1.

0 Introduction

1.1 Define the title

Self-esteem is the confidence and belief on ones own abilities, qualities and

judgements.

For example, when comes to make my career choice, I have to know my standards

and abilities to cope with the course. When I know my abilities and my standards, I

am able to do well course.

According to Nathaniel Branden (1994), self- esteem is the disposition to experience

oneself as competent to cope with life's challenges and being worthy of happiness.

For example, I have the confidence and idea of being psychologist. However, I need

to have the knowledge about psychology and have skills and experience by applying

a degree in Psychology and experiences in the working field to be a qualified

psychologist.

According to Blascovich and Tomaka (1991), self-esteem is refers to individuals

sense of his or her value or worth, or the extent to which a person values, approves

of, appreciates, prizes, or likes him or himself.

1
For example, Even though Yuna, a Malaysian singer was first not known for her

talents in Malaysia, she still has the confidence and self esteem to be a international

singer. She went to US and begin her career there. Today, she had collaborated

many famous artists like usher and owl city and was known internationally especially

in the US.

In general of all these definition, self-esteem is an experience. It allows one to have

self-worth and to adapt to lifes difficulties and deserving of joy.

Self-esteem is important because it affects nearly every part of ones live. Without

self-esteem, one is not able to trust others, family and work which gives a great

impact to ones successes and happiness in life. The only way for one to have

strength and flexibility to take charge of ones live and grow from mistakes without

the fear of rejection is by having positive self-esteem.

One of the elements of self-esteem is believing in yourself. Believe in yourself is

having trust in your own abilities and the belief that one can make their goals into

reality. Believing in yourself is difficult at times especially when you are facing failure.

However, it only will give you benefits. Successful person like Thomas Edison, Steve

Jobs, Martin Luther King Jr, Walt Disney have that confidence in themselves that

allow them to get up again and again through their failing experiences while in the

process of creating or making their vision come true.

1
Here are 2 habits that increase ones belief in oneself.

Firstly, count your successes. It is natural for us to counts our losses more than our

wins. To build your own belief in yourself, you have to change that. The wins counted

can be small or big, past or present. By doing this, you can fill yourself up with joy

and satisfaction in your work. This also can build up the motivation to take risks in

your life to achieve your goals.

Next, speak positivity into your life. By speaking positivity into life, you are actually

reconditioning your mind to not have negative and discouraging thoughts. A simple

I can do this can build up strength to get up whenever you are discourage or facing

a failure.

A few issues can be found in believing in yourself. The issues are listing your lost

instead of your accomplishments, never done something nice for somebody, break

the esteem of others, being in the bubble, think negativity, made no progress toward

your goals and look your worst.

2.0 Content

2.1 Issue

The issue that occurs most when comes to believing yourself the most is making no

progress to ones goals. Making no progress towards your goals defines as

stagnation of working towards a desired result you have.

For example, my goal is to finish all my work on Monday. Instead working on my

work right away, I watched TV. Thus, this shows that Im not making progress in

achieving that goal.

Making no progress towards your goal shows that there is no purpose in your life.

Setting a goal is easy but to work on it is everything. It takes time, energy, and effort.

That is where excuses come. Excuses are usually made to defend or justify oneself

when there is no progress made in reaching your goals. Thus, this is a very bad

habit.

In reality, excuses can simply sabotage your success. In a way, you are showing

others that you are not willing to take responsibilities. Hence, others will lose their

trust and have a bad impression of you. At the same time, you will lose the respect

you have for yourself.

The other reason why progress in achieving your goal is not made is by simply

having too many goals. Sometimes having too many goals can be too overwhelming.

In recent study from the University of Toronto, when having too many goals, you

have more tendency to spend time in prioritizing your goals instead of working and

achieving them. Due to having too many plates on your table, you eventually not

only ending up not achieving anything but also give up. Giving up in this case will

only bring down your self-esteem and increase unhealthy self-criticism.

According to Wikipedia, self-criticism involves how an individual evaluates his or her

self. In other words, an unhealthy self-criticism involves one person to criticise

oneself, usually involves negative personality trait of that person. Constant unhealthy

self-criticism will only keep you locked in negativity and increases your unhappiness

and dissatisfaction in your life, which is dangerous. This is because constant self-

criticism will eventually lead one to have depression.

Besides that, having too many goals can lead one person keep changing goals.

Again, changing your goals will not make them easier; instead it will only waste your

time.

