Toward Healthy Self-Esteem
by Jenny Roberts, Gestalt Psychotherapist and Somatic Therapist >
It may be a common perception to think of self-esteem, whether healthy or low, as a fixed quality, dependent on having certain traits or characteristics. In reality, healthy self-esteem is dependent on our capacity to develop a self-accepting rather than self-rejecting relationship with ourselves.
Difficulties with self-esteem will most often have arisen in childhood. Sometimes you may be very aware of what happened that made you doubt yourself. Other times this may have been more subtle, and you are more aware of your present experience than its roots. As a gestalt therapist I tend to work both in the here-and-now, as well as processing difficult experiences from the past, connecting with wounded parts of ourselves that need healing. Therapy can help you redress the balance of what you see in yourself and support you in gaining a more balanced and realistic perspective of the entirety of who you are. It can support you to unhook yourself from unrealistic expectations, re-assess the validity of rules that demand the impossible of you, and support you in realising that it’s sometimes in our vulnerabilities as much as our strengths that we can find our most amazing qualities.
Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash