Regarding self esteem

[Joe the Hobo]

I didn't quite know which category this should be in (the individual or self knowledge?) but it's regarding the self so self knowledge seems like the place.

Recently Stefan posted this video:

I would have loved to talk with him about this via the call in show because he seemed to have some trouble understanding the concept which is really very simple, however it seems he is not doing radio shows at the moment for health reasons which is unfortunate but understandable. So I've elected to voice my information about this here, in order to help anyone else having trouble understanding the idea as I share similar, if not the same outlook on self esteem as the psychologist in the video, Dr Edelstein. I think that my perspective on self esteem could really help people to live more happily. I also want some feedback on my ideas, other people's opinions and ideas about this; if I'm full of crap, let me know []

So lets get to the crux of the matter, self esteem is a delusion. I've seen perfectly good people who are decent and peaceful and kind but completely miserable and think they're awful because of low self esteem, similarly I've seen horrible people with high self esteem; they think they're great and use this delusion to overlook the negative consequences of thier actions. Or perhaps thier delusion causes them not to see the negative effects of thier "evil deeds".

I never understood self esteem when I was younger and the above video and previous examinations of those with self esteem helped me to realise that I don't have self esteem but that doesn't mean I have low self esteem, I have none. I'll use a classic Stefan Molyneux Metaphor to explain what I mean (coming from an electronic engineering background) if I were to measure 1 amp of current flowing through a wire; that's high, if I measure 0.01amps; that's low, but if I measure 0 amps; there is no current flowing  through the wire at all. This is the fashion in which I do not have self esteem, because it is a delusion. So what do I have instead of self esteem? I'm just realistic.

[TDB]

 

self esteem is a delusion. I've seen perfectly good people who are decent and peaceful and kind but completely miserable and think they're awful because of low self esteem, similarly I've seen horrible people with high self esteem; they think they're great and use this delusion to overlook the negative consequences of thier actions. Or perhaps thier delusion causes them not to see the negative effects of thier "evil deeds".

I never understood self esteem when I was younger and the above video and previous examinations of those with self esteem helped me to realise that I don't have self esteem but that doesn't mean I have low self esteem, I have none. 

 

Branden writes about self-esteem as a combination of self-efficacy, by which he means confidence that you can understand and cope with reality, and self-worth (? Not sure that was his phrase, memory glitch) meaning the belief that you are worthy of happiness.  Are you using self-esteem to mean something else?

What would it mean for self-esteem to be delusional? We easily could be delusional about our ability to understand and cope with reality. Sounds more like you mean, some people who actually deserve happiness do not think they deserve it, and some who do not deserve happiness believe they do. Right?

Are you saying it is in all cases delusional, or just in some cases?

I suppose, using Branden's approach, to "have none" would mean that a person felt that reality was perfectly incomprehensible and that he or she was utterly undeserving of happiness. That doesn't seem like it matches what you meant to say.

[Joe the Hobo]

The main thing I'm learning from FDR is that I've still got a lot to learn but bear with me; I can agree with that definition of self esteem, in my empirical experience self esteem is someone's opinion about themselves as a whole- an assessment of thier self worth, confidence in understanding reality is again, part of a delusion. If you're confident you can understand reality, try reading some quantum physics books! hahaha, I jest, but seriously, people's confidence in thier ability to cope or understand things is often not very realistic.

 

You are correct in that I think self esteem is often incongruent with reality. I just read a bit about Branden's definiton of self esteem and it seems that he says if it's not based in reality then it's not self esteem, however most of the time I see that people's self esteem (thier self worth and opinion of themselves) is unrealistic.

I'm saying that if you have a realistic perspective of yourself, then it's not self esteem it's just being realistic. For example, you wouldn't call a fact, like "Earth orbits the sun", an opinion (even though we technically orbit the barrycentre of the solar system which is itself in constant motion but lets not get technical ). By the same token, if your self esteem is accurate, it is a realistic interpretation of yourself and therefore not a delusion.

