Our first experience

First let me talk about how you get where you are. You participate in the world and gain what we think of as “knowledge” of how the world works. That is you see things, smell things, taste thinks, touch things and so on. You try to do things that are pleasing to you. Some things you try work and some don’t work. The sensory input that result from your interaction with the world are organized into knowledge. That is, you make sense of the experience and create a “mental model” for what that means to you. You use the mental model to guide future actions that accomplish what you want.

Take this silly example. Through experience you learn that walking with your shoes untied is very awkward. Your Mom informs you that having your shoes tied is very useful. At first she does this for you and you observe how it is done. You notice that having your shoes tied really does work better. Later you get instruction and eventually you tie your shoes yourself. You have both knowledge of the value for tying shoes and knowledge of how to do that for yourself.

On a bit of a side note, some people talk about “the child within” and want to heal or correct that child. I prefer to think that some of my models for how the world works are just older than others. I am not activating my “inner child” when I tie my shoes. I am activating a very old model for how I tie my shoes. There is not some very young person running around in my head telling me to tie my shoes. There is a very old but currently relevant model in my head for why tying shoes is important.

The need for change

Sometimes the old model needs an update, or just stops working in the current world. When that happens we need to think about change. My sense is that we go through change processes throughout our lifetime. Most of the time what we do works. Sometimes, something we did earlier stops working. We have changed or the world has changed and our models need to be updated to match these changes.

Changing old models of how we do things is a two step process. First, we have to recognize that the old model is not working and find a way of deactivating the old model. Then we need to consciously expose our self to new experiences that will build a new model that we think might work. In counseling terms, we find which old model is not working in the exploration phase of the counseling process. The insight phase of counseling tells us exactly how the model works now, where it came from, and what is not working about it. During the action phase of counseling we start to deactivate (or more technically, “deconstruct”) the mental model that isn’t working and build a new one.

With my shoe tying model, I honestly don’t know what happened. I am quite sure that for many years I tied my shoes with a single knot and that was not a problem. Some time ago I noticed that many of my shoes were becoming untied. Huh? I am an adult. I know that shoes need to be tied. Literally, my shoes were becoming untied! What the… ? Eventually I had to seriously think about what to do. Over time I “deconstructed” the model that a single knot in my shoes would work. Through observation and experience I decided that the single knot was no longer viable in the modern world. Actually, I think fewer shoe strings were made of cotton. More were made of synthetic material with a very slick surface. The slick surface doesn’t hold a know as well.

New experience

You get to a new understanding by a having a new experience. You can create the experience your self by being conscious that you are trying to make a change. That is, you observe that you do something in a certain way. You become even more familiar with that through close observation (This is essentially what scientist do). Now, consciously you determine what you want to change. You began to “deconstruct” the old model when you noticed it didn’t work. Now, you begin to replace it by trying to find what does work. The process looks like this:

Self observe
↓
Make a choice
↓
Try that
↓
Check the result

Over time, just like you did in the beginning, you gain experience with new thoughts, feelings, and actions on your part. The new experience is organized into new knowledge. The knowledge becomes a new model of how the world works. Eventually, when the new model works in a satisfactory way, you accept it as the model for how to do things in the world as it is today. It slides into your unconscious were it can be activated automatically.

Back to my shoe strings. Now, I double knot any shoe that has slick shoe strings. They never come untied. For simplicity, I double knot any shoe with strings on it. This may be overkill, but I don’t want to have a step where I stop and think, what kind of shoe strings are these, do they need double or single knots? I just double knot anything with a string on it. Now, I do this automatically. Really simple and it works well for me.

