Davis, Flora; "The language of gestures". Editorial Paidós, 1987. Mckay, Matthew & Fanning, Patrick; "Self-esteem: Evaluation and Improvement". Editorial Martínez Roca, 1991. Cooperpers, S; "The antecedents of Self-Esteem". WH Freeman and Co., 1967. García O. Verónica, D´Anna Guillermina, Pedreza Laura & Scutti, Pamela; »Self-esteem». www.monographies.com., 1999.Stevens O. John O; "The Realization". Editorial Cuatro Vientos, 1988. Pauchard Hafemann, Héctor & Pauchard Cortés, Paulina; «Rules to maintain and improve Mental Health».Kotliarenco, M; Cáceres, I & Alvarez, C; "Resilience: Building on Adversity". CEANIM, 1999. Dyer, Wayne W.; "The sky is the limit". Editorial Grijalbo, 1998. Sources, María Eugenia & Lobos, Lucía;"Pregnant Teenager, Emotional Support Program". University Publishing House (1995).Horney, Karen; "The neurotic personality of our times". Editorial Paidós, 1984. Ribeiro, Lair; "Increase your self-esteem." Editorial Urano, 1997.Branden, Nataniel; Honoring The Self. The Psychology of Confidence and Respect. Bantam Books, 1993.
