Good afternoon and welcome to the 21st annual April Fool’s observance! This is silly, right? Like, what even is this? You came to a holiday for fools? Well, at least I know what you think of yourselves. So like… in those situations when you feel like a fool, do you find it humiliating or just humbling? Can you laugh to yourself “Oh, what a fool I’ve been!” or do you self-condemn, as in “I’m an idiot!” How do you keep your self-respect when faced with your own foolishness?
Well, no matter what you think of you, I think you’re great, because you came and are here to celebrate with me!
This year’s topic is: The Folly of Self-Esteem.
Now then. For anyone new, here’s what I’m about to do-- I’m going to attack self-esteem problems as nonsense, but then I’m going to try to solve them through more nonsense. I hope that makes sense.
Since it’s polite to give folks a sense of how long I’ll be talking, I expect this will take about 14 minutes.
Here’s why I’m focusing on this topic: Clients come to me and complain about having low self-esteem. More accurately, they complain about themselves and the way they complain tells me about their self-esteem. They insult themselves, shaming themselves under the weight of unrealistic standards, and ultimately reject themselves.
Actually that’s not the main issue-- that’s their issue. My issue is… I find myself coming up short when I try to help people with their self-esteem! Something is wrong with me. I’m so bad at lifting someone from absolute self-loathing to utter self-pride. I should probably quit.
This brings me to my first paradox on the matter, and honestly it’s pretty embarrassing-- I struggle to help people with self-esteem because… I don’t personally struggle with self-esteem! And when I can’t relate to a topic, my interventions are more likely to fall flat with clients.
My failure here may also have something to do with my natural inclination towards cognitive therapy, in which every intervention has the same goal: to call out unhelpful thought patterns and to guide clients towards more adaptive ways of thinking. When I make these points, the client gets it, but it doesn’t move them towards change. My points make sense… but they don’t make a difference. I can think of two reasons why this is happening: (1) Because self-esteem as a feeling runs so much deeper than just ‘thought patterns’; (2) Because, for some reason, telling people that they are “doing self-esteem wrong” doesn’t seem to raise their self-esteem!
Honestly, I’d rather side-step the issue of self-esteem altogether. As far as I’m concerned, self-compassion is a much more important trait than self-esteem, so I wish clients would focus on that instead. But they don’t, which means I’m stuck with this dumb topic. So, at the risk of insulting my clients, let’s get into the errors of self-esteem. Overall there are two kinds of errors: ones that involve overgeneralization and ones that involve evaluating and valuation.
First let’s talk about overgeneralizing. My god, everyone overgeneralizes, like, all the time. There are so many errors involved here. I’ll use myself as the example-- while my self-esteem is usually buoyant, it sinks when I face my inadequacy in certain aspects of adult life. Car ownership, for example. Now, you may know that I am very smart, but did you know that there are many kinds of intelligence? I know! When it comes to things like spatial reasoning and technical reasoning, I fall short. I’d like to share a recent experience that was a real roller-coaster ride of self-esteem, and point out the many overgeneralization errors I made along the way.
Earlier this year, my key wouldn’t come out of the ignition, even though the car was in park. I found a workaround involving the fuse box, but the whole thing was pretty demoralizing. So I went to the mechanic and he took a look, and then came out to talk to me. I understood maybe half of what he said, and felt bad about myself for not understanding the rest. Then, and this was the greatest ego boost of my life, he praised me for the workaround I was using! I felt fantastic. We agreed that I’d come back soon to get it fixed, and before I left, he repeated his praise. Despite years of embarrassing interactions with mechanics, I drove away feeling great about myself.
I made three different errors in this episode, all of which involve overgeneralizing evidence when making a conclusion about myself. I had negativity bias, when
I concluded that I was pitiful based only on the part where I felt inadequate. I had positivity bias, when I concluded that I was great based only on the part of the story where I was complimented. I had recency bias, when I concluded that I was indeed a fine human being, because praise was the last thing I’d heard. These are the errors of overgeneralizing evidence.