The short version of change is simple. We interact with the world and receive sensory input from it. Our mind is build such that it takes sensory inputs and organizes them into experience. Our experience allows us to make sense of the world and allows us to create mental models for how the world works. We use these mental models every day of our life. Sometimes one of the models needs an update. Then we deactivate the old model and build a new one by consciously creating new experiences for our self by changing the actions that we take. When we repeat these new actions and gain the associated experience, new knowledge is stored in our memory. We are building a new mental model that can be activated automatically when needed. This of course is simple for tying shoes. Sometimes a more experienced or trained person is needed to help us with more complicated changes. These people are called moms, dads, teachers, coaches, mentors, counselors, psychotherapists…

Outside Perspective

My thought is that anyone can benefit from counseling at some point in his or her life. It also seems likely that we can benefit from an outside perspective more often than we care to admit (especially if we are a man). Most of the time we can get the counseling we need from a mom, a dad, a coach, teacher, pastor, friend, or anyone else we trust who will keep our best interest in mind. Sometimes though, we need or prefer counseling from a trained professional. I have chosen that path myself on three occasions. If you feel you want counseling from someone who has more advanced skills, who is objective, and who is committed to your best interests, then you may want to see a professional counselor.

Emotions: Angry / Anxious / Depressed

The array of problems that people encounter has filled books so there is no way to cover all of them in detail. We need a more general way of knowing if counseling might help. One of the best ways that we have to evaluate our level of concern with a problem is through our emotions. Emotions are great signals for knowing what is going on with our life. We are mad, sad, glad, or afraid (the basic four) depending on how we evaluate a situation. Most of the time we take some action that corresponds appropriately to the emotion that is felt. We are angry and we pull together the energy to remove the threat. We are saddened by our loss and grieve for a loved one. We are happy about life and throw a party for our friends. We are afraid of falling so we move back from the edge.

When these natural emotional responses become chronic, extreme or inconsistent with events around us then they may be pointing to an unresolved issue. Terms such as depression, anxiety, anger management, etc. are used. In counseling, clients can explore the problems that lead to emotional upset. They develop better options and try new ways of dealing with their problems. If your emotional response to life has gotten out of hand, then counseling can help.

Stuck

Another good way of knowing if counseling might help is to ask whether or not you are adapting to life as well as you would like. Are you getting what you need? Do your plans work out? Are your relationships satisfying? Along this line, counselors tend to work with clients who “function normally” most of the time. This also means that, in at least some part of a client’s life, things aren’t going so well. Maybe you try to do nice things for your partner and get into a fight instead of feeling appreciated. The separation from your partner was over a year ago and you are still not moving ahead with life. You have a new baby and instead of feeling joyful you feel annoyed or anxious. You are burned out at work but still don’t know what you want to do when you grow up. You keep doing things you think you want to do and then quit in the middle and wonder why you even started. The list of course is infinite. If you want to develop a new approach to a life situation, one that works for you, then counseling may help.

Medical

Counselors generally do not resolve the more severe “medical” conditions. Psychiatrists and psychologists may be needed. (Here are some of the distinctions between the mental health professions) However, counseling is often useful in conjunction with other treatments. For instance, a person suffering from diabetes may become depressed as a result of the medical condition. Counselors are trained to help with this “event induced” depression. A person who is traumatized may need a physician for the physical trauma. But, they may also need a counselor to help them process the trauma itself. A person who’s “brain chemistry” is out of balance will need a psychiatrist to prescribe medications, but may also benefit from a counselor who can help them find ways to adapt to this fact of their life. So, even when the primary condition requires another discipline, counseling may be useful for “coping” with what has happened. If coping with a life event is where you need help, then you may benefit from counseling.

Counseling is a process

Hackney and Cormier (2005) describe counseling as a process directed toward the resolution of a problem. It is also important, and perhaps comforting, to note that counseling operates from a human growth and development model rather than from the traditional medical model. Ellis (2003) taught that people encounter life events through out their life span. An event might be marriage, illness, career change, job loss, good fortune, bad fortune, addiction, getting married, new activities, feeling stuck, or anything else you may name between birth and death. Most of the time a person’s response to these life events is adaptive. That is, people encounter a life event, respond, resolve the issue, and move on. Sometimes though, what we learned in the past doesn’t work “now.” Counseling is a process designed to resolve this kind of problem. I believe people grow and develop throughout their life. It is never too late, or too early, to grow and develop in ways that make life better for you.

