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As a measure of one�s sense of self-worth and
self-competence self-esteem is a judgment you make of
yourself by yourself. Just as people have reputations both
good and bad � you too have a reputation. Not the reputation
you have as seen through the eyes of others but as seen, so to
speak, through your own eyes.
As in the self-actualising tendency of Rogerian psychotherapy, self-esteem can be conceptualised as part of an internal driving force that moves
you toward becoming the best you can possibly be. Self-esteem
is not fixed and you are not born with it. It grows out of the
human tendency to develop to the best as circumstances (the
environment) will allow. For all of us it varies from
day to day; increasing or decreasing depending on the 'prevailing
psychological climate�
Is self-esteem fixed? No, it is not fixed and even for
individuals with high self-esteem it varies from day to day.
Clearly, if it were fixed then there would be little
hope that one could make any personal changes.
Is it determined by our childhood experiences?
As children we were bombarded with psychological 'messages'
from those significant adults such as parents and teachers? These
messages were not necessarily verbally stated but were
�coded� so to speak, in the behaviours of those we grew up
with. Neither were they necessarily given consciously and
intentionally by others. The quantity and quality of the
parenting varies from the inexperienced new parent doing the
best s/he possibly can, to the outright abusive malfunctioning
individual. Messages can be either positive or negative.
Positive messages provide unconditional acceptance of the
child and encourages healthy psychological development.
Negative messages on the other hand are flavoured with we only
accept you under certain conditions. Such
conditional-acceptance discourages healthy personal
development stunting them to develop within the confines and
expectation of others. It is as if all these conditions and messages
have been instrumental in how we set up or wrote our 'Life
Script'. It has been said that we write (metaphorically
speaking of course) a life script that determines our role in life and
how we act it out.
Back to the question of whether it is fixed
we can begin to answer that by looking at some recent
research: In 1990 a number of studies were
carried out in the United States (the California Task Force).
The outcome of these studies clearly indicates that just
small, simple, short-term psychological interventions can
bring about significant changes.
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