The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem – Nathaniel Branden

February 22, 2012

Devon Sampson Human Psychology , , , , , Leave a comment

Self-concept is destiny. If you have a high opinion of yourself, you’re more likely to get positive emotional feedback from others which will reinforce your strong self-image; if you have a low opinion of yourself, you’re more likely to get negative feedback from others, “proving” that you were right all along.

Healthy self-esteem correlates with:

  • rationality
  • realism
  • intuitiveness
  • creativity
  • independence
  • flexibility
  • ability to manage change
  • willingness to admit and correct mistakes
  • benevolence
  • cooperativeness
Poor self-esteem correlates with:
  • irrationality
  • blindness to reality
  • rigidity
  • fear of the new and unfamiliar
  • inappropriate conformity or inappropriate rebelliousness
  • defensiveness
  • over-compliant or over-controlling behavior
  • fear of, or hostility to, other people

“The union of two abysses does not produce a height.”

“Poor self-esteem places us in an adversarial relationship to our well-being”

Self-efficacy is the conviction that we are able to think, to judge, to know, and to correct our errors. It is trust in our mental processes and abilities. It is not the conviction that we can never make an error. It is trust in our processes, not necessarily in the outcomes.

“Self-esteem is not a substitute for the knowledge and skills one needs to operate successfully in the world. But it does increase the likelihood that one will obtain those skills.”

Physical manifestations of self-esteem:

  • eyes that are alert, bright, and lively
  • shoulders that are relaxed, yet erect
  • hands that tend to be relaxed and graceful
  • arms that tend to hang in an easy, natural way
  • a posture that tends to be unstrained, erect, well-balanced
  • a walk that tends to be purposeful
  • a voice that tends to be modulated with an intensity appropriate to the situation and with clear pronunciation

Pillar #1 – The Practice of Living Consciously

“We cannot feel competent and worthy while operating in a mental fog.”

“Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.”

Pillar #2 – The Practice of Self-Acceptance

“In the most fundamental sense, self-acceptance refers to an orientation of self-value and self-commitment that derives from the fact that I am alive and conscious. As such, it is more primitive than self-esteem. It is a pre-rational, pre-moral act of self-affirmation. It is a kind of natural egoism that is the birthright of every human being.”

“(Self-acceptance) is our willingness to experience, rather than disown, whatever may be the facts of our being at a particular moment.”

“The mind that honors sight, honors itself.”

We are not moved to change that which we deny in the first place.

When you have a thought, feeling, or emotion that you have trouble accepting, at least accept the fact that you’re resisting it.

“Chronic tension coveys some form of internal split, some form of self-repudiation.”

“If our liabilities pose the problem of inadequacy, our assets pose the challenge of responsibility.”

Pillar #3 – The Practice of Self-Responsibility

Mindset: “I am responsible for the achievement of my desires.”

“I am responsible for my own happiness.”

In every organization there are those who wait for someone else to provide a solution and those who take responsibility for finding it.

“Embracing self-responsibility not merely as a personal preference, but as a philosophical principle entails one’s acceptance of a profoundly important moral idea. In taking responsibility for our own existence, we implicitly recognize that other human beings are not our servants and do not exist for the satisfaction of our needs.”

Pillar #4 – The Practice of Self-Assertiveness

“Self-assertiveness means honoring my wants, needs, and values – and seeking appropriate forms of their expression in reality.”

There are some people, usually teenagers or immature young adults, that practice “self-assertiveness” by reflexively saying “no” to everything. But self-assertiveness is ultimately defined not by what you are against but by what you are for.

“Self-assertiveness asks that we not only oppose that which we deplore, but that we live and express our values.”

One of the ways we build self-esteem is to be self-assertive when it is not easy to do so.

Pillar #5 – The Practice of Living Purposefully

“To live without purpose is to live by chance…outside forces bounce us along like a cork floating on water, with no initiative of our own to set a specific course. Our orientation to life is reactive rather than proactive.”

“The root of our self-esteem is not our achievements, but those internally generated practices that, among other things, make it possible to achieve”

Pillar #6 – The Practice of Personal Integrity

To live with integrity is to have principles of behavior to which we remain loyal in action

The issue is not so much whether we are “perfect” in our integrity but rather how concerned we are to correct such breaches as might exist.
 
 
Guilt can serve the desire for efficacy by providing an illusion of efficacy, even if the situation was out of your control (“If I had only done X, it would have been different…”).

“The higher the level of consciousness of which we operate, the more we live by explicit choice and the more naturally does integrity follow as a consequence.”

The mindset that “only I will know if I lie” implies that you think your opinion doesn’t matter, and that only the opinions of others matter.