Counseling is a hybrid

According to Kottler & Brown (2000) counseling is grounded in many disciplines. They state that “It is a hybrid of knowledge from philosophy, education, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and family studies.” They also point out that “…all life experiences - books, films, travels, relationships, fantasies, jobs, losses, disasters, and triumphs - help the professional to be more effective.” In my case, having a BS in Engineering, MBA, BA in Sociology, and MA in Counseling all help. Three decades of experience working in large corporations is helpful. A lifetime of experience and personal growth is helpful as well.

One of the Mental Health Professions

Kottler & Brown (2000) provide the following descriptions of what the various mental health professionals do. Note that counselors typically work with people who are “relatively normal” in how they function rather than with people who have psychopathological symptoms. There is however, significant overlap between the professions.

Counselors
Therapeutic interventions with relatively normal functioning clients who are experiencing adjustment reactions, developmental issues and problems of daily living including career, education, family, person, and esteem issues.

Psychologists
Diagnosis, treatment, and clinical management of persons with psychopathological symptoms and other severe mental disturbances.

Psychiatrists
Medical management of patients with clinically significant psychological problems; use of medication, hospitalization, and therapy to restore normal functioning.

Social Workers
Social casework and therapy to mediate relationships with social structures like schools, agencies, and health care facilitates.

Marital/Family Therapists
Systemic approach to diagnosing and treating problems in a family context. Extensive use of more active/directive interventions to realign family structures.

References:

Ellis, C. M. (2003). Lectures presented at Governors State University. University Park, IL.

Hackney, H and Cormier, S. (2005). The professional counselor: A process guide to helping. 5th ed. Pearson Education: Boston.

Kottler, J. A., and Brown, R. W. (2000). Introduction to therapeutic counseling: Voices from the field. 4th ed. Wadsworth/Thomson Learning: Belmont, CA

One of my favorite sources of “wisdom” stories is in the classic form of “fairy tale.” I still carry some of these stories around in my mind. The “story” of the blind men and the elephant comes to mind and has a message that “seeing the whole” is an important task. I used the story of the Ugly Duckling the other day… it seemed right at the moment… when I was thinking of how creative and special a client appeared who was trying to “be like everyone else.” Of course the Greeks, Shakespeare, and thousands of authors have been imparting their wisdom for thousands of years through the use of story.

But, narrative as used in therapy is more personal. How does a personal narrative help? Most of us are not kings, queens, swans, or princes captured in the body of a frog. Our stories may not have universal meaning, but they do have meaning to us. They do help us to attach meaning to our lives as we sort through the events of our lives.

Cognitive therapy as described by A. T. Beck (1979) is directed toward changing “the meaning of events.” Of course for events to have meaning, they must be told in context. An event told in context by a client is in effect a story set within the larger story of a person’s life.

In another technique Beck (1985) uses imagery to identify a client’s assumptions. “The therapist asks the patient to close his eyes and picture the earliest memory he has of a distressing experience as similar as possible to the one he is undergoing.” Again, if sufficient detail is added a picture forms, if context is added, we have a “story.”

An approach that is especially intriguing when dealing with trauma is called “Emotional Review” (Beck, 1985). According to Beck, “A three-year-old boy was in a non-injurious but traumatic accident on the freeway. For several weeks after the accident he would say, ‘Talk the accident.’ He had his parents describe the accident to him in great detail several times, and he in turn described it to other people. He seemed to need to review the accident in order to process it and put it in his long-term memory.” Put another way, the little boy wanted to “hear the story” so he could make sense of the experience.

Charles Whitfield gives strong support to “telling our story” in his classic, Healing the Child Within. He states “Telling our story is a powerful act in discovering and healing our Child Within [Self]. It is a foundation of recovery in self-help groups, group therapy, and individual psychotherapy and counseling.

The very first skill I learned in my very first “hands on” class was to listen. The very first activity was for each student to listen and track the “narrative” of another student. That is, we listened to each other and followed the other person’s line of thought. What we were doing was telling each other a slice of our “life story.” The text we used in that class was by Ivy and Ivy (2003). The entire book was directed toward conducting sessions with clients. Ivy and Ivy state “Listening is the foundation of counseling and interviewing. In the session, we seek to enable clients to tell their stories.” The skills we used in that first hands-on class are very relevant to what I do in every counseling session today.

