How Psychotherapy can Help Improve Your Sense of Self
Counselling for self-esteem can help you learn self-awareness and develop a better, more sustainable relationship with yourself.
Do you have a harsh inner critic?
Are you a perfectionist?
Do you have trouble saying no or understanding where your boundaries are?
Do your relationships feel fraught and unfulfilling?
Many common life problems boil down to issues with identity and self-esteem.
You can call it self-definition, self-worth, self-knowledge or self-esteem, but it usually boils down to one thing - our relationship with ourselves.
Problems with self-esteem and identity can manifest in many more common life issues.
Often people who have experienced childhood emotional abuse and trauma will have ongoing and persistent issues with self-esteem and identity. These can in turn cause problems with:
Relationships - boundaries and communication, problems with friendships, issues with intimacy and problems in the workplace
Anxiety - trouble sleeping and relaxing, restlessness, workaholism, perfectionism
Addiction and addictive behaviours - self-soothing with alcohol, drugs, food or gambling
Depression - a feeling of joylessness and life not being worth living
Anger - inability to control or understand their anger and other emotions
Self-judgement and criticism - a powerful, untamed inner critic
Loneliness - problems finding meaningful and authentic ongoing relationships
Sleep - insomnia or oversleeping
Ongoing feelings of shame and worthlessness
Self-esteem counselling with me will look for the root cause underlying feelings of inadequacy or worthlessness.
For most people ongoing feelings of shame and low self-esteem can be traced back to issues within early attachment relationships.
This is because our identity and our relationship to ourselves is created through this first relationship with our caregiver.
This first relationship tells us not just who we are, but how we are in relationship to others, what to expect from the world and how to manage relationships.
Our attachment experiences form the bedrock of our social understanding and assumptions. These early experiences lay the groundwork for all our future relationships and often come into play without our awareness or acknowledgment.
Self-esteem counselling will help you learn to understand yourself and how you to relate to others.
It will help you see your blindspots and give you choices about how you react.
Therapy with a compassionate and understanding counsellor will help you tame your inner critic and develop compassion towards yourself.
As you slowly come to understand where your inner critic has come from and why it is a constant presence in your life, those critical voices will gradually become less powerful. Just growing your awareness around your constant self-judgement will help you become less in thrall to the habit of self-criticism.
Learning that the critic is not always right can be a huge win.
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