In order to effectively achieve your goals, it is recommend to limit your goals. This

way, you can focus on the quality of the goals instead of the quantities of it in

building your self-esteem. It is also recommended to stick to your goals and most

importantly, keep the number of goals you can manage only.

Furthermore, setting the wrong goals also delays your progress in achieving your

goals. In most occasions, a person usually set his/her goals based on the opinions or

influences of others more than themselves. This is because the goals that are set

does not bring interest and motivation to them. To set your goals, you must first know
yourself and understand what youre abilities and capabilities. This way, the goals

that were set are not difficult for you to achieve.

To overcome this issue, one should have a clear picture of what one wants to

achieve. In other words, have a specific idea of what you want to achieve. This way,

you can give focus on that goal and start working towards it.

Besides, one also can spend time visualizing their success. It is healthy to visualize

yourself achieving your goal as a part of gaining a clear picture about your goal. It is

best to visualise as detail as possible and take time to write it down in significant

detail. This helps whenever you feel discourage in process of achieving your goal.

Moreover, associate immense pleasure with achieving your goals is natural when

you visualize your success. Consider the feelings you have when you succeed and

how would you celebrate your success. It is best to make the satisfaction of your

success as deep as possible. This way, it is easy for you to take risks and take

necessary steps in achieving your goals.

2.2 Examples

Base on the points stated in the issue about excuses, there is an example can be

given. Based on my real life experiences, I used to give excuses like I lost my book

whenever I didnt finish my homework during early high school. This gives a very bad

impression of me and the teacher would not bother me in class and prefer paying
attention to responsible students, who would finish her work and hand her work on

time. As time goes by, I got used to giving excuses and procrastinate. At the end of

the day, I didnt do well in that subject for my exam. This proved that giving excuses

for your inaction are a bad habit.

Next, I would like to give an example on the point given about having too many

goals. Based on my experience, having too many goals is very stressful. There is a

time in my life that I want to do well in my studies, to be good in drawings, good at

swimming and plays the violin. Every week my schedule will be packed as I took

lessons and classes for each of these desired goals. I also wouldnt have time to

finish my school homework because of the busy schedule. Due to stress, I decided

to quit the lessons and classes one at a time, changing my goals. But in the end, I

quit all of the lessons and did not achieve my goals. Hence, this shows that it is not

recommended to have too many goals.

Moreover, there is a example can be given based on the point stated in the issues

about setting the wrong goals and knowing your abilities. It was few years ago, I

decided to join science stream and wanted to work in a science related field because

of the high recommendations from teachers, family and friends without knowing my

capabilities in coping the subjects. During those years, I struggled and fill with

regrets. This is why it is important to know yourself first before choosing a goal.

Also, an example can be given for the point stated about having a clear picture of

what one wants to achieve and visualize one own success. The example of having a

clear picture of what you want can be seen through the career of Dato Lee Chong

Wei. When entering the Olympics, he have a clear idea of what he wants which is
giving Malaysia her first goal. He was determined and participated in the Olympics 3

times. Today, Dato Lee Chong Wei is the world number 1 badminton player.

In visualizing one own success, we can set Thomas Edison as an example. Even

though he failed multiple times in his experiment, he was able to visualize his
success in inventing incandescent light bulb and finally, have a breakthrough and

was known for that invention.

Lastly, when comes to associate immense pleasure with achieving your goal, we can

set Walt Disney as an example. He have visualise his success when he first created

mickey mouse. Even when things does not turn up well, Disney still continue on with

his dreams and today he has an empire and was known for many animation series

and movies.

2.3 Literature Review

Self-Esteem Development From Age 14 to 30 Years: A Longitudinal Study

Ruth Yasemin Erol and Ulrich Orth

University of Basel

We examined the development of self-esteem in adolescence and young adulthood.

Data came from the Young Adults section of the National Longitudinal Survey of

Youth, which includes 8 assessments across a 14-year period of a national

probability sample of 7,100 individuals age 14 to 30 years. Latent growth curve

analyses indicated that self-esteem increases during adolescence and continues to

increase more slowly in young adulthood. Women and men did not differ in their self-

esteem trajectories. In adolescence, Hispanics had lower self-esteem than Blacks

and Whites, but the self-esteem of Hispanics subsequently increased more strongly,
so that at age 30 Blacks and Hispanics had higher self-esteem than Whites. At each

age, emotionally stable, extraverted, and conscientious individuals experienced

higher self-esteem than emotionally unstable, introverted, and less conscientious

individuals. Moreover, at each age, high sense of mastery, low risk taking, and better

health predicted higher self-esteem. Finally, the results suggest that normative

increase in sense of mastery accounts for a large proportion of the normative

increase in self-esteem.