The six pillars provide a standard for judging parental policies (“Does this encourage self-responsibility?”, etc.)

The statement “I am enough” does not mean that I have nothing to learn and nothing to grow to, it means: “I accept myself as a value as I am.”

You cannot stimulate innovation and creativity without also focusing on self-esteem.

Psychological Visibility, Self-Image, and You

January 24, 2012

Devon Sampson Human Psychology, Original Content, Social Dynamics , , , , , Leave a comment

As conscious human beings, we have a subtle anatomical problem: we cannot directly perceive our body in its entirety. We have (or at least, should have) a sense of identity based on our thoughts, feelings, and values but we cannot see ourselves completely with our limited visual perception. The closest that we can come to perceiving ourselves totally is through external reflections.

We have a basic need as human beings to view ourselves in a positive manner. On a superficial level, this is accomplished by maintaining proper hygiene and dressing well so that your physical reflection in a mirror is agreeable. But our need for a positive self-image must also be satisfied on a deeper level.

For a moment, imagine if someone in your life built a life-size bronze statue of you. You would gain an immense sense of pride and would feel profoundly appreciated, especially if the architect was someone you had a great amount of respect for. But while few of us will ever get the chance to witness such an explicit and grandiose reflection of ourselves, our self-image can get valuable reinforcement if we are appreciated by someone who shares our values. This does not just apply to extremely confident, self-actualized people either. Consider the temporary satisfaction of an insecure womanizer who has just recognized that some party girl is attracted to him. Someone has perceived him in a positive manner and he feels psychologically visible as a result, even if the appreciation rests on the shaky foundation of her lack of standards.

I would like to stress that our human desire to feel visible and appreciated must not be confused with the irrational tendency of some people to derive their entire identity through the reactions and standards of other people. A person gains a natural, selfish pleasure from the appreciation of their identity insofar as it is reflected back to them by others whom they admire – but it is crucial that our hero first possess his own identity that is indepedant of other people’s opinions.

In Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead, the protagonist, Howard Roark, offers a memorable quote towards the end of the story: “To say ‘I love you’, one must first know how to say the ‘I’.”

Unfortunately, learning how to say the “I” is not an easy process. Like it or not, identity formation is a rational, conscious process; any other approach to it will result in a mess of random and arbitrary values which cannot be practiced in reality without contradiction.

Once you have devoloped an integrated, non-contradictory set of values you are halfway to full self-actualization. The other half of the journey is living your values without compromise. If you respect this process, your presence and sense of life will inspire people with similar values, and their recognition of you will allow you experience the abstract concept of your identity on the perceptual, concrete level of awareness.

(Edit: The natural corollary of positive reinforcement is negative reinforcement, and this is okay. To say that we should ignore our basic need for psychological visibility because we might not get it is like saying it’s bad to look at mirrors because sometimes you might not like what you see. Accept reality as it is and commit yourself to constant growth.)

Nathaniel Branden – Self-Esteem Articles

December 21, 2011

Devon Sampson Human Psychology , , , , , , Leave a comment

“Nathaniel Branden is a psychotherapist and writer best known today for his work in the psychology of self-esteem from a humanistic perspective (see self-esteem in humanistic psychology). A former student and one-time romantic partner of novelist Ayn Rand, Branden had a prominent role in promoting Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism.” -excerpted from Wikipedia entry on Nathaniel Branden

 

Yesterday I did some independent research on Nathaniel Branden, one of the key figures of the Objectivist movement. I was curious to find out how someone so intimately familiar with Rand’s philosophy had grown to reject it (or at least some aspects of it.) During the search, I came across a number of outstanding articles written by Branden that were particularly interesting to me because they represented the first legitimate critiques of Ayn Rand. Granted, the main article in which this came from also included vast amounts of (rightly deserved) praise for Objectivism as well.

As I continued researching, I discovered that Branden went on to do extensive research in the field of self-esteem, penning numerous books and articles on the subject. I’m just scratching the surface of his body of work, but so far I’m extremely impressed.

Here are my notes on the various articles featured on his blog, which you can find at NathanielBranden.com:

______________________________________________________________________

 

Self-esteem is the experience of being competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and of being worthy of happiness.

 

You cannot have a world that works, you can’t have an organization, a marriage, a relationship, a life that works, except on the premise of self-responsibility. (“Self-Responsibility”)

(People) have been taught that the essence of virtue is self-sacrifice. To a large extent that is a doctrine of control and manipulation. “Selfish” is what we call people when they are doing what they want to do, rather than what we want them to do.