The primary approach that I use today is detailed by Jeffery Binder (2004). A central part of this approach is to construct a “narrative theme.” This is done by having a client describe multiple narratives or stories. These of course take place within the client’s larger life story. The nice part of this approach is that it is very individualized and is the source of my theme “Solutions tailored to fit you.” As Binder puts it… “A case formulation constructed as part of a life story represents a diagnosis that is precisely individualized for each patient. The story uniquely associated with a patient should explain the source of interpersonal problems as well as help explain his or her distressing symptom and impairments in functioning.”

Simply said, telling your story both reveals the problem you are experiencing, and sets the stage for resolving the problem. Now that is pretty nice, and from a client’s perspective, not as painful as you might expect.

References:

Beck, A. T. (1979). Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders. Madison, CT: Meridian.

Beck A. T. and Emery, G. (1985). Anxiety Disorders and Phobias: A Cognitive Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books

Binder, J. L. (2004). Key Competencies in Brief Dynamic Psychotherapy. NY: Guilford Press.

Ivy and Ivy (2003) Intentional Interviewing and Counseling. 5^th ed. Pacific Grove, CA. Brooks Cole.

Whitfield (1987) Healing the Child Within. Deerfield Beach, Florida: Health Communications.

Beck proposes methods for “restructuring” these major concerns. It makes sense to me that the result of restructuring these maladaptive-assumptions (illusions) would be to “see through” them. That is, the result of therapy that restructures faulty assumptions is “wisdom. “ Now… that is cool.

What are my illusions? Beck outlines three areas and some of the maladaptive-assumptions people make that result in “major concerns.” These “illusions” are worth thinking about:

Acceptance

1. I have to be cared for by someone who loves me.
2. I need to be understood.
3. I can’t be left alone.
4. I’m nothing unless I’m loved.
5. To be rejected is the worst thing in the world.
6. I can’t get others angry at me.
7. I have to please others.
8. I can’t stand being separated from others.
9. Criticism means personal rejection.
10. I can’t be alone.

Competence

1. I am what I accomplish.
2. I have to be somebody.
3. Success is everything.
4. There are only winners and losers in life.
5. If I’m not on top, I’m a flop.
6. If I let up, I’ll fail.
7. I have to be the best at whatever I do.
8. Others’ successes take away from mine.
9. If I make a mistake, I’ll fail.
10. Failure is the end of the world.

Control

1. I have to be my own boss.
2. I’m the only one who can solve my problems.
3. I can’t tolerate others telling me what to do.
4. I can’t ask for help.
5. Others are always trying to control me.
6. I have to be perfect to have control.
7. I’m either completely in control or completely out of control.
8. I can’t tolerate being out of control.
9. Rules and regulations imprison me.
10. If I let someone get too close, that person will control me.

According to Webster, change means “to make different in some particular.” Frequently the change a client is looking for is a different outcome or result in their life. They say, I want to be happy; I want to stop being sad; I want to stop getting so angry; I want to fit in better. Before they sought therapy it may have seemed that things happen and that they arrive at a certain state due to “outside influences.” Usually by the time they get to therapy they have a pretty good idea that “it may be me.”

In counseling and psychotherapy we do not try to control the outside forces that impact our clients. We do not try to change the world the client lives in, maybe how they perceive it but not the world itself. What the therapist and client can do is work together to help the client respond in a different way to the world as it presents itself. As I describe in a different article, the way a client responds is determined by schemas or mental models of how the client interacts with the world.

So, what a client ultimately changes is a schema or mental model. But how is that change accomplished? What answers the question, how do “I” change? In brief-psychodynamic therapy (my basic approach) what we are looking for is a new understanding followed by a new experience. When a new experience is successful and repeated over time, a new mental model is developed.