There are also errors of overgeneralizing identity, which I’ve also made throughout my years as a car owner. I once failed to realize I was driving on a semi-flat tire, and from this concluded that “I’m a clueless and careless person.” This is an attribution error, in that I took a situational flaw and interpreted it as a character flaw. Here’s another one: A mechanic once critiqued me because I’d been driving around for weeks without engine oil, and from this I concluded “I’m just not worth that much as an adult in the world.” This is an error of composition, in that I took a part of myself and then made a conclusion about the whole. By the way, there’s also a positive version of the error, which is similarly problematic. Driving away after that other mechanic praised me, I was euphoric, and literally said to myself “I can do anything!” Because I finally felt capable once as a car owner, I now felt capable of everything.
So those are the follies of overgeneralization. If you’ve ever made a conclusion about yourself based on incomplete evidence, or judged yourself in all situations based on one situation, or all of yourself based on a part of yourself, then you can relate to what I’m saying here.
Let’s move on then to the errors of evaluating and valuation, which is where we really get into the “esteem” part of self-esteem. “Esteem” has the same roots as the word “estimate,” as in, “I need to get an estimate on these car repairs.” An estimate is an assessment of value and worth, and that’s what self-esteem is ultimately about-- assessing ones worth as a person.
There’s something very wrong with this language. These terms-- assess, value, worth-- they’re all economic terms. It seems wrong to think of ourselves economically. It’s very objectifying, as if I could be reduced down to my exchange-rate. And yet… that’s a lot of what self-esteem is based on, isn’t it? How I feel about myself is, for good or for bad, largely composed of things like whether I’m attractive, interesting, employable, moral, useful in some fashion. Am I good to look at, to listen to, to hire, to trust? What am I good for?
And this issue here is how this “good for” question places my self-estimation, my value as a person, in the hands of the social market. I wish I could one-sidedly declare myself attractive or employable, but those declarations are worthless if I can’t find at least one other person to agree with them. (So, thank goodness for Naomi and Zoe!) How others feel about me, how society feels about me, invariably plays a role in how I feel about myself.
In my life so far I’ve had the privileges that make this social influence work in my favor. Not to brag-- because I didn’t earn it-- but I live in a society that makes it easy for me to feel good about myself. Even in some areas where my value is iffy, there’s often a socio-historical quirk that saves me. In regards to my body shape, the general culture of American masculinity would dictate that my shortness makes me less attractive and less charismatic… but thankfully I’m Jewish so it’s been fine! In terms of social belonging, my obsession with philosophy made me a rather uninteresting (and thus less acceptable) person at frat parties at the beginning of college-- but it did make me very interesting in other, let’s say “chiller,” spaces in college. As for being employable, I think my self-esteem would be very poor if “therapist” didn’t exist as a career. What would I have done with myself 200 years ago? What value would my intellectual interests and abilities have if I didn’t live in this particular space and time?
“But Matt!” you’re saying, “You shouldn’t care what other people think about you! Be your own authority about yourself.” And, you know what, there is something to this. If I can't be interesting to other people, but I can interest myself, well, at least I’ll enjoy my own company, and that’s something to feel good about. Similarly, when I work, I should set my own standard for quality and accomplishment, rather than unfairly comparing myself against standards that are beyond me.
On the other hand, there are some major risks in reliance on self-validation. The delusionally high self-esteem of the Dunnings and Krugers of the world are ruining it for the rest of us. We should also take into account Aaron James’ “asshole theory” (yes that’s a real thing) which characterizes assholes partly by their imperviousness to criticism-- they, too, don’t care what others think. So… “I think I’m great” is perhaps not the best attitude to take.
But you’re not done challenging me. “Matt!” you say again, “Stop making your worth dependent on your usefulness! Why not just say you have inherent worth? Let’s say you deserve to feel good about yourself, just because you are a human.” Again, this sounds great-- because instead of an argument about worth, it’s an unconditional declaration. But the economic language still bothers me, and I think I figured out why: It reflects a problematic obsession with earning the right to treat ourselves with kindness and respect.
