Self-esteem is one of the core concepts in regard to our self-perception, self-worth, and self-understanding. Self-esteem is something that people refer to all the time, be it a mental health professional, a regular person, and everyone in between.
What Is Self-Esteem?
The word esteem comes from a Latin word aestimare, which means to estimate, to value, to evaluate, to judge. Self means that it’s about me, and I’m the one who’s estimating myself.
We estimate ourselves in terms of our worth, actions, skills, abilities, emotions, motives, and various other things. We do it consciously or unconsciously. Our estimation of ourselves can be correct, incorrect, or partially correct.
How Self-Esteem Develops
We are not born already being able to accurately assess the world and ourselves. Self-reflection is something a child starts developing as they become self-aware and develop a stronger sense of self.
In order for a child to develop a healthy and accurate self-esteem, they need mirroring, attunement, and validation from the caregiver. If the child doesn‘t get enough of it, their ability to self-assess is stunted or even damaged.
A big factor in the development of our self-esteem is the fact that as children we are dependent on our caregivers. By the nature of it, our early self-perception is mostly shaped by how we are seen by our primary caregivers and other authority figures. We internalize other people‘s perception of us and eventually it becomes our self-image.
All of this means that if our early environment provides a skewed perception of us, we develop a skewed self-esteem. This impacts our lives as the issues that stem from it follow us into our adulthoods and sometimes last a lifetime.
These issues manifest themselves on many levels: intellectual (false beliefs, magical thinking, unrealistic standards), emotional (depression, chronic shame and guilt), or behavioral (addiction, self-loathing or destructive behavior).
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