The basic approach for understanding a person in their world, their situation, is to listen closely to their story, or narrative. When multiple situations are described we are able to see a pattern in how the client responds to particular situations. So the first thing the client does is tell their story. Sometimes the mere act of telling their story clarifies what is going on. Sometimes the therapist assists the client in clarifying what is going on. The hoped for result from telling, retelling, and clarifying a person’s story is a “new understanding” of how they interact with their world. A key part from a psychodynamic perspective is to find a pattern that is repeated over and over, even though it does not work. The repeated use of this pattern is what gets in the way of the client adapting to the world.

For insight oriented therapists, like me, we can sometimes be puzzled when the new understanding itself is not enough. The problem is that “seeing the pattern” does not always promote “changing the pattern.” When insight isn’t enough the client will say something like… Yes I see that, but what do I do? That response is the reason for this article. What is the final action the client goes through that creates the change?

This is where the new experience comes in. With a new understanding, the client is encouraged to try something different when they encounter one of their “problem” situations. Sometimes a new skill is involved, like asking for what they want. Sometimes a new attitude is involved, like believing they have rights as a person and that those rights can be asserted. Sometimes the new understanding leaves an opening for reframing an old situation in a new way. Maybe I wasn’t just weak, maybe I did what I needed to do then. But with a new understanding I can see that I am an adult now and have adult options.

In summary, when clients change they develop new models of how certain situations work. First they gain a new understanding or insight into the patterns they are using in current situations. With the new understanding it becomes clearer that other options are available. When the client tries other options, they in effect do something different. Doing something different creates a new experience. When the new experience is repeated it automatically creates a new pattern or schema. The client has changed.

So, how do “I” change? After all of the talking, feeling, thinking, discussing and so on, I do something different. Actually I try several things and find one that works for me. Then I keep doing what works until I don’t even think about it. My new pattern just works.

I was talking with one of my clients and we were discussing the end of a relationship. The ending of this relationship was particularly difficult. As I noted in an earlier article, we have selves that are related to all of our personal domains. We have the physical me, the mental me, the emotional me, the spiritual me, and the relational me. Each domain has multiple “selves.” For example, we have as many relational-selves as there are people we know. Given the array of selves that we maintain, including our relational selves, it seem obvious that some will be more important than others.

For men especially (this can be for women too), we may see our selves as a provider. It should come as no surprise that when we lose a job one of our important “selves” has taken a serious setback. Much in the same way, when an important relationship ends or has been changed dramatically, our sense of “self” can be put in disarray. If we lose a spouse, significant other, parent, or child the impact can be dramatic.

When we lose something, or when what we “know” has dramatically changed, we need to reorganize our overall sense of Self (with a capital S). Our ideas on who we are and how the world works will change. A client related that his world was “turned upside down” when he was not protected by his parent from abuse by a step-parent. People who experience a traumatic event may develop PTSD. They need to go through a process of rearranging their view of the world, their self in the world, their very existence. At a more moderate level, we need to do some rearranging anytime our sense of self has changed. When a critical area has changed, we may need to do some major rearranging of how we see our Self and the world we live in.

The thought then, is that some “selves” are more important than others, to us. When these selves are dramatically changed the impact is much larger to our overall self-organization. When people lose an important relationship they may feel “torn.” My sense was that my client’s relationship formed a central piece of her overall sense of Self, her self-organization. That is, that particular self provided an anchor point for structuring her many other selves.

So an anchor-self is simply one of several that play a particularly important role in our lives. Following the sailing version of the metaphor, when we lose an anchor we feel that we are “adrift.” Using the building version of the metaphor, when we lose an anchor things seem to “come apart.” When one of our anchor-selves is threatened or lost we can feel torn, lost, less than, disintegrated, pulled apart, dysphoric, adrift and so on. The impact of losing an anchor-self is much greater than the impact of losing one of the myriad smaller-selves.