Keywords: self-esteem, adolescence, young adulthood, development, Big Five

personality traits

Low self-esteem in adolescence and young adulthood is a risk factor for negative

outcomes in important life domains. For example, Trzesniewski et al. (2006) found

that low self-esteem during adolescence predicts poorer mental and physical health,

worse economic well-being, and higher levels of criminal activity in young adulthood.

Similarly, other studies found that low self-esteem prospectively predicts antisocial

behavior, eating disturbances, depression, and suicidal ideation (Donnellan,

Trzesniewski, Robins, Moffitt, & Caspi, 2005; McGee & Williams, 2000; Orth, Robins,

& Roberts, 2008). Research findings thus suggest that the development of self-

esteemwhich is defined as a persons appraisal of his or her value (Leary &

Baumeister, 2000, p. 2)may have significant consequences for life outcomes.

However, the normative pattern of self-esteem development and the factors that

affect it are still unclear. In the present study, we therefore aimed to clarify the

trajectory of self-esteem during adolescence and young adulthood and to identify

moderating factors of the level and shape of the trajectory.

Self-Esteem Development in Adolescence and Young Adulthood

With regard to adolescence, previous research on self-esteem development has

yielded inconsistent results. Several studies reported an increase in self-esteem

(Cairns, McWhirter, Duffy, & Barry, 1990; Huang, 2010; Labouvie, Pandina, White, &

Johnson, 1990; McMullin & Cairney, 2004; Moksnes, Moljord, Espnes, & Byrne,

2010; Robins et al., 2002; Roeser & Eccles, 1998; Twenge & Campbell, 2001; Young

& Mroczek, 2003); however, in some studies the gender difference was small (Kling,

Hyde, Showers, & Buswell, 1999; Quatman, Sampson, Robinson, & Watson, 2001)

or nonsignificant (Keltikangas-Jarvinen, 1990). Likewise, several

studies reported higher self-esteem for men in young adulthood (McMullin & Cairney,

2004; Robins et al., 2002; Twenge & Campbell, 2001), although in some studies the

gender difference was small (Orth et al., 2010; Robins, Hendin, & Trzesniewski,

2001) or nonsignificant (Donnellan et al., 2007; Galambos et al.,

2006).

Ethnicity

With regard to ethnicity, the available evidence suggests that Blacks have higher

self-esteem than Whites do during adolescence and young adulthood (Bachman,

OMalley, Freedman-Doan, Trzesniewski, & Donnellan, 2010; Gray-Little & Hafdahl,

2000; Robins et al., 2002; Twenge & Crocker, 2002). However, there are

conflicting findings regarding the self-esteem of Hispanics. Some studies reported

that Whites have higher self-esteem than Hispanics do in adolescence and young

adulthood (Bachman et al., 2010; Carlson, Uppal, & Prosser, 2000; Twenge &

Crocker, 2002), whereas Birndorf, Ryan, Auinger, and Aten (2005) found that,

among female adolescents, Hispanics reported higher self-esteem

than Whites did (for male adolescents, the difference was nonsignificant).
Big Five Personality Traits

Although prior research examined correlations between selfesteem and the Big Five

personality traits, no previous study tested for the effects of the Big Five on self-

esteem development. Crosssectional research suggests that self-esteem is

correlated with each of the Big Five personality traits: Individuals with high self-

esteem tend to be emotionally stable, extraverted, conscientious, agreeable,

and open to experience (Robins, Hendin, & Trzesniewski, 2001; Robins, Tracy,

Trzesniewski, Potter, & Gosling, 2001; Watson, Suls, & Haig, 2002). Therefore, it is

possible that the Big Five factors also explain individual differences in the

development of self-esteem.

Sense of Mastery

Sense of mastery is defined as the extent to which people see themselves as having

control over the forces that affect their lives (Pearlin, Menaghan, Lieberman, &

Mullan, 1981) and is related to the construct of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977; Gecas,

1989). There has been a long debate on the relation between self-esteem and self-

efficacy (e.g., Chen, Gully, & Eden, 2004; Judge, Erez, Bono, & Thoresen, 2002).

Lightsey, Burke, Ervin, Henderson, and Yee (2006) found support for the hypothesis

that self-efficacy prospectively predicts self-esteem but not, vice versa, that self-

esteem prospectively predicts self-efficacy. Given the conceptual overlap between

self-efficacy and sense of mastery, we expected that sense of mastery would predict

self-esteem development.