You're correct in your last statement; Branden's approach is not what I'm saying, I have no self esteem and none to cloud my interpretation of myself, not low self esteem or a lack of comprehension of reality. I don't think I'm deserving or worthy of happiness or undeserving or unworthy of happiness. I desire happiness (as most of us do regardless of self esteem) but worthiness doesn't come into the equation for me. I haven't even considered my own worthiness of anything very much- that's not low self esteem, it's just no opinion about my worthiness.

If I were to determine my worthiness of happiness, by what criteria would I do this? my culture? outside influences of my social environment? other people's opinions? I have the feeling all would lead to an illusory or biased answer. If I determined it by realistic factors like, do I have a negtive or postivie impact on the world and people? then it would just be a realistic fact, not an opinion and not self esteem.

The concept of self esteem itself, is a delusion; it's an opinion often incongruent with reality. When it is congruent with reality then it's just being realistic, but worthiness of happiness seems like it would more often than not, be determined by culture/society and influences of other people, not reality. A perfect example is those who are bullied a lot often think themselves worthless, but that's an outside opinion imposed by the abuse of someone else who was probably the victim of child abuse themselves.

Also to determine self esteem from one such area, e.g. the opinions of others towards you or thier actions towards you, is an over generalization (As Dr Edelstein says).

 

Have I rambled enough to clarify my position or are there more questions now?

[Jeremi]

The main thing I'm learning from FDR is that I've still got a lot to learn but bear with me; I can agree with that definition of self esteem, in my empirical experience self esteem is someone's opinion about themselves as a whole- an assessment of thier self worth, confidence in understanding reality is again, part of a delusion. If you're confident you can understand reality, try reading some quantum physics books! hahaha, I jest, but seriously, people's confidence in thier ability to cope or understand things is often not very realistic.

 

You are correct in that I think self esteem is often incongruent with reality. I just read a bit about Branden's definiton of self esteem and it seems that he says if it's not based in reality then it's not self esteem, however most of the time I see that people's self esteem (thier self worth and opinion of themselves) is unrealistic.

I'm saying that if you have a realistic perspective of yourself, then it's not self esteem it's just being realistic. For example, you wouldn't call a fact, like "Earth orbits the sun", an opinion (even though we technically orbit the barrycentre of the solar system which is itself in constant motion but lets not get technical ). By the same token, if your self esteem is accurate, it is a realistic interpretation of yourself and therefore not a delusion.

You're correct in your last statement; Branden's approach is not what I'm saying, I have no self esteem and none to cloud my interpretation of myself, not low self esteem or a lack of comprehension of reality. I don't think I'm deserving or worthy of happiness or undeserving or unworthy of happiness. I desire happiness (as most of us do regardless of self esteem) but worthiness doesn't come into the equation for me. I haven't even considered my own worthiness of anything very much- that's not low self esteem, it's just no opinion about my worthiness.

If I were to determine my worthiness of happiness, by what criteria would I do this? my culture? outside influences of my social environment? other people's opinions? I have the feeling all would lead to an illusory or biased answer. If I determined it by realistic factors like, do I have a negtive or postivie impact on the world and people? then it would just be a realistic fact, not an opinion and not self esteem.

The concept of self esteem itself, is a delusion; it's an opinion often incongruent with reality. When it is congruent with reality then it's just being realistic, but worthiness of happiness seems like it would more often than not, be determined by culture/society and influences of other people, not reality. A perfect example is those who are bullied a lot often think themselves worthless, but that's an outside opinion imposed by the abuse of someone else who was probably the victim of child abuse themselves.

Also to determine self esteem from one such area, e.g. the opinions of others towards you or thier actions towards you, is an over generalization (As Dr Edelstein says).

 

Have I rambled enough to clarify my position or are there more questions now?

 

Robert,

 

Thank you for your perspective, it is quite enlightening and I agree with your arguments. I find this is more or less congruent with what I discussed with Stef on a recent Sunday show about the concept of self-love which Stef simply considered as nearly synonymous to health. In other words, it comes about by doing the work of self knowledge and building your self-awareness and understanding the origins of whatever mythologies and defense mechanism you might have ingrained in you from childhood. As we wander further down the path of self knowledge we dispel these irrationalities and gain an appreciation for not only our inner child but who we truly want to be moving forward. This however, has nothing whatsoever to do with self esteem which I agree seems to just be a cultural construct more than a legitimate barometer of self-awareness.