If a smaller-self is threatened we may have a minor reaction. I am a Chicago Bears fan. If they don’t make the playoffs my Bears-fan-self can say, oh well, there is always next season. Now, if I was a Chicago Bear player or owner I might have a different reaction. When I lost an important person in my life it took much longer to regain the sense of who I am. It felt like a piece was missing and I needed to rearrange my Self, but without the missing piece. I needed to reorganize the view I had of myself. When we lose an anchor-self it is a big deal and will take a lot of mental and emotional effort for us to regain our sense of Self.

Knowing that an “anchor-self” is threatened or lost may help us to understand our current state of mind. We may better see how much effort, both mental and emotional, it will take to regain our sense of connection to the world and to our Self. We can know why we are feeling so fragmented. After that, we can begin to “put the pieces back together.”

On a more positive note, knowing what we see as our anchor-selves may help us direct our attention to maintaining and growing these important parts of our life. Knowing may also gives us a heads up if we are putting too much stock into one dimension of our true Self. Growth is always an option.

Solutions are ordinarily what people seek in counseling and psychotherapy. The person will have tried other ways to solve their problem. They may have used anger to push people away from a sensitive area. They may have become depressed, e.g. hopeless, about finding a solution. They may have self medicated to hide from the pain of an issue. The options are infinite.

One common place to look for solutions is in self-help books and psycho-education in general. I have referenced several books on this blog. Anger management classes teach about anger in general and present an array of tools. Work books on anxiety have an amazing array of tools. Yet, the question remains, which tool for which situation? What will work for me?

Psychodynamic theory holds that people develop response patterns to situations. The patterns can be called models, scripts, or more technically, schemas for how a person will respond to the world. When working with clients I frequently talk about the “scripts” that they follow. Each script was developed in response to a specific situation. If the script worked, or at least seemed to work, it was placed in the inventory of scripts available for dealing with life. When new, related situations arise an old script is rolled out, perhaps modified slightly and then applied.

As a baby, the script or schema may have been to coo and wiggle to gain affectionate attention. As adults, we just smile and look friendly. Crying may have been used to let someone know we were hungry or uncomfortable from a dirty diaper. Later we just complain about work, hopefully without so much crying. Some scripts or models were relatively simple like when we learned how to button our shirt and how to tie our shoes. Later we learned more complex scripts like what to wear to gain peer approval. Over the years we learned many scripts or schemas. We developed scripts for relating to friends, scripts for relating to significant others, scripts for hiding from our own pain. We put together several scripts and developed elaborate “models” of how to carry out more complex tasks in the world. We may have taken on the “role” of parent using a model developed from many scripts. We may have a model for how to be a “model” employee, and so on.

Any one person has hundreds or likely thousands of schemas, scripts, roles, and models for how to interact with the world. Many of these scripts work quite well. Hopefully, most work quite well. One of the primary approaches I use is to look for the “patterns” of what we do. The activation of schemas in a patterned way is dynamic. All of our models operate dynamically. We do not operate in a static world. Our minds are not static. We use schemas smoothly, constantly, interactively. They are mostly outside of our conscious awareness and their activation is mostly unconscious. The “dynamic” in psychodynamic is about how we order and activate the various schemas we use to interact with a dynamic world.

Unfortunately sometimes the scripts that we roll out do not work well in a particular situation, or do not work well in conjunction with each other. We may have a script to please other people. That in itself is socially useful. In order to be pleasing, we may use the script that says do what other people expect. Since we operate in a dynamic world, some of our real actions may not be what other people expect. These actions were activated by another conflicting script. Do we let someone know what we did and violate the please people schema? Do we hide what we did and maybe violate an honesty schema? Do we stop doing what we did and violate the action schema. The answer may be adaptive, or it may be maladaptive. A persistent answer that does not work may get us into what is called a cyclical-maladaptive-pattern (CMP).

Mostly scripts have been built up without conscious awareness. We do things, they work, and sub-consciously the script has been added to our inventory. It is no surprise then that when scripts don’t work it takes some effort to identify what is going on. The actual schema is hidden from our consciousness.