Risk Taking
Another possible moderator of self-esteem development is risk taking. The available

evidence suggests that risk taking increases during adolescence and then decreases

during young adulthood (Boyer, 2006; Leather, 2009; Michael & Ben-Zur, 2007).

Wild, Flisher, Bhana, and Lombard (2004) examined the relation between self-

esteem and risk behaviors related to substance use, bullying, suicidality, and

sexuality and found a complex pattern of results. Self-esteem in the family and

school domain was negatively linked to risk behaviors, whereas self-esteem in the

peer domain was positively linked to risk behaviors in both male and female

adolescents. Moreover, low body image was associated with risk behaviors in female

but not male adolescents

Income

Income might influence self-esteem development because it may shape the

individuals perception of his or her relational value and thereby influence self-

esteem (Leary & Baumeister, 2000). At present, few studies have systematically

examined relations between income and self-esteem. Using cross-sectional data

from a large sample, McMullin and Cairney (2004) found that income had

significant effects in midlife and old age but not in adolescence and young adulthood.

Additional evidence accrues from studies on the relation between self-esteem and

socioeconomic status (SES), for which income is one of the key indicators. A meta-

analysis found that SES accounts for small but significant differences in

self-esteem in young adulthood (Twenge & Campbell, 2002). A

similar pattern emerged in the study by Robins et al. (2002), who

found a small SES effect on self-esteem.

3.0 Conclusion

Believe in yourself is important in building our self-esteem. Building self-esteem

requires time because it is an experience. It requires great confidence and skills to

overcome the challenges in life. It is also important when it comes to reaching your

goal and ambitions. It is revealed that having no progress in achieving ones goal

affects the element, believing in yourself.

Throughout this assignment and the support example given, I come to know that bad

habits sometimes blocked us from achieving our goal without us realising it. Also, I

learn that it is important to know myself. Knowing myself allow me to discover the

nature of myself, what Im naturally good at and not good at ; and use it as a

advantage for me to become the best version of myself. I learn that quality is

important than quantities when setting my own goals. It helps me to actually start
working towards my goal. Besides, I learn to have a specific goal and to visualise my

success to build up my confidence and able to come out from my bubble.

In short, the element: believing in yourself gives great focus in building self-esteem

and not making any progress in achieving your goals is the most relatable issue in

believing in yourself as it shows mistakes that had commonly committed without

noticing.

(2008 words exclude Literature Review)

4.0 References

4 Warning Signs Youre Setting Too Many Goals. (2012, July 10). Retrieved from

Beat the 9 to 5: http://beatthe9to5.com/4-warning-signs-setting-goals/

Author, G. (n.d.). 6 Simple Steps to Make Progress Towards Achieving A Goal.

Retrieved from lifehack: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/6-simple-

steps-to-make-progress-towards-achieving-a-goal.html

Babauta, L. (n.d.). How to Believe in Yourself. Retrieved from Zen Habits:

http://zenhabits.net/believe/
 Cathcart, J. (Performer). (2013, October 17). How to believe in Yourself. TEDx

Talk, United States of America.

Clear, J. (n.d.). Believe in Yourself (And Why Nothing Will Work If You Dont).

Retrieved from James Clear: http://jamesclear.com/nothing-will-work-if-you-dont-

believe-in-it

Fisher-Sykes, J. (n.d.). Explain Yourself! The Reason Why Excuses Sabotage

Your Success. Retrieved from The Sykes Group:

http://www.thesykesgrp.com/CommunicateExcuseReason01.htm

Gehrke, S. (n.d.). 10 (Plus) Reasons Why People Never Reach Their Goals and

Tips for Attaining Them. Retrieved from Examined Existence:

http://examinedexistence.com/10-reasons-why-people-never-reach-their-goals-

and-tips-for-attaining-them/

Henry, A. (2012, March 14). How to Work Towards and Achieve Your Goals... In

Public. Retrieved from Lifehacker: http://lifehacker.com/5893162/how-to-work-

towards-and-achieve-your-goals-in-public

Mayberry, M. (n.d.). The Incredible Power of Believing in Yourself. Retrieved from