Yes, that’s the damn problem. There’s a confusion at the heart of this topic, because what we've been calling “self-esteem” is actually two different behaviors: (1) How you assess yourself, and (2) How you treat yourself based on that assessment. It does make sense to combine these two things: If I think I’m doing well, then my self-talk is positive, and if I’m doing poorly then my self-talk is negative. It makes sense but it’s also dangerous-- if I’m doing poorly and then speak to myself harshly about it, that’s not really the healthiest way to get myself to do better. If I do better but still feel like crap, what have I achieved?
Here then is the nonsensical solution: Let’s make self-treatment independent of self-assessment. This doesn’t mean I have to lie to myself, and tell myself I’m great. No, I can say “When it comes to this (whatever the activity is), I’m just not that great-- but I’m still gonna be nice to myself about it!” Let’s do the ridiculous thing, and let ourselves have low self-esteem but without shame. Low self-esteem, but high self-love. Assess yourself well or poorly… but don’t be a jerk about it.
But, again, why should you be allowed to love yourself if you haven’t earned it? Are you ready for the mind-blowing answer? It’s because… it’s good for you! Yup. That’s the secret we therapists have, with our mystical “unconditional positive regard.” We don’t have to believe you are great, that you are worthy, that you have inherent value. Instead, we work by the belief that people do better when they are treated well.
Duh! Screw deserving. Consider the lilies-- does a flower “deserve” to be watered? No! Lazy flowers, what have they ever done? A flower simply should be watered, because that’s how it grows.
This is also the secret that all good parents know-- and can you believe I got this far into the topic of self-esteem without mentioning parents? Because let’s be real, it’s where my own self-esteem originally comes from. If my parents hadn’t accepted me while raising me, it would be so much harder to accept myself. Huh… but if I had a harder time accepting myself… then I would probably have struggled more with self-esteem… which probably would’ve made me better at helping my clients with their self-esteem! Ha! So it’s their fault I’m so bad at this. Thanks a lot, mom and dad!
Upbringing is the major factor in what makes poor self-esteem so sticky. I said this right at the start, didn’t I? That self-esteem runs so much deeper than simple ‘thought patterns’. As children, our self-awareness is born out of seeing ourselves through others’ eyes, which gives those other eyes-- parents, teachers, doctors, peers-- a ton of power. Low self-esteem becomes a survival strategy in these circumstances, a way of protecting yourself from outside attack. Survival strategies become personality traits; so, though the client may want to break these patterns of negative self-talk, they also have a personal and emotional commitment to them. That’s why cognitive therapy isn’t strong enough, because these thinking habits stem from lived social-emotional experiences. As Yujia has told me: If someone arrives at a conclusion without reasoning their way there, then they probably can’t simply reason their way out of it either.
To which I say… dammit. But! At the very least, perhaps, just perhaps, if I can treat my clients with unconditional positive regard, they might acquire a taste for the unconditional love that otherwise feels so foreign and undeserved.
Let’s wrap this up. What can I do for my clients and their self-esteem? Here are the interventions I’m recommending, while wearing my different “therapist hats.”
The stubborn cognitive therapist in me says-- develop the skills to support yourself emotionally, even when assessing yourself poorly. This is not about stupid positive affirmations. The key skill here is holding the tension between self-critical thinking with self-supportive thinking.
The behavioral therapist in me says-- behavioral activation! Which is fancy language for “act as if you love yourself.” It’s the reverse golden rule: Treat yourself as you would someone you love. If you treat yourself lovingly, you may start to feel lovable.
The interpersonal therapist in me says-- identify and stay close to the people who both support and challenge you. People who only flatter or only criticize should not be trusted. Take some power over who counts as the authority about you. There’s a beautiful tension here as well, to develop both yourself and others as trustworthy authorities, to weigh judgment from yourself and others to the right amount and for the right reasons.
I should also mention-- thanks to Tasha for this point-- that if your negative self-talk was learned from mistreatment at the hands of parents, peers, and other parts of your environment, then grief and trauma work can also help a lot, in ways that my own talk-relational approach won’t quite touch.
But that’s outside my expertise. I’m a good therapist in a few ways, sorely lacking in others. I’ve failed clients, and I will fail clients. I can esteem myself highly in some ways, poorly in others, as well as neutrally sometimes. I think I’ll have to love myself anyhow.
Thanks for listening!
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