Overcoming low self-esteem

January 27, 2025|Kim's Blog, Relationship Management|

Many attendees on confidence courses and some of my therapy clients have low self-esteem – and for a variety of reasons (e.g. childhood experiences and family dynamics, toxic relationships, cyberbullying, workplace intimidation). Low self-esteem can lead to low confidence, anxiety and depression that impairs personal and work life. This book provides a practical approach to improving your self-esteem and helping you think and feel better. As it uses Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) techniques it will appeal to people who want a rational, evidence-based approach. I review books that might help clients with psychoeducation and practical tools to help themselves. Book review: Overcoming low self-esteem – a self help guide using cognitive behavioural techniques by Melanie Fennell.

As I explain to my therapy clients – changing the way you think and feel is really hard. It takes enormous effort. We’ve spent our entire lives building beliefs and ways of thinking and they are ingrained in our brains through neural pathway and become habitual. So you can’t expect to change things overnight. It takes effort and practice (there’s a great quote in the book: “New perspectives, in contrast, are like new shoes – unfamiliar and stiff, and not at first a comfortable fit”). And you will find that sometimes you revert to your old ways. Those around you may object to and resist the change in your behaviour. That’s why we talk about therapy requiring you to “do the work” – the therapist can’t do it for you. This book will help you on your journey.

**Overview of the book: “Overcoming low self-esteem – a self help guide using cognitive behavioural techniques” by Melanie Fennell**

This 2016 self-help book uses Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) methods. CBT is based on the approach developed by Aaron T Beck and is now widely adopted by the NHS as its preferred talking therapy – primarily because there is evidence of its effectiveness Overview – Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) – NHS. CBT appeals to rational, cognitive styles – those who might find it harder to talk about their past or emotions and who like a “scientific” method of experimentation and the use of evidence. And as CBT makes use of recording difficult experiences (and assessing the strength of your reactions) it helps you measure your progress as you change your way of thinking and start feeling better.

While it seems long, at 380-pages, it is filled with worksheets for readers to use throughout the process to help cultivate healthy self-esteem. As well as many descriptive case studies and detailed examples of how the exercises might be completed. The author promises the book will take readers on a journey towards self-knowledge and self-acceptance.

It is an easy-to-read book that is written in a simple, straightforward style with no jargon – making it accessible even if you have no psychology or therapy training. It offers a source of help for those who do not engage in therapy. It is also good to use during therapy so you can also talk about your feelings, thoughts and progress with a mental health professional who can help you on your journey.

The author, Dr Melanie Fennell, has written other books on self-esteem. She was a pioneer of the CBT therapy in the UK and trains others in DBT at Diploma and Masters level. She is a member of research teams in the Oxford University Department of Psychiatry. Her interest in self-esteem grew from her work in depression. In July 2002, Melanie was voted “Most influential Female UK Cognitive Therapist” by the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies and in 2013 was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Association.

I previously reviewed an older guide to self-esteem Book review – Creating self-esteem by Lynda Field (March 2024)

What is low self-esteem?

Self-image, self-concept, self-perception, self-confidence, self-respect, self-worth and self-esteem are all aspects of the way we view ourselves, the thoughts we have about ourselves and the value we place on ourselves as people.

Our overall picture of ourselves comprises many things – national identity, racial and cultural background, social and professional role, life stage, physical appearance, likes and dislikes and psychological qualities to name a few. Self-confidence is about our feelings of the things we do successfully (competencies in social relationships and our general coping ability).

Self-esteem also refers to how we judge and evaluate ourselves and the value we attach to ourselves as people. The essence of self-esteem is your central beliefs about yourself: Your “I am…” opinions.

A healthy self-esteem is balanced. Low self-esteem is where your view of yourself is biased heavily towards the negative. There are 10 questions to rate yourself in a quick assessment – and there are lots of practical exercises to help you put new beliefs and behaviours into action.

Change takes time and the author asks readers to commit to the journey and daily action. A feature of CBT therapy is the concept of homework between sessions and the book supports this approach. Like CBT in therapy, there’s an emphasis on writing things down and completing forms that log your thoughts and feelings.

The author explores the impact of low self-esteem on a person – including:

Thoughts and statements about the self
Behaviour
Emotions
Body state

Low self-esteem often involves pattern of avoidance of challenges and/or underperformance at school or work. It can drive issues with relationships such as self-consciousness, over-sensitivity to criticism and disapproval, excessive eagerness to please or even withdrawal. Low self-esteem means you may avoid leisure activities or anything where there’s a risk of being judged. Those with low self-esteem may not take proper care of themselves.

The author explains that low self-esteem can be result of current problems (e.g. depression), consequences of other problems (e.g. anxiety) and can create vulnerability to other problems such as suicidal thinking, eating disorders, substance abuse and social anxiety.

Low self-esteem is on a spectrum – from when self-doubt is only triggered in particularly challenging situations to when it is triggered by a wide range of issues. The book helps you improve your self-esteem which boosts your confidence.

Understanding low self-esteem

Your view of yourself – your self-esteem – is a learned opinion, not a fact. And opinions can be changed.

The book explores how experience leads to low self-esteem and reinforces it. There is a helpful flowchart tracing self-esteem from its formation in childhood and how it is maintained in the present (e.g. such as workplace intimidation). The author says that understanding the origins of self-esteem is the first step towards change.

There are plenty of relatable stories that help explain different causes and presentations of low self-esteem. Showing in essence that the problem is defined by people’s bottom line in how they see themselves (“I am bad”, “I am not good enough”, “I am unlovable”) and how this shapes their “rules for living”.

