Can Self Esteem Be Taught?

Of course it can, in fact we have all, as a society been taught to believe self esteem is even a thing. Prior to 1980 most people hadn't even heard of self esteem. The first use of the term can be traced back to 1890 but even then the concept of self esteem didn't really even become an accepted as a psychological concept until the late 1960's. This came about as the rise in consumerism and consumption started to put the individual at the centre of his or her destiny.

A major influence on the self esteem movement was Nathaniel Brandon who is often credited as the father of the self esteem movement. So if you're having self esteem issues as you might like to call them, you can blame him. This was affected by enlightened self interest and radical individualism espoused by An Rand. Whilst Branden's views may not be what they once were, he is widely credited with opening the door of self esteem to popular culture. This occurred sometime around the late 80's as self esteem began to move from the world of academia into the public consciousness.

Helped along by political types, a member of the California State Assembly even claiming low self esteem is the cause of drug abuse, teenage pregnancy and even school underachievement. Seeing boosting self esteem as a form of social vaccine. All this despite no evidence and many studies showing evidence to the contrary.

Unlike many fads that come and go, self esteem has hung in there and become part of the social fabric and popular culture of the western world. These unsubstantiated and erroneous beliefs about self esteem became part of the teachings about how we should view ourselves. So effectively much of our society has been taught to believe in self esteem. It has become reality based on collective belief and wish instead of evidence or fact.

What can you do? Refuse to rate the self, start by accepting yourself because you can breathe, and start to notice when you are trying to rate your entirety. When things go well try being happy stop yourself at that point if your habit is to start making sweeping generalisations about yourself as a result. When things don't go well its OK to be unhappy, but rating yourself because of it is not only unhelpful, it's also incredibly inaccurate. Learning to accept yourself unconditionally is the best place to be.

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