From the author: Published on the website www.psycall.org Low self-esteem is always associated with aggression towards oneself, primarily in relation to one’s love desires: “I hate myself because I I love another person, I need him (I want to enjoy a relationship with him).” Low self-esteem is a consequence of depression, the essence of which is hatred of oneself, of the living within oneself. In severe cases, this is an internal prohibition and aggression towards any possible pleasures, even those not related to relationships with other people (for example, anorexia). Aggression is directed at one’s own body as a source of needs and desires, which often leads to psychosomatic illnesses. This unconscious formula of attitude towards oneself may sound like this: “I hate myself, my body, because it needs someone or needs something.” On a conscious level, this can be expressed in shyness, timidity, fear of falling in love, becoming infatuated with someone or something and becoming dependent on someone or something. Since you can only get rid of your body by killing yourself, then, of course, suicidal thoughts and intentions may arise. An alternative to suicide are various slow methods of suicide and self-destruction - chemical types of addiction (drugs, alcohol, etc.), since they give the illusion of apparent control over one’s body and independence from other people. The task of increasing self-esteem, therefore, is to realize the negative relationship (and this is not always clear to the person himself) to his own body, to his own sexuality (his own love desires). This is not the same as caring about your appearance and attractiveness to others, although recognizing in yourself the desire to please others and attract them is already good, you already want something. But, in this case, the body can be just a tool to satisfy other people's desires. The beautiful Marilyn Monroe said that her body is a thing with which men satisfy their sexual fantasies. Numerous trainings aimed at teaching methods of seduction (how to attract a man, how to please him, how to control him, pickup training) teach ways to manipulate other people’s desires, teach how to evoke the feelings of another person, while one’s own sexuality remains blocked. Of course, after each victory (“Another one fell in love / another one was seduced”), self-esteem increases, but only for a while, then depression overtakes again, again you need to make sure of your relevance and attractiveness, and the years go by, the body ages, and do it everything is more difficult, despite all the tricks (diet, plastic surgery, etc.). A person does not believe in someone’s love for himself, cannot reciprocate it, because he does not love himself. Now, about the origins of this hatred - it is hidden in the past, in relationships with parents, and, above all, with the child’s mother . This is an anxious, unhappy and dissatisfied mother in her personal life, with an absent or weak father of the child. In this case, the child finds himself in a situation where he is forced to take responsibility for what happened between his parents, for their misfortune. Sometimes he is told this directly: “We got married only because I was pregnant with you!”, “Dad wanted a boy, but because you were born, he left me!”, “I sacrificed my personal life for you! and so on. It turns out that the child is to blame for the fact that adults were unable to enjoy relationships with each other, while the relationship between a child and an adult is equated with relationships between adults, an equal sign is put between adult genital sexuality and the child’s need for a tender relationship with an adult (just This is not enough in a relationship with a child, but more control to ensure that he is neat and clean and not interested in what confuses an adult). The madness of a mother is that she puts her child in the place of her husband or lover, and makes him responsible for her “adult” dissatisfaction..