 

The only thing I'd question is whether it is accurate to describe self-esteem as a delusion. I'm not sure delusion is the proper word here since it implies some kind of loss of mental faculties preventing a person from seeing the truth within their environment. I think for most people self-esteem is a (seemingly) rationally followed concept within the irrational mythology of cultural norms they have grown up in. So an Imam in Saudi Arabia will hold a high self esteem of himself as a pious and devout man and the reverance he receives in the society around him will reinforce this high self esteem. In my view, he is not behaving delusionally within the environment he is in.

[Wesley]

I am going to float an idea, and see if people like it, can help me refine it, or want to completely reject it.

 

Self esteem seems to be as disparate, delusional, and irrational as the ethical system that one judges themselves against. Most people's ethics are based on subjective preference- either internal, of their priest or God, of their state, or of their cultural mythologies. This makes self esteem an irrational an dellusional concept and only accurate to the extent that it alligns with rational ethics. Thus, when an evil person has high self esteem then it is a false concept, and it also would mean that someone with low self esteem who hasn't done evil would be wrong as well.

 

My feeling is that self esteem in a rational sense is not false or delusional. If I view myself as bad or evil for committing murder of an innocent with no mitigating factors, it seems that I would be accurate in this assessment. It also means that my skill in piano doesn't have an impact on my self-esteem (rationally) as I may have skills in other areas, or that relaxing was my preference. Thus, self-esteem is irrational largely to the extent that it is currnetly used, but not necessarily an empty concept.

 

The hole in this would be that the idea of "self" esteem becomes irrelevant, as in a rational world it would just be esteem, for rational standards would largely be the same. Though there may be a special place for self esteem still as there is more knowledge about the circumstances that you know by which any external source may be able to acquire. You know more about yourself than anyone else.

 

Let me know what you think.

[Joe the Hobo]

I'm going to have to read all this a few times and think about it a bit more before I can give a decent reply but I'd just like to say thankyou, thankyou for your input and for being such rational and insightful people! This is the fantastic level of progress I was hoping to make with my ideas about self esteem.

 

Edit: One thing I want to add, regarding your post Jeremie, someone of perfectly sound mind rational capability and intelligence can be deluded, you don't necessarily have to have a lack of mental faculties. Maybe this is just a difference in definiton of terms?

 

I'm still contemplating things a bit more before I make any more of a reply

Edited September 5, 2013 by Robert C Christian

[marius]

Recently i re-watched the interview with Dr. Edelstein

I took a look at his book "Therapy Breakthrough: Why Some Psychotherapies Work Better Than Others"

You can see the sample on amazon. Even in the first pages you can see the difference between "Old"(Psychodynamic) vs "New"(CBT) Therapy.

 

In short the "new", some crucial things that are part of the self-knowledge understanding here on FDR as "old" (childhood experience, IFS) are said to be irrelevant to getting better.

From what i see now its mostly based on your current way of thinking as being the thing that needs a change. It sounds reasonable, but what do you think about the differences?

 

I just started to incorporate what Branden's concepts are, which seemed to help.

1. understand the cause of the behavior

2. extract general principle

3. incorporate it into future behavior

 

Branden is not specifically in opposition to what Edelstein's ideas say.

[cynicist]

In short the "new", some crucial things that are part of the self-knowledge understanding here on FDR as "old" (childhood experience, IFS) are said to be irrelevant to getting better.

From what i see now its mostly based on your current way of thinking as being the thing that needs a change. It sounds reasonable, but what do you think about the differences?

 

It's hard to comment without having read the material. The claim you posted though sounds strange to me. It would be like telling an overweight person that he needs to stop eating unhealthy foods and not exercising if he wants to be healthy and that trying to examine why he became fat is irrelevant to attaining a healthier weight.  I mean yeah it is true that correcting your misconceptions on reality is the thing you need to do in order to be mentally healthy, but examining where these ideas came from is a good way to help people do that. If someone has a false belief about his self worth that causes him to experience social anxiety, then the way to solve that is not to merely tell him about his false belielf, he has to experience and understand it himself. CBT is based on actions that enable you to do this while the IFS/childhood experience approach is based on understanding the past. I see them as complementary approaches that work well together rather than being at odds with each other.