High self-esteem seeks the challenge and stimulation of worthwhile and demanding goals. Reaching such goals nurtures good self-esteem. Low self-esteem seeks the safety of the familiar and undemanding. Confining oneself to the familiar and undemanding serves to weaken self-esteem. (“Our Urgent Need For Self-Esteem”)

The higher our self-esteem, the stronger the drive to express ourselves, reflecting the sense of richness within. The lower our self-esteem, the more urgent the need to “prove” ourselves—or to forget ourselves by living mechanically.

The higher our self-esteem, the more open, honest, and appropriate our communications are likely to be, because we believe our thoughts have value and therefore we welcome rather than fear the clarity. The lower our self-esteem, the more muddy, evasive, and inappropriate our communications are likely to be, because of uncertainty about our own thoughts and feelings and anxiety about the listener’s response.

“Self-esteem” is sometimes used interchangeably with “self-image,” which is unfortunate, because the concept is much deeper than any “image.” Self-esteem is a particular way of experiencing the self. (“Self-Esteem as a Spiritual Discipline”)

To observe that the practice of living purposefully is essential to well-realized self-esteem should not be understood to mean that the measure of a person’s worth is his or her external achievements…The root of our self-esteem, as I have discussed at length elsewhere (Branden, 1994) is not our achievements, but those internally generated practices that, among other things, make it possible for us to achieve all the self-virtues mentioned above. (“Nurturing Self-Esteem in Young People”)

To give a child the experience of being accepted and respected does not mean to signal that “I expect nothing of you. “Teachers who want children to give their best must convey that that is what they expect. Children often interpret the absence of such expectations as evidence of contempt.

Self-esteem is an experience. It is a particular way of experiencing the self. It is a good deal more than a mere feeling. It involves emotional, evaluative, and cognitive components. It also entails certain action dispositions: to move toward life rather than away from it; to move toward consciousness rather than away from it; to treat facts with respect rather than denial; to operate self-responsibly rather than the opposite. (“Answering Misconceptions About Self-Esteem”)

Excessive and inappropriate self-absorption is symptomatic of poor self-esteem, not high self-esteem. If there is something we are confident about, we do not obsess about it-we get on with living.

(S)ometimes when people lack adequate self-esteem they fall into arrogance, boasting, and grandiosity as a defense mechanism-a compensatory strategy. Their problem is not that they have too big an ego but that they have too small a one.

What shall it profit us to win the approval of the whole world and lose our own?

(T)o be effective, “praise” – or, more exactly, recognition – should be reality-based, calibrated to the significance of the child’s actions (in other words, not extravagant or grandiose), and directed at the child’s behavior rather than his or her character. Sweeping statements such as “You’re a perfect angel,” or “You’re always such a good girl,” or “You’re always so kind and loving,” are not helpful: rather than nurture self-esteem, they tend to evoke anxiety, since the child knows there are times when they are not true.

Neither a business, nor a marriage, nor a soul can be kept alive and healthy without continuous effort. Responsibility for appropriate action never ends.

The Truth About Internal Validation

December 2, 2011

Devon Sampson Original Content, Philosophy, Social Dynamics , , , , 1 Comment

Validation in general is defined as anything that affirms the truth or validity of one’s ideas, principles, or actions.

The true meaning of internal validation is lost on many in today’s society. To explain such a concept it is important to first describe its opposite: external validation.

External validation is the approval of one’s ideas, principles, or actions – as delegated by other people. It is the fuel that drives most people today and it plays a significant role in all of our lives, to varying degrees. It is easy to orient your entire life around the chase for external validation, but it is an endless and unsatisfying path.

As The Law of E3 states: “Since there can be no bias in favor of or against any individual, the expected value of all external circumstances is exactly zero.” So although external validation can make one feel good in the short term, it cannot be the foundation of long term self-esteem.

On the other hand, the idea of internal validation can also be a slippery slope if not defined properly. Too often I encounter people that claim to be internally validated but are really just affirmation-repeating dreamers that cannot sustain confidence for very long in the real world.

The very act of stating something as an affirmation implies that one is not entirely confident about that statement. Unsubstantiated self-talk, no matter how positive, is an act of resistance against reality, which means it cannot be effective in the real world. Positive self-talk is a symptom of self-esteem, not the cause.

So then what is the cause? Well if the search for external validation necessitates recalibrating oneself in order to be agreeable to other people’s standards, then a man (or woman) acquires internal validation by affecting his external environment in a way that is agreeable to his own standards.

However, this process requires an explicit understanding of one’s standards. This takes time, as well as true introspection. Without this understanding, you’ll just be fumbling in the dark – and then even when you find what you want, you won’t be able to tell if it’s what you’ve been searching for.

Internal versus external validation is the difference between being an infallible skyscraper and being a rickety Jenga tower. All that it takes to be the former is personal clarity and congruent real-world action.