Low Self-Esteem
Low Self-Esteem Therapy
We use the phrase self-esteem to talk about the beliefs you have about yourself. What you think about the type of person you are and your abilities.
If you have healthy self-esteem, your beliefs about yourself will generally be positive. As a result, when you experience difficult times in your life, you will generally be able to deal with them, without it having much of a long-term negative impact on you.
If you have low self-esteem, your beliefs about yourself will often be negative and lack in confidence. You will tend to focus on your weaknesses or mistakes that you have made and you may find it hard to recognise the positive parts of your personality. Therefore, you tend to blame yourself for any difficulties or failures that you have occurred.
Most people experience moments of lacking in confidence, at some point in life. This can be a perfectly normal response to external events, from time to time. However, when low self-esteem becomes a long-term habit, it can harm your relationships with others, kill your confidence, stunt your ability to assert yourself. As a result you feed a cycle of increasing frustration and unhappiness. In fact, research has shown a correlation between low self-esteem and depression.
What can cause low self-esteem?
The things that affect our self-esteem differ for everyone. Your self-esteem might change suddenly, or you might have had low self-esteem for a while – which might make it hard to recognise how you feel in order to make changes.
Difficult or stressful life experiences may contribute, for instance:-
- being bullied or abused
- experiencing prejudice or discrimination
- losing your job or difficulty finding employment
- problems at work
- ongoing stress
- physical health problems
- mental health
- relationship problems, separation or divorce
- worries about your appearance and body image
- money problems
Low self-esteem therapy
Our therapists can help you discover the root cause of your low self-esteem. We can aslo help you establish how certain behaviours, feelings, and thoughts that are contributing towards your low opinion of yourself. It can help to learn how to create more balanced, mutually respectful and satisfying relationships and gain a deeper understanding of yourself and what makes you happiest.
The greatest benefit of counselling for low self-esteem, is that it can enable you to gain the ability to live your life with a feeling of freedom to be who you truly are. Therapy can help you improve your self-image and reduce self-doubt and enable you to become more assertive, confident, and self-aware.
We will help you recognise the relationship between your thoughts, feelings and behaviours. This is based on the theory that it’s not ‘what’ we experience but how we interpret that experience, which determines how we feel.
If you would like to make an appointment to see one of our therapists for help with your self-esteem. Contact us at CBT and Counselling today. Request an appointment
If you require urgent help contact Mind charity – Helpline or The Samaritans
Self help for low self-esteem
‘Overcoming Low Self-Esteem’ – A Self-Help Guide (1999) by Melanie Fennell
‘How to Be Confident and Destroy Low Self-Esteem’ – The Ultimate Guide for Turning Your Life around (Positive Thinking, Mind-Body Connection, Goal Setting, Visualization, Facing Fears) – by Beau Norton (2015)
Problems we can help you with
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Anxiety
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Bereavement Counselling
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Anger Management
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Low Self-Esteem
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Stress
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Depression
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Jealousy & Insecurity
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Relationship Problems
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Work Related Stress
