Well I have been thinking about self-esteem lately in preperation for the next uncommon knowledge hypnotherapy diploma module.
The term ’self-esteem’ is vague and abstract but that doesn’t stop people from sagely nodding their heads and talking about ’self-esteem’ as if were a tangible and distinctly measurable item on a shopping list of personal desirable qaulities.
Fortunately for me (as I’m teaching self-esteem raising stratagies) research (since the 1960’s) has been done on what constitutes low self-esteem and the best ways to raise it. I’ll be exploding myths around low self esteem (such as that bullies, criminals, drug addicts etc. behave as they do because of low-self esteem), we’ll be looking at how to spot low self esteem and how to build better self concepts for people who show the classic signs.
As we’ll see the worst thing you can do for a low-self-esteemer is to ‘big them up’ or tell them they are ‘worth it’ or wonderful. This doesn’t work. We’ll aslo see why affirmations can be a big no no for the LSEsteemers.
If something can be too low then it can also be too high (another unquestioned assumption was that you couldn’t have too much self-esteem) as we’ll see pathologically high self-esteem (long assumed to be low-self esteem in disguise becasue if you only have one diagnosis everything has to fit it) is a real problem for some.
And, of course, when you are fully healthy and satisfied in, and by, your life then you don’t have to think about yourself so much so thoughts of your own self-esteem levels disappear just as awareness of the projectionists booth in the movie theatre fades from mind as the movie begins. If something doesn’t ‘hurt’ you don’t need to focus on it.
For our hypnotherapy dipoma students who have their first ‘live’-members of the public supervised client sessions on the Sunday, I hope, my self-esteem section will be useful both personally for them and professionally.
That’s all for now
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