This question appears more and more often in discussions, on forums and even in articles by specialists. With this formulation, it seems that “self-esteem” is some kind of object that can be picked up from the floor. However, as we will see below, in reality the situation is a little more complicated. First, let's understand the concepts. And we will immediately see that behind the word “self-esteem” there is not one, but three whole words: 1) I2) I evaluate3) myselfAnd if to the first and third seem to have no questions, but with the advent of the second the situation becomes an order of magnitude more complicated. First of all, what does “evaluate” mean? This means correlating something with something according to some criteria. For example, how a teacher evaluates a dictation student? Evaluates by the presence of errors (i.e. deviations from the correct spelling) of words in the dictation text. If one deviation is revealed, then you need to give a rating of “four”. Two deviations – “three”, etc. And what do we compare with what when we talk about assessing ourselves? This is where we discover the first interesting point. There is no general object that we can call “ourselves” in order to relate it to something else. This means that in reality there is no such object that we could point our finger at and say: “it is me whom I evaluate.” .Then what does a person mean when he says that he has “low self-esteem”? In fact, he is not talking about some abstract concepts. In general, they are of little interest to anyone, except perhaps academic psychologists. He talks about his negative experiences that arise in certain specific situations. For example, a person may feel shame when he receives a reprimand from his boss. Or puts off a new project for fear of failure. Or is often offended by his spouse for various reasons. If we Let's analyze his thoughts in a specific situation, then in the first case we can find, for example, the following chain: - the boss saw my mistake - he realized that I was a bad specialist - I would be fired - I won’t be able to work anywhere else - I won’t have money, and I will die on the street And in the second case, fear can be supported by such thoughts: - I won’t succeed - I will be disappointed in myself - I will consider myself a failure - I will stop doing anything at all - I will suffer and I will become depressed Resentment towards my spouse can be caused by: such ideas: - she doesn’t want to listen to me - she doesn’t care about me - she doesn’t need me - she will leave me - I won’t find anyone else and I’ll die alone This means that in all three situations we do not need to deal with the mythical “self-esteem”. And we need to remember and understand where and why our negative Assessments appear. In the first and third examples, they are associated with inadequate expectations from other people. If we formulate them very briefly, then such expectations boil down to the fact that “my happiness depends on another person.” In the second case, irrational beliefs based on negative experiences and failures in the past are added to the expectations from other people. As a rule, in such beliefs we can easily find all the basic errors of thinking. Next, we will need to rationally challenge them and formulate adequate and useful adult beliefs. And then learn to switch to them in specific moments and situations. As a result, we change our perception and begin treat yourself differently, and other people, and various life circumstances. Accordingly, emotions also change: from negative to positive.