Therapy for low self-esteem in English

The difference between self-confidence and self-esteem

Self-confidence is about what you can do. Self-esteem is about whether you are worth something regardless of what you can do. That is why people with impressive CVs can have rock-bottom self-esteem — and why more successes rarely help.

Where it comes from

Self-esteem is built early, in your encounters with the people who looked after you. If you were most valuable when you performed, helped out or didn't take up space, that is exactly what you learn. Not as a thought, but as a deep-seated feeling.

For some it comes later — after bullying, after a relationship that slowly blurred your own boundaries, after abuse or trauma.

The treatment

We don't work with positive affirmations. They rarely work, because they speak to something that is not made of thoughts.

With ISTDP we go after the inner critic directly: where the voice comes from, who it sounds like, and which feelings it protects against. Beneath harsh self-criticism there is almost always anger that could not be directed outwards — and grief over something you did not get.