Entrepreneur: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246720

self criticism. (n.d.). Retrieved from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-

criticism

Self esteem. (n.d.). Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-

esteem
 Wehrenberg, D. (n.d.). Depression Dis-Courages: The Inner Voice of Self-

Criticism Keeps You Locked in Negativity. Retrieved from Dr.Margaret

Wehrenberg: ww.margaretwehrenberg.com/2011/depression-dis-courages-the-

inner-voice-of-self-criticism-keeps-you-locked-in-negativity/

What is Sel-Esteem. (n.d.). Retrieved from La Belle Foundation:

http://selfesteem.org/what_is_selfesteem.htm

Melorose, J., Perroy, R., & Careas, S. (2015). Self esteem. Statewide Agricultural

Land Use Baseline 2015, 1. http://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004

Erol, R. Y., & Orth, U. (2011). Self-esteem development from age 14 to 30 years:

A longitudinal study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(3), 607

619. http://doi.org/10.1037/a0024299
4.0 Appendix

Photo of class representatives

Newspaper article on self esteem

Comics on Self Esteem

Comics on Beliving in yourself
Other Sources
 Magazine
The Trouble With Self-Esteem
By Lauren Slater
Published: February 3, 2002

Take this test:

1. On the whole I am satisfied with myself.
2. At times I think that I am no good at all.
3. I feel that I have a number of good qualities.
4. I am able to do things as well as most other people.
5. I feel I do not have much to be proud of.
6. I certainly feel useless at times.
7. I feel that I am a person of worth, at least the equal of
others.
8. I wish I could have more respect for myself.
9. All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure.
10. I take a positive attitude toward myself.
Devised by the sociologist Morris Rosenberg, this
questionnaire is one of the most widely used self-esteem
assessment scales in the United States. If your answers
demonstrate solid self-regard, the wisdom of the social
sciences predicts that you are well adjusted, clean and
sober, basically lucid, without criminal record and with
some kind of college cum laude under your high-end
belt. If your answers, on the other hand, reveal some
inner shame, then it is obvious: you were, or are, a
teenage mother; you are prone to social deviance; and if
you don't drink, it is because the illicit drugs are
bountiful and robust.
It has not been much disputed, until recently, that high
self-esteem -- defined quite simply as liking yourself a
lot, holding a positive opinion of your actions and
capacities -- is essential to well-being and that its
opposite is responsible for crime and substance abuse
and prostitution and murder and rape and even
terrorism. Thousands of papers in psychiatric and
social-science literature suggest this, papers with names
like ''Characteristics of Abusive Parents: A Look At Self-
Esteem'' and ''Low Adolescent Self-Esteem Leads to
Multiple Interpersonal Problems.'' In 1990, David Long
published ''The Anatomy of Terrorism,'' in which he
found that hijackers and suicide bombers suffer from
feelings of worthlessness and that their violent,
fluorescent acts are desperate attempts to bring some
inner flair to a flat mindscape.
This all makes so much sense that we have not thought
to question it. The less confidence you have, the worse
you do; the more confidence you have, the better you do;
and so the luminous loop goes round. Based on our
beliefs, we have created self-esteem programs in schools
in which the main objective is, as Jennifer Coon-
Wallman, a psychotherapist based in Boston, says, ''to
dole out huge heapings of praise, regardless of actual
accomplishment.'' We have a National Association for
Self-Esteem with about a thousand members, and in
1986, the State Legislature of California founded the
''California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and
Personal and Social Responsibility.'' It was galvanized by
Assemblyman John Vasconcellos, who fervently believed
that by raising his citizens' self-concepts, he could divert
drug abuse and all sorts of other social ills.

In fact, crime rates and substance abuse rates are

formidable, right along with our self-assessment scores
on paper-and-pencil tests. (Whether these tests are valid
and reliable indicators of self-esteem is a subject worthy
of inquiry itself, but in the parlance of social-science
writing, it goes ''beyond the scope of this paper.'') In
part, the discrepancy between high self-esteem scores
and poor social skills and academic acumen led
researchers like Nicholas Emler of the London School of
Economics and Roy Baumeister of Case Western
Reserve University to consider the unexpected notion
that self-esteem is overrated and to suggest that it may
even be a culprit, not a cure.

