Low Self-Esteem: Where It Comes From and What Shifts It

Low self-esteem tends to be treated, in popular psychology, as a deficit to be corrected. Something that can be addressed through positive affirmations, self-care practices, or a deliberate focus on strengths. These approaches are not without value, but they tend to operate at the surface of the problem rather than its root. And for many people, they produce a temporary shift that does not quite hold over time.

Understanding low self-esteem more accurately requires looking at where it comes from rather than simply at what it feels like.

 

Where self-esteem actually comes from

Self-esteem (our sense of being fundamentally acceptable, worthy, and of value) begins to develop in our early relationships. It is not primarily a conclusion we reach about ourselves through rational assessment of our qualities. It begins with the internalised sense of how we were regarded by the people who mattered most to us when we were young and navigating our childhoods.

Children who were consistently seen, valued, and responded to with warmth tend to develop a secure sense of self-worth that is relatively stable across circumstances. Children whose experiences were characterised by criticism, inconsistency, neglect, or the sense that love was conditional on performance, tend to develop a more fragile or negative self-regard.

This is not a simple or deterministic process, and it is not an indictment of parents who did their best with what they had. But it does mean that low self-esteem is not primarily a cognitive problem (a set of mistaken thoughts to be challenged and replaced). Low self-esteem is something more fundamental, a foundation that was laid down earlier, and requiring a different kind of attention.

 

How low self-esteem maintains itself

Once established, low self-esteem tends to be self-reinforcing. The person who believes, at some level, that they are not quite good enough tends to interpret ambiguous situations in ways that confirm that belief. They notice criticism more readily than praise. They attribute failures to themselves and successes to luck or circumstance. They may avoid situations where failure is possible, which limits the corrective experiences that might otherwise challenge their beliefs.

There is often a relational dimension. People with low self-esteem sometimes find themselves in relationships that confirm their negative self-image. Not because they seek them out consciously, but because the familiar tends to feel more tolerable than the unfamiliar, even when the familiar is painful.

 

What tends not to help

Telling someone with low self-esteem that they are actually great tends not to help in the long-term. Not because they cannot hear it, but because the belief it is trying to counter is not primarily rational. It is held in the body, in the relational patterns, in the habitual ways of relating to the self that developed long before the person was able to think critically about them. Positive reframing operates at a level the belief does not yet live at.

 

What therapy can offer

Therapy for low self-esteem works at the level where the difficulty actually lives. Exploring the relational history that shaped it, in the patterns that maintain it. The quality of the therapeutic relationship can itself be therapeutic –a genuine experience of being regarded positively can start to counter the relational experiences that shaped the original negative beliefs of self.

Change tends to be gradual and is rarely linear. However, with time, self-esteem can shift in a more durable than anything that operates only at the surface.

If you have lived with a persistent sense of not being quite enough, and have not yet found a space to understand where that came from, therapy may be something to consider.

Dr Erin Reid is a counselling psychologist offering online therapy to individuals, couples, adolescents, and families across the UK and internationally. Visit drerinreid.com to find out more.