Low Self-Esteem

What is Low Self-Esteem?

Self-esteem is how you see yourself, or the value you place on parts of yourself or yourself as a whole. Low self-esteem is having a persistently negative view of yourself: feeling inadequate, doubting your abilities, and struggling to trust your own judgement.

Low self-esteem tends to be rooted in deeply held negative beliefs about yourself, such as "I am a failure", "I am worthless", "I am not as worthwhile as other people", or "I am not enough". These beliefs are often held as facts rather than as opinions, which makes them particularly powerful and difficult to shift on your own.

Other signs of low self-esteem can include:

• Harsh self-criticism and an active inner critic

• Comparing yourself negatively to others

• People pleasing and difficulty setting or maintaining boundaries

• Persistent self-doubt

• Dismissing compliments or positive feedback from others

• Perfectionism as a way of managing fears of being judged

Low self-esteem can affect many areas of life, including:

• Psychologically: high levels of self-criticism, filtering out positive information that doesn't match your self-image, perfectionism, and social comparison

• Emotionally: anxiety, low mood, shame, frustration, and anger

• Physically: difficulty sleeping, fatigue, and physical symptoms that often accompany anxiety and low mood such as stomach issues

• Behaviourally: people pleasing, difficulty expressing your needs or opinions, procrastination, and avoiding new opportunities

• In relationships: low self-esteem can affect how you relate to others, your ability to accept care or closeness, and your confidence at work or in social settings

How does low self-esteem develop?

Low self-esteem rarely comes from one single experience. It tends to build up over time, often starting in childhood and being reinforced by later experiences.

Early experiences play a significant role. Being bullied, experiencing neglect, abuse, or highly critical parenting can lead to internalised feelings of inadequacy. The way we are spoken to and treated by parents, family, peers, and teachers during formative years can shape the beliefs we hold about ourselves well into adulthood.

Difficult life events can also contribute, including the death of someone close, serious illness, or major changes like a parental divorce. These experiences can shake a person's sense of stability and worth, particularly if they happen without adequate support.

Mental health difficulties such as anxiety and depression can both contribute to and reinforce low self-esteem. When you are struggling, it can become harder to act in ways that reflect your values or capabilities, which in turn fuels further self-doubt.

Social and cultural pressures including facing discrimination, racism, or social stigma can have a significant impact on how you see yourself. Social media can drive social comparison and reinforce feelings of inadequacy by presenting a selective and often unrealistic picture of other people's lives.

How is low self-esteem treated?

Low self-esteem often underlies and maintains a range of mental health difficulties. During an initial assessment, we can explore whether low self-esteem is a significant factor in what you are experiencing and whether working on it directly would be a useful focus. In some cases, it becomes the primary focus of therapy, in others it is woven in alongside other goals.

CBT is a well-evidenced approach for low self-esteem. It works by looking at the relationship between your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, and connecting these to the core beliefs you hold about yourself. This might involve:

• Identifying and challenging negative thoughts about yourself

• Examining the beliefs you hold and building up evidence that contradicts them

• Using behavioural experiments to test assumptions in real situations, for example checking whether stating an opinion actually leads to the outcomes you fear.

• Working on behaviours that may be reinforcing low self-esteem, such as people pleasing or avoidance. 

CFT (Compassion Focused Therapy) can also be a helpful addition, particularly for people who struggle with a strong inner critic. Our brains can interpret our own mistakes as threats, which activates a self-critical response that can be very difficult to quiet. CFT supports you to retrain this response toward a more soothing and self-compassionate way of relating to yourself. Over time this can shift how your inner voice sounds and how you respond to your own perceived failures or shortcomings.

What does a typical course of treatment look like?

This depends on your goals and what you feel you need. There are no specific guidelines for the length of treatment for low self-esteem. If you are looking for a short-term, focused piece of work targeting self-esteem specifically, this might take around six to twelve sessions. If you want to explore the deeper patterns and beliefs that have built up over time, this is likely to take longer. We work at a pace that feels right for you.

What results can you expect?

Therapy for low self-esteem is not about becoming endlessly positive or eliminating self-doubt entirely. The aim is a shift in your relationship with yourself: being able to hold a more balanced, fair view of who you are, to respond to your own mistakes with less criticism, and to act more in line with your own values and needs rather than from a place of fear or inadequacy.

Progress can look like having more confidence to express your opinion, feeling less driven by what others think, being able to acknowledge your strengths alongside your weaknesses, and finding it easier to set boundaries.

For extra information on low self esteem please see the following blogs as well as the resources page on our website:

The Power of Comparison: How Envy and Jealousy Shape Our Perception Through the Lens of Barbie

The Self-Criticism Myth

Self-esteem and self-acceptance

Assertiveness