''There is absolutely no evidence that low self-esteem is

particularly harmful,'' Emler says. ''It's not at all a cause
of poor academic performance; people with low self-
esteem seem to do just as well in life as people with high
self-esteem. In fact, they may do better, because they
often try harder.'' Baumeister takes Emler's findings a
bit further, claiming not only that low self-esteem is in
most cases a socially benign if not beneficent condition
but also that its opposite, high self-regard, can maim
and even kill. Baumeister conducted a study that found
that some people with favorable views of themselves
were more likely to administer loud blasts of ear-
piercing noise to a subject than those more tepid, timid
folks who held back the horn. An earlier experiment
found that men with high self-esteem were more willing
to put down victims to whom they had administered
electric shocks than were their low-level counterparts.
Last year alone there were three withering studies of
self-esteem released in the United States, all of which
had the same central message: people with high self-
esteem pose a greater threat to those around them than
people with low self-esteem and feeling bad about
yourself is not the cause of our country's biggest, most
expensive social problems. The research is original and
compelling and lays the groundwork for a new,
important kind of narrative about what makes life worth
living -- if we choose to listen, which might be hard. One
of this country's most central tenets, after all, is the
pursuit of happiness, which has been strangely joined to
the pursuit of self-worth. Shifting a paradigm is never
easy. More than 2,000 books offering the attainment of
self-esteem have been published; educational programs
in schools designed to cultivate self-esteem continue to
proliferate, as do rehabilitation programs for substance
abusers that focus on cognitive realignment with self-
affirming statements like, ''Today I will accept myself for
who I am, not who I wish I were.'' I have seen therapists
tell their sociopathic patients to say ''I adore myself''
every day or to post reminder notes on their kitchen
cabinets and above their toilet-paper dispensers, self-
affirmations set side by side with waste.
Will we give these challenges to our notions about self-
esteem their due or will the research go the way of the
waste? ''Research like that is seriously flawed,'' says
Stephen Keane, a therapist who practices in
Newburyport, Mass. ''First, it's defining self-esteem
according to very conventional and problematic
masculine ideas. Second, it's clear to me that many
violent men, in particular, have this inner shame; they
find out early in life they're not going to measure up, and
they compensate for it with fists. We need, as men, to get
to the place where we can really honor and expand our
natural human grace.''
Keane's comment is rooted in a history that goes back
hundreds of years, and it is this history that in part
prevents us from really tussling with the insights of
scientists like Baumeister and Emler. We have long held
in this country the Byronic belief that human nature is
essentially good or graceful, that behind the sheath of
skin is a little globe of glow to be harnessed for creative
uses. Benjamin Franklin, we believe, got that glow, as
did Joseph Pulitzer and scads of other, lesser, folks who
eagerly caught on to what was called, in the 19th
century, ''mind cure.''
Mind cure augurs New Age healing, so that when we lift
and look at the roots, New Age is not new at all. In the
19th century, people fervently believed that you were
what you thought. Sound familiar? Post it above your
toilet paper. You are what you think. What you think.
What you think. In the 1920's, a French psychologist,
mile Cou, became all the rage in this country; he
proposed the technique of autosuggestion and before
long had many citizens repeating, ''Day by day in every
way I am getting better and better.''
But as John Hewitt says in his book criticizing self-
esteem, it was maybe Ralph Waldo Emerson more than
anyone else who gave the modern self-esteem movement
its most eloquent words and suasive philosophy.
Emerson died more than a century ago, but you can visit
his house in Concord, Mass., and see his bedroom
slippers cordoned off behind plush velvet ropes and his
eyeglasses, surprisingly frail, the frames of thin gold, the
ovals of shine, perched on a beautiful desk. It was in this
house that Emerson wrote his famous transcendentalist
essays like ''On Self-Reliance,'' which posits that the
individual has something fresh and authentic within and
that it is up to him to discover it and nurture it apart
from the corrupting pressures of social influence.
Emerson never mentions ''self-esteem'' in his essay, but
his every word echoes with the self-esteem movement of
today, with its romantic, sometimes silly and clearly
humane belief that we are special, from head to toe.
Self-esteem, as a construct, as a quasi religion, is woven
into a tradition that both defines and confines us as
Americans. If we were to deconstruct self-esteem, to
question its value, we would be, in a sense, questioning
who we are, nationally and individually. We would be
threatening our self-esteem. This is probably why we
cannot really assimilate research like Baumeister's or
Emler's; it goes too close to the bone and then threatens
to break it. Imagine if you heard your child's teacher say,