With some systematic effort, a therapist and client can “team-up” and develop an understanding of the dynamics of situations that are causing a problem. With this understanding, a specific script or set of scripts can be targeted for change. Out of the thousands of possibilities for change, a relatively small change in a script can make a very big difference. Learning to ask instead of manipulate can be very powerful. Learning to listen first might allow for being heard later. Knowing that your angry response is used to push people away from your secret can make a big different. That is not to say that making even a small change is easy. But making a small “targeted change” is much easier than attempting a book’s worth of change.

So, rather than beginning with chapter one of our self-help book and proceeding through all of the exercises in hopes that one will work, finding the script that does not work allows for a targeted change. The change needed is specific to one person and may be in Chapter 20 of this book, or in Chapter 1 of a different book, or the solution may be unique to the person and not in a book.

More succinctly, in brief-psychodynamic therapy I look for patterns that were learned in the past, are maintained in the present, and no longer work as desired. The changes I help the client to make are “tailored” to their individual set of patterns (script; schema; model; role; etc.). Said more succinctly yet, “Solutions tailored to fit you.”

They feel restless, agitated, and unsatisfiable. They lose their vitality. Vague, persistent physical symptoms show up like headaches, mysterious pain, and insomnia. These men often attempt to “self-medicate” with potentially addictive behaviors like alcohol or drug use, gambling, sexual affairs, workaholism, and reckless physical risk taking.

The key is that with male-type depression men report “feeling irritable” or feeling tremendously fatigued” rather than the feeling of sadness we associate with classic depression. The book is written for the partners of depressed men, but has useful information for anyone interested in understanding male-type depression.

Definition of esteem

So how do I understand self-esteem? Turning the words around, self-esteem is of course esteem of self. According to Webster, esteem is “the regard in which one is held”, and more helpful in the second definition, esteem is “to set a high value on.” Simple enough, to have self-esteem is to hold one’s self in high value or regard. But, what is self? It seems to me that if we have a clear picture of self, then we are much more likely to understand, and then be able to act on self-esteem. In counseling language, with a better idea of the nature of self, we will be better able to explore, gain insight, and then take action on those areas of self that we do not regard highly.

Self

I like to consult classic writers to establish a foundation for common but complex ideas. William James, the 19^th century psychologist and philosopher, devotes a long chapter to “The Consciousness of Self” in his two volume work The Principles of Psychology.

According to James, “In its widest possible sense… a man’s Self is the sum total of all that he CAN call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account. All of these things give him the same emotions. If they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant; if they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down… not necessarily in the same degree for each thing, but in much the same way for all.” [Please excuse the gender tone, this was written in 1890]

Me and Mine

Included in James’ concept of “Self” are directly attached things like fingers and toes, as well as indirectly attached things like possessions and relationships. The two categories can be thought of as things that are “me” and things that are “mine.” The things that are mine include: My kids, my husband, my baseball team, my siblings, my friends, my car, my house, my possessions, my parents… and so on. Mine, is simply all things outside of me that I lay claim to for whatever reason. The concept of “Me” is a bit more complex.

The domains of “Me”

When we are doing an assessment in counseling we sometimes think in term of five domains that describe a person: Physical; mental; emotional; spiritual and relational. Taking this one step further, all things “Me” can be placed within these domains: the physical me, the mental me, the emotional me, the spiritual me, and the relational me. The first four I take as used in everyday language. The physical me includes my toes, the mental me my thoughts, the emotional me my feelings, and the spiritual me my existence. The relational me is not my relationships per-se. I have included these with things that are mine. I can think of the relational me as the part of me that is social and desires to relate to others. This is the part that exists even when there are no relationships for it to experience.

It is not critical for my purposes to finely distinguish between all of these parts of me. They are all interrelated and of course compose a fully integrated person. It is useful to know that I can at least think of these various components of me that I may take a particular interest in.

Self with a capital S

All of these things that are me and things that are mine are folded into one large “Self” with a capital S. This is the Self James is talking about and also the one we tend to think of when we consider Self-esteem.