It explores thinking biases – how we perceive and interpret things – that is like having a prejudice against yourself. There is a vicious cycle that keeps self-esteem going: negative beliefs about yourself which trigger further negative thoughts

It explains the human response to threat (our fight, flight, freeze and fawn responses) and the impact of negative predictions on your emotional state. Predicting that things will go wrong normally leads to anxiety. This may lead to subsequent avoidance of the perceived threat and possibly disrupted performance due to discounting success.

There’s sound advice to see your weaknesses, flaws and mistakes as simply part of being a normal, imperfect human being. Part of overcoming low self-esteem is to being able to notice and take pleasure in your achievements and in the good things in your life.

Self-critical thoughts also have a major impact on how we feel (mood and behaviour) and how we deal with our lives. Depression changes the way we think – it makes us more critical so may need to address that before tackling our self esteem.

In the techniques to undermine old, negative beliefs about yourself and beginning to instead cultivate healthy self-esteem there are three skills: awareness, rethinking and experiments

Question anxious predictions

There’s guidance on checking out anxious predictions. There are biases in anxious thinking – you overestimate the chances of something bad and underestimating your personal and other resources. There are suggestions to experiment with dropping your precautions. There are both hardcopies and downloads of record keeping sheets (with detailed guidance) on predictions and precautions to help you monitor anxious predictions:

Date
Situation/What you were doing when you started to feel anxious
Emotions and body sensations
Anxious predictions (what was going through your mind – rating 0-100% on how strongly)
Precautions or safety seeking behaviours – What you did to make anxious predictions from coming true

It guides you to stand back and question your predictions. A key technique used by therapists is Socratic questioning What is Socratic questioning? (Questioning skills). And consider alternative options to your usual behaviour and to set up experiments to test them out. There are worksheets to log: What did you do instead of usual precautions? What were the results? and What did you learn? (with good use of reflection). As well as the worst and best that could happen. There are plenty of examples and stories illustrate.

Explore self-critical thoughts

You are encouraged to question self-critical thoughts. Self-critical thinking is often learned early in life as part of our upbringing. With low self-esteem there is an automatic tendency to focus on the bad and ignore the good in you, to focus on weaknesses and ignore strengths.

Self-criticism paralyses you, makes you feel bad, is unfair, blocks learning and growth, ignores the realities and kicks you when you are down. There’s a worksheet for spotting self-critical thoughts. And like a lawyer you look for evidence in favour of or opposing your ideas. There’s also a helpful list of questions to help you find alternatives to self-critical thoughts – the idea of reframing is one I fully support and many of therapy clients have found it useful. Two big guns of communication – face-time and reframing

The author suggests you guard against double standards – for example, being more critical of yourself than of others. We are often more forgiving and kinder to others than to ourselves. Learning self-compassion is important.

The author notes that with low self-esteem there is a tendency to blame yourself for things that aren’t really your fault. And sometimes the expectation that you will be perfect: “Unless you are some sort of superhuman being, it is just not possible to get everything 100 per cent right all the time”. There’s a suggestion to create an inner advocate (I call this an inner coach).

Develop your strengths

The idea of working on developing your strengths (rather than focusing on your weaknesses) is central to one of my favourite coaching approaches (Helping people change: Coaching with compassion)

There are experiments designed to help you practice treating yourself more kindly and behaving in accordance with a new perspective. And there are lots of potential questions answered:

How do I question self-critical thoughts?
How do I think differently when feeling really upset?

She advises to watch out for “It should be different” thinking. This is discrepancy-based processing – considering the gap between things as they are and things as you want them to be or think they should be.

Change your thinking patterns

And mentions the rumination trap – going over and over the same negative thoughts and getting caught in an endless loop. You need to learn to be aware that rumination is present and respond to it differently – e.g. by directing your attention elsewhere. There’s a helpful reminder that the purpose of keeping records is to increase self-awarenesses and flexibility in your thinking.

Some types of distorted thinking or thinking biases (e.g. generalisations) are explored here. Often with low self-esteem, there is a negative bias in perception (i.e. it is hard to see positive aspects of yourself) and a negative bias in interpretation. She mentions that there is a taboo about thinking well of yourself – with many being seeing self-acceptance as equivalent to smug self-congratulations which is often learned early in life. Self-acceptance – a realistic appraisal of your strong points – is part of healthy self-esteem.

Enhance self-acceptance

There are two strategies for enhancing self-acceptance. One involves learning to be a good friend to yourself using three core skills (awareness, rethinking and experimenting). There is guidance on bringing your good qualities into focus. Helpful questions to identify your good points. I liked the idea of a regular daily slot (Daily Activity Diary) to consider you Positive Portfolios. It promotes awareness of what you are doing with your time and prompts you to give ratings of pleasure and achievement. Such a simple self-observation task might lead to the conclusion that you are not enjoying anything at all which may be a sign of depression

The second strategy involved introducing changes (the author calls them experiments) to increase your enjoyment and your sense of mastery and achievement when planning your day ahead. It goes on to explore your implicit day to day “rules for living” which may have been learned from parents or part of the culture you grew up with such as gender stereotypes, It explores the links between these rules for living and your bottom line.

Examine your assumptions

There’s a section to discover your implicit rules for living – for example, exploring assumptions using “If…then…” statements, identifying drivers (“Should”, “Ought, “Must”) and value judgements (statements about if you acted or didn’t in a certain way). And a downward arrow exercise to see the links.

You are guided to design to explore the payoffs and disadvantages of obeying your rules and considering alternatives. You are encouraged to prepare a written summary (there’s a worksheet and a full example) to consolidate what you have learned from experimenting with the new rule.

Plan for your future change

There’s a useful diagram (page 358) mapping out what the book has covered in self-esteem – understanding what it is and where it came from, the rules you operate under, how the cycle is maintained and how the book helps you break the cycle. And guidance on preparing your final plan for the future. It really summarises the whole process well.