 

That said Warren Farrell wrote a blurb for the book and I respect that guy's opinion so I'll definitely check it out.

[marius]

Thanks for answering finally.

Be careful with analogies. I try to use first principles rather than analogies. There are two problems with looking extensively in the past:

• There are a lot of possible associations, and none of them scientific because it cant be replicated. (reminds me of dream analysis)
• And the second is that it takes a lot of time and resources without a clear return. For more on this you might want to see the success rate of Psychodynamic methods.

I definitely agree with the objective of self knowledge that it makes you think more clearly, by knowing what kind of distortions you have in your head. (e.g. relationship to the state and relationship to the family)

As i said, i am far from making a concrete statement on the matter. At the moment i am doing history and thinking, emotion analysis; but im staying far from IFS for the reasons i mentioned.

 

Also you may find interesting another book with the same Author and main idea: Therapy Breakthrough. I havent read it yet.

[cynicist]

Thanks for answering finally.

Be careful with analogies. I try to use first principles rather than analogies. There are two problems with looking extensively in the past:

• There are a lot of possible associations, and none of them scientific because it cant be replicated. (reminds me of dream analysis)
• And the second is that it takes a lot of time and resources without a clear return. For more on this you might want to see the success rate of Psychodynamic methods.

I definitely agree with the objective of self knowledge that it makes you think more clearly, by knowing what kind of distortions you have in your head. (e.g. relationship to the state and relationship to the family)

As i said, i am far from making a concrete statement on the matter. At the moment i am doing history and thinking, emotion analysis; but im staying far from IFS for the reasons i mentioned.

 

Also you may find interesting another book with the same Author and main idea: Therapy Breakthrough. I havent read it yet.

 

I take issue with the idea that historical analysis can't be scientific because it can't be replicated in lab conditions. Don't forget that science is not just evidence (which requires reproducibility), it includes reason as well. So if I take the premise that hitting is bad, I can logically come to the conclusion that if my parents hit me, then they did something bad, and that will be true without any experimentation at all. In my opinion the value of dream analysis and IFS is the same as the value of emotions; it doesn't need to be objective in order to be useful. You can't rely on them to the exclusion of objective standards of truth, but as you work through correcting your misconceptions it becomes much more efficient to trust your instincts rather than reason your way through life. (which is why I think both approaches are valid and important, and focusing on one to the exclusion of the other is a mistake)

 

If you have any data on the success rate of psychodynamic methods I would be interested in seeing it, but I would keep in mind that therapists are not philosophers and part of the issue of exploring history in therapy is that many therapists are averse to taking clear moral stands or principles in their analysis of a patient. (which makes it easy to get lost in your subjective experience of your history without accomplishing anything in particular) So I wouldn't be surprised if CBT was more effective simply because it lets therapists avoid fundamental questions around the family/state/society in favor of focusing on the less volatile work of pointing out inconsistencies between certain thoughts and reality. (where there are no moral concerns to sidestep) In fact if you look at the reviews for that book on Amazon, a least one person mentions mentions exploring childhood and parental treatment as a waste of time and money. (no doubt because without established principles/morals its hard to do anything practical with that knowledge)

 

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll add it to my reading list.

[marius]

When you are looking in the past, that is not what the scientific method is about.

That is known as method of agreement; retrospective study.

It is good for finding correlations, but that alone is not science.

For proof, it can't prove causality because you dont have an isolated variable that being the only difference must be responsible for the outcome effect.

 

Regarding the success rate, i did not dig deep to find the results, but i must admit that i was interested. The studies are always a problem. How do you account for long term effects? How do you know that the process was not affected by a certain party? I dont even have the chance to choose a psycho-dynamic therapist.But again, i am not qualified to say what is good and what works, i will be able to share my experience after some months.