Given the multitude of things that constitute “me” plus all of those things that constitute “mine”, “Self” is better thought of as an aggregate of all of the specific-selves. James states this point clearly while considering only the relational domain: “Properly speaking, a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him and carry an image of him in their mind. To wound any one of these his images is to wound him.” That is, in the area of relationships, a person will have as many “selves” as there are people to relate to.

One further complication (nobody said this is simple), each specific-self can be an actual-self or a potential-self. We as humans are constantly effected by our experience with what was, what is, and what might be. This effect applies to all of our “selves” as well. I used to be a country boy, but now I live in the city. I am a professional now, but was not always so. I will be a retired person… someday, and so on. I am aware of many past, present, and potential selves.

Self-Feeling

Given the effort we put into paying attention to and developing this vast array of specific-selves, it seems reasonable that we have an interest in how these selves are doing. James uses the term self-feeling, which I take as a broader term than self-esteem. He proposes that we have feelings about all of the selves that we claim. Again, self-feeling is directed toward what we consider to be “Me or Mine” as opposed to “not-Me or not-Mine.” Using James words, “I, who for the time have staked my all on being a psychologist, am mortified if others know much more psychology than I. But I am contented to wallow in the grossest ignorance of Greek. My deficiencies there give me no sense of personal humiliation at all.” He goes on to state “So our self feeling in the world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do. “ Further, “Neither threats nor pleadings can move a man unless they touch some one of his potential or actual selves.”

Self-feeling includes the entire range of feelings that we can have about anything, and is directed toward each of our “selves”. I “love” the color of my eyes. I “enjoy” the view from my height. I “appreciate” my quick wit. I feel sad about moving away and losing contact with my friends. I feel angry about my losses in the stock market. I feel child-like in my spiritual awareness. I feel guilty about my… whatever. Any person if prompted could construct a myriad of self-feeling statements.

Esteem is one of the self-feelings that a person may have about one of his or her selves. We very likely try to avoid a feeling of low esteem toward our Self or even toward a specific-self. We much prefer a feeling of high esteem. That is, we choose to strive for Self-esteem, and we may go to great lengths to protect the esteem of a specific-self we hold dearly. I do not challenge Self-esteem as a reasonable goal. However, it is clear to me that esteem-of-Self has to be built on the esteem-of-selves. Self-esteem has many dimensions, as many as there are things that I claim as “me” or “mine”.

Conflicts in self

One further complication is that there may be conflicts between the various selves that a person wants to identify with. James presents this dilemma, “I am often confronted by the necessity of standing by one of my empirical selves and relinquishing the rest. Not that I would not, in I could, be both handsome and fat and well dressed, and a great athlete, make a million a year, be a wit, a bon-vivant, and a lady-killer, as well as a philosopher; a philanthropist, statesman, warrior, and African explorer, as well as a ‘tone-poet’ and saint. But the thing is simply impossible.” Simply put, one specific-self may not be compatible with another specific-self.

Low self-esteem

As noted above, low self-esteem is but one among many possible self-feelings. If one of our specific-selves diminishes, or if one of our specific-selves grows, we have feelings about that. A waxing or waning of self is different however than a loss of self-esteem. I may feel bad that my material-self is diminished by my recent stock losses and still maintain esteem for my investor-self… things happen.

A person may hold a specific-self in low regard or even a “domain of self” in low regard. I may feel good about my accumulation of possessions and have high regard for my provider-self. At the same time, if I stop and think about it I may have low regard for my parent-self or even my relational-self. Part of the work of counseling is to find strengths, in that sense finding the specific-selves that are held in better regard is a useful task and helps build confidence. At the same time, differentiating the specific-selves that are held in low regard and targeting those for action seems more productive than working on esteem for the aggregate-Self.

Simply put then, we have many, many selves that we identify with. If any one of those is not held in high regard we may have a sense that our Self-esteem is low. Finding the source of a feeling of low Self-esteem needs to include a search for the specific-selves that are held in low regard. The building process has not been stated here. However, we now know that when building a regard for “Self”, we can better start by identifying and building a regard for a specific-self that is in need of attention.

Reference

James, William (1890). The principles of psychology (Vol. 1, Chapter X). NY: Dover Publications.