''Don't think so much of yourself.'' Imagine your spouse
saying to you, ''You know, you're really not so good at
what you do.'' We have developed a discourse of
affirmation, and to deviate from that would be to enter
another arena, linguistically and grammatically, so that
what came out of our mouths would be impolite at best,
unintelligible at worst.
Is there a way to talk about the self without measuring
its worth? Why, as a culture, have we so conflated the
two quite separate notions -- a) self and b) worth? This
may have as much to do with our entrepreneurial history
as Americans, in which everything exists to be improved,
as it does, again, with the power of language to shape
beliefs. How would we story the self if not triumphantly,
redemptively, enhanced from the inside out? A quick
glance at amazon.com titles containing the word ''self''
shows that a hefty percentage also have -improvement
or -enhancement tucked into them, oftentimes with
numbers -- something like 101 ways to improve your
self-esteem or 503 ways to better your outlook in 60
days or 604 ways to overcome negative self-talk. You
could say that these titles are a product of a culture, or
you could say that these titles and the contents they
sheathe shape the culture. It is the old argument: do we
make language or does language make us? In the case of
self-esteem, it is probably something in between, a
synergistic loop-the-loop.
On the subject of language, one could, of course, fault
Baumeister and Emler for using ''self-esteem'' far too
unidimensionally, so that it blurs and blends with simple
smugness. Baumeister, in an attempt at nuance, has
tried to shade the issue by referring to two previously
defined types: high unstable self-esteem and high well-
grounded self-esteem. As a psychologist, I remember
once treating a murderer, who said, ''The problem with
me, Lauren, is that I'm the biggest piece of [expletive]
the world revolves around.'' He would have scored high
on a self-esteem inventory, but does he really ''feel good''
about himself? And if he doesn't really feel good about
himself, then does it not follow that his hidden low, not
his high, self-esteem leads to violence? And yet as
Baumeister points out, research has shown that people
with overt low self-esteem aren't violent, so why would
low self-esteem cause violence only when it is hidden? If
you follow his train of thinking, you could come up with
the sort of silly conclusion that covert low self-esteem
causes aggression, but overt low self-esteem does not,
which means concealment, not cockiness, is the real
culprit. That makes little sense.
''The fact is,'' Emler says, ''we've put antisocial men
through every self-esteem test we have, and there's no
evidence for the old psychodynamic concept that they
secretly feel bad about themselves. These men are racist
or violent because they don't feel bad enough about
themselves.'' Baumeister and his colleagues write:
''People who believe themselves to be among the top 10
percent on any dimension may be insulted and
threatened whenever anyone asserts that they are in the
80th or 50th or 25th percentile. In contrast, someone
with lower self-esteem who regards himself or herself as
being merely in the top 60 percent would only be
threatened by the feedback that puts him or her at the
25th percentile. . . . In short, the more favorable one's
view of oneself, the greater the range of external
feedback that will be perceived as unacceptably low.''
Perhaps, as these researchers are saying, pride really is
dangerous, and too few of us know how to be humble.
But that is most likely not the entire reason why we are
ignoring flares that say, ''Look, sometimes self-esteem
can be bad for your health.'' There are, as always, market
forces, and they are formidable. The psychotherapy
industry, for instance, would take a huge hit were self-
esteem to be re-examined. After all, psychology and
psychiatry are predicated upon the notion of the self,
and its enhancement is the primary purpose of
treatment. I am by no means saying mental health
professionals have any conscious desire to perpetuate a
perhaps simplistic view of self-esteem, but they are, we
are (for I am one of them, I confess), the ''cultural
retailers'' of the self-esteem concept, and were the
concept to falter, so would our pocketbooks.
Really, who would come to treatment to be taken down a
notch? How would we get our clients to pay to be, if not
insulted, at least uncomfortably challenged? There is a
profound tension here between psychotherapy as a
business that needs to retain its customers and
psychotherapy as a practice that has the health of its
patients at heart. Mental health is not necessarily a
comfortable thing. Because we want to protect our
patients and our pocketbooks, we don't always say this.
The drug companies that underwrite us never say this.
Pills take you up or level you out, but I have yet to see an
advertisement for a drug of deflation.
If you look at psychotherapy in other cultures, you get a
glimpse into the obsessions of our own. You also see
what a marketing fiasco we would have on our hands
were we to dial down our self-esteem beliefs. In Japan,
there is a popular form of psychotherapy that does not
focus on the self and its worth. This psychotherapeutic
treatment, called Morita, holds as its central premise
that neurotic suffering comes, quite literally, from
extreme self-awareness. ''The most miserable people I
