Finding the Self in Self-esteem
I decided to begin a study of self-esteem. Everyone wants it, but where does it come from? Do we build it? If so, I go back to the days when I built “things.” If I can describe the thing I want to build then I have a much better chance of actually building it. If I am building a dog house that is one thing, if I am building a doll house that is another. If I am building a human house that is something different yet. Merely nailing boards together does not take me closer to building a thing unless I know the nature of the thing I am trying to build.
Definition of esteem
So how do I understand self-esteem? Turning the words around, self-esteem is of course esteem of self. According to Webster, esteem is “the regard in which one is held”, and more helpful in the second definition, esteem is “to set a high value on.” Simple enough, to have self-esteem is to hold one’s self in high value or regard. But, what is self? It seems to me that if we have a clear picture of self, then we are much more likely to understand, and then be able to act on self-esteem. In counseling language, with a better idea of the nature of self, we will be better able to explore, gain insight, and then take action on those areas of self that we do not regard highly.
Self
I like to consult classic writers to establish a foundation for common but complex ideas. William James, the 19th century psychologist and philosopher, devotes a long chapter to “The Consciousness of Self” in his two volume work The Principles of Psychology.
According to James, “In its widest possible sense… a man’s Self is the sum total of all that he CAN call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account. All of these things give him the same emotions. If they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant; if they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down… not necessarily in the same degree for each thing, but in much the same way for all.” [Please excuse the gender tone, this was written in 1890]
Me and Mine
Included in James’ concept of “Self” are directly attached things like fingers and toes, as well as indirectly attached things like possessions and relationships. The two categories can be thought of as things that are “me” and things that are “mine.” The things that are mine include: My kids, my husband, my baseball team, my siblings, my friends, my car, my house, my possessions, my parents… and so on. Mine, is simply all things outside of me that I lay claim to for whatever reason. The concept of “Me” is a bit more complex.
The domains of “Me”
When we are doing an assessment in counseling we sometimes think in term of five domains that describe a person: Physical; mental; emotional; spiritual and relational. Taking this one step further, all things “Me” can be placed within these domains: the physical me, the mental me, the emotional me, the spiritual me, and the relational me. The first four I take as used in everyday language. The physical me includes my toes, the mental me my thoughts, the emotional me my feelings, and the spiritual me my existence. The relational me is not my relationships per-se. I have included these with things that are mine. I can think of the relational me as the part of me that is social and desires to relate to others. This is the part that exists even when there are no relationships for it to experience.
It is not critical for my purposes to finely distinguish between all of these parts of me. They are all interrelated and of course compose a fully integrated person. It is useful to know that I can at least think of these various components of me that I may take a particular interest in.
Self with a capital S
All of these things that are me and things that are mine are folded into one large “Self” with a capital S. This is the Self James is talking about and also the one we tend to think of when we consider Self-esteem.
Given the multitude of things that constitute “me” plus all of those things that constitute “mine”, “Self” is better thought of as an aggregate of all of the specific-selves. James states this point clearly while considering only the relational domain: “Properly speaking, a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him and carry an image of him in their mind. To wound any one of these his images is to wound him.” That is, in the area of relationships, a person will have as many “selves” as there are people to relate to.
One further complication (nobody said this is simple), each specific-self can be an actual-self or a potential-self. We as humans are constantly effected by our experience with what was, what is, and what might be. This effect applies to all of our “selves” as well. I used to be a country boy, but now I live in the city. I am a professional now, but was not always so. I will be a retired person… someday, and so on. I am aware of many past, present, and potential selves.
Self-Feeling
Given the effort we put into paying attention to and developing this vast array of specific-selves, it seems reasonable that we have an interest in how these selves are doing. James uses the term self-feeling, which I take as a broader term than self-esteem. He proposes that we have feelings about all of the selves that we claim. Again, self-feeling is directed toward what we consider to be “Me or Mine” as opposed to “not-Me or not-Mine.” Using James words, “I, who for the time have staked my all on being a psychologist, am mortified if others know much more psychology than I. But I am contented to wallow in the grossest ignorance of Greek. My deficiencies there give me no sense of personal humiliation at all.” He goes on to state “So our self feeling in the world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do. “ Further, “Neither threats nor pleadings can move a man unless they touch some one of his potential or actual selves.”
Self-feeling includes the entire range of feelings that we can have about anything, and is directed toward each of our “selves”. I “love” the color of my eyes. I “enjoy” the view from my height. I “appreciate” my quick wit. I feel sad about moving away and losing contact with my friends. I feel angry about my losses in the stock market. I feel child-like in my spiritual awareness. I feel guilty about my… whatever. Any person if prompted could construct a myriad of self-feeling statements.
Esteem is one of the self-feelings that a person may have about one of his or her selves. We very likely try to avoid a feeling of low esteem toward our Self or even toward a specific-self. We much prefer a feeling of high esteem. That is, we choose to strive for Self-esteem, and we may go to great lengths to protect the esteem of a specific-self we hold dearly. I do not challenge Self-esteem as a reasonable goal. However, it is clear to me that esteem-of-Self has to be built on the esteem-of-selves. Self-esteem has many dimensions, as many as there are things that I claim as “me” or “mine”.
Conflicts in self
One further complication is that there may be conflicts between the various selves that a person wants to identify with. James presents this dilemma, “I am often confronted by the necessity of standing by one of my empirical selves and relinquishing the rest. Not that I would not, in I could, be both handsome and fat and well dressed, and a great athlete, make a million a year, be a wit, a bon-vivant, and a lady-killer, as well as a philosopher; a philanthropist, statesman, warrior, and African explorer, as well as a ‘tone-poet’ and saint. But the thing is simply impossible.” Simply put, one specific-self may not be compatible with another specific-self.
Low self-esteem
As noted above, low self-esteem is but one among many possible self-feelings. If one of our specific-selves diminishes, or if one of our specific-selves grows, we have feelings about that. A waxing or waning of self is different however than a loss of self-esteem. I may feel bad that my material-self is diminished by my recent stock losses and still maintain esteem for my investor-self… things happen.
A person may hold a specific-self in low regard or even a “domain of self” in low regard. I may feel good about my accumulation of possessions and have high regard for my provider-self. At the same time, if I stop and think about it I may have low regard for my parent-self or even my relational-self. Part of the work of counseling is to find strengths, in that sense finding the specific-selves that are held in better regard is a useful task and helps build confidence. At the same time, differentiating the specific-selves that are held in low regard and targeting those for action seems more productive than working on esteem for the aggregate-Self.
Simply put then, we have many, many selves that we identify with. If any one of those is not held in high regard we may have a sense that our Self-esteem is low. Finding the source of a feeling of low Self-esteem needs to include a search for the specific-selves that are held in low regard. The building process has not been stated here. However, we now know that when building a regard for “Self”, we can better start by identifying and building a regard for a specific-self that is in need of attention.
Reference
James, William (1890). The principles of psychology (Vol. 1, Chapter X). NY: Dover Publications.