To paraphrase Mark Twain’s famous quip about the weather, “A lot of people talk about self-esteem, but no one ever does anything about it.” Self-esteem has been identified as a “risk factor” in developing any number of mental, physical, and emotional problems. A strong self-esteem movement is alive in the world of education, attempting to raise a new generation of kids with generous amounts of self-esteem.

But for all the talk about “self-esteem” … we don’t really know what it really is. Self-esteem is an amorphous term which people tend to define how they wish, so as to reinforce the point they want to make. I plan not to do that. Instead, I’ll say up-front what I think self-esteem is: quite simply, it is the way in which one regards oneself.

Now, poor self-esteem is considered a risk factor for developing mood disorders. But is this really the case? Do people have poor self-esteem, then become depressed; or do they become a little depressed, develop low self-esteem, then get more depressed?

I have no idea. Nor do any of the “experts.” No research is being conducted on this issue — that I know of — and even if there’s some going on, it will take years to come to anything resembling a reasonable conclusion.

If a person has low self-esteem, this contributes to the “perception disorder” model that I’ve already posited. Things that happen to or around the patient, are interpreted according to their low regard for themselves. Similarly, it’s impossible for a person to learn to regard themselves better, without somehow dealing with the dark perceptions of life that they already experience.

It’s a vicious cycle, one that a person literally cannot get out of. Nor can anyone lift them out of it. Adding to it, is that a lot of depressives have been through difficult life circumstances, which literally have taught them to regard themselves poorly. The past is very tightly tied in with their poor self-esteem and perceptions. Telling a person to regard themselves differently, is not only ineffective, but it implies that the life events they’ve gone through, are of no account; this can make people feel even worse than they already do (“You mean, I went through all of that, for nothing?”)

Even so, that hasn’t stopped the self-help industry. There are more books available promising to raise self-esteem, than there are devoted to mood disorders. They are, however, all uniformly flawed, and in precisely the same way: They cannot show someone who regards him- or herself poorly, how suddenly to decide to regard him- or herself positively. It simply cannot be done. This may seem an extreme claim, but think about it: If someone has come to regard him/herself poorly over the course of years, having had life experiences which taught him/her to think that way, how can a book even begin to overcome that, merely by telling someone to think differently? Of course it won’t work!

Of course, some of the self-help books come close to admitting this; a few I’ read say that ultimately, self-esteem comes from “within.” Well, what does that mean to someone who doesn’t already have any self-esteem “within?” It’s like telling someone to make a soufflé when they don’t have any eggs and don’t know what eggs are. They don’t have the “equipment” to get the job done!

Proponents of cognitive therapy claim that their techniques will improve self-esteem, by giving someone a more “realistic” view of themselves and of life generally. To an extent, this is very possible. Teaching oneself to see things in a different way might improve one’s regard for oneself.

The chances of this happening, however, are rare, much rarer than the harm that is caused to one’s self-esteem, by virtue of being in cognitive therapy in the first place. This is obvious: When you begin therapy by telling someone what is “wrong” with their thinking, how will they learn to see themselves? Of course the patient will see him or herself as someone who is always “wrong.” Eventually this will harm their own self-regard.

In fact, there is no psychotherapy which is even marginally effective for depression, which doesn’t somehow convey the implied message that the patient is “wrong.” In turn, this makes it very hard for any of them to do much to improve the patient’s self-esteem.

What would be far more useful, of course, would be research into what gives people good self-esteem, and use the lessons learned to help patients improve their own.

But don’t hold your breath waiting. No causative research of this kind is being conducted. The only research being done, is in finding “risk factors” or “help factors,” that is, things which — statistically at least — appear to help or hurt self-esteem. While knowing these things is nice, it will only go just so far.

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