know have been self-focused,'' says David Reynolds, a
Morita practitioner in Oregon. Reynolds writes, ''Cure is
not defined by the alleviation of discomfort or the
attainment of some ideal state (which is impossible) but
by taking constructive action in one's life which helps
one to live a full and meaningful existence and not be
ruled by one's emotional state.''
Morita therapy, which emphasizes action over reflection,
might have some trouble catching on here, especially in
the middle-class West, where folks would be hard
pressed to garden away the 50-minute hour. That's what
Morita patients do; they plant petunias and practice
patience as they wait for them to bloom.
Like any belief system, Morita has its limitations. To
detach from feelings carries with it the risk of detaching
from their significant signals, which carry important
information about how to act: reach out, recoil. But the
current research on self-esteem does suggest that we
might benefit, if not fiscally than at least spiritually,
from a few petunias on the Blue Cross bill. And the fact
that we continue, in the vernacular, to use the word
''shrink'' to refer to treatment means that perhaps
unconsciously we know we sometimes need to be taken
down a peg.
Down to . . . what? Maybe self-control should replace
self-esteem as a primary peg to reach for. I don't mean
to sound Puritanical, but there is something to be said
for discipline, which comes from the word ''disciple,''
which actually means to comprehend. Ultimately, self-
control need not be seen as a constriction; restored to its
original meaning, it might be experienced as the kind of
practiced prowess an athlete or an artist demonstrates,
muscles not tamed but trained, so that the leaps are
powerful, the spine supple and the energy harnessed and
shaped.
There are therapy programs that teach something like
self-control, but predictably they are not great
moneymakers and they certainly do not attract the bulk
of therapy consumers, the upper middle class. One such
program, called Emerge, is run by a psychologist named
David Adams in a low-budget building in Cambridge,
Mass. Emerge's clients are mostly abusive men, 75
percent of them mandated by the courts. ''I once did an
intake on a batterer who had been in psychotherapy for
three years, and his violence wasn't getting any better,''
Adams told me. ''I said to him, 'Why do you think you hit
your wife?' He said to me, 'My therapist told me it's
because I don't feel good about myself inside.''' Adams
sighs, then laughs. ''We believe it has nothing to do with
how good a man feels about himself. At Emerge, we
teach men to evaluate their behaviors honestly and to
interact with others using empathy and respect.'' In
order to accomplish these goals, men write their entire
abuse histories on 12-by-12 sheets of paper, hang the
papers on the wall and read them. ''Some of the histories
are so long, they go all around the room,'' Adams says.
''But it's a powerful exercise. It gets a guy to really
concretely see.'' Other exercises involve having the men
act out the abuse with the counselor as the victim.
Unlike traditional ''suburban'' therapies, Emerge is
under no pressure to keep its customers; the courts do
that for them. In return, they are free to pursue a path
that has to do with ''balanced confrontation,'' at the
heart of which is critical reappraisal and self- -- no, not
esteem -- responsibility.
While Emerge is for a specific subgroup of people, it
might provide us with a model for how to reconfigure
treatment -- and maybe even life -- if we do decide the
self is not about how good it feels but how well it does, in
work and love. Work and love. That's a phrase fashioned
by Freud himself, who once said the successful
individual is one who has achieved meaningful work and
meaningful love. Note how separate this sentence is
from the notion of self. We blame Freud for a lot of
things, but we can't blame that cigar-smoking Victorian
for this particular cultural obsession. It was Freud, after
all, who said that the job of psychotherapy was to turn
neurotic suffering into ordinary suffering. Freud never
claimed we should be happy, and he never claimed
confidence was the key to a life well lived.
I remember the shock I had when I finally read this old
analyst in his native tongue. English translations of
Freud make him sound maniacal, if not egomaniacal,
with his bloated words like id, ego and superego. But in
the original German, id means under-I, ego translates
into I and superego is not super-duper but, quite simply,
over-I. Freud was staking a claim for a part of the mind
that watches the mind, that takes the global view in an
effort at honesty. Over-I. I can see. And in the seeing,
assess, edit, praise and prune. This is self-appraisal,
which precedes self-control, for we must first know both
where we flail and stumble, and where we are truly
strong, before we can make disciplined alterations. Self-
appraisal. It has a certain sort of rhythm to it, does it
not? Self-appraisal may be what Baumeister and Emler
are actually advocating. If our lives are stories in the
making, then we must be able to edit as well as advertise
the text. Self-appraisal. If we say self-appraisal again and
again, 101 times, 503 times, 612 times, maybe we can
create it. And learn its complex arts.
Photos (Duane Michals)
Lauren Slater is a psychologist. Her memoir, ''Love
Works Like This,'' will be published by Random House
in May.