☞「心の丸窓」は心の杜の医師・心理師による心の診療に関するコラムです。

Round window of the mind is the column about mental therapy written by doctors of Kokoronomori Shinjuku Clinic.

Low Self-Esteem can be a basis of various mental issues, such as anxiety, depression, eating disorder, etc. If your Self-Esteem is low, it would be difficult to have confidence in how you are. You may get anxious with trivial mistakes or faults. And your self-evaluation of the result of what you have done would be always low.

Self-Esteem is developed by positive feedbacks from people around such as parents through childhood. Even if your physical or intellectual ability is lower than the average, if your parents praise your achievements, Self-Esteem can be developed and raised. But if you are already an adult and your Self-Esteem is low, what can be the remedy for it?

I think the low evaluation is a result of a high expectation. These high expectation is different from parent’s basic trust or belief in their child. If the parents believe in their child, even if their child gets low marks in its exam, they would not lose their belief and trust that their child has some unique values, which, probably, could not be evaluated by the school exam. 

It feels very difficult for many people to give up the high expectation, but if you can manage to give it up, you might be able to live more easily without pressurising yourself too much.

Gugan