Self-Esteem Research, Theory, and Practice Toward a Positive ...

Major Self-Esteem Theories and Programs 145are severely mentally ill and has been the focus of a longer term researchproject (1993a, 1993b) aimed at testing its efficacy, something that isvery rare in this field.Second, the approach also brings up a self-esteem issue that most scientificresearch and practice tend to avoid. We encountered this questionin Chapter 3 when we looked at the humanistic approach to defining selfesteem,particularly in regard to the spiritual possibilities associated withits transpersonal school. Crocker and Park (2003, 2004) and Crockerand Nuer (2003, 2004) also made mention of this dimension of selfesteemwhen they showed how contingent self-esteem that is based oncompetence alone leads to a psychological dead end. Burns talked aboutthis issue using the metaphor of a ladder.If you feel worthless and inferior, you may start out on the groundbecause you have very little self-esteem. On the first rung of the ladderyou develop conditional self-esteem. . . . Once you have conditionalself-esteem, you can climb up to the next rung on the ladder. On thisstep you develop unconditional self-esteem. You realize that self-esteemis a gift that you and all human beings receive at birth. . . . On the nextstep, you can adopt the even more radical position that there is no suchthing as self-esteem, just as there is no such thing as a worthwhileperson or a worthless person. . . . This solution to the problem of selfesteemis in the Buddhist tradition because self-esteem is rejected as auseless illusion. . . . The death of your pride and your ego can lead tonew life and to a more profound vision. (1993a, pp. 186–188)Note that I am not necessarily agreeing with the position that “egolessness”is the ultimate goal of a search for self-esteem. However, such aconcern does raise some important self-esteem questions such as how oneunderstands it in relation to approaches that de-emphasize the importanceof the self or even see it as an obstacle to reaching “higher” levelsof functioning. Harter (1999) and others also notice this issue in relationto Zen. Having done some work in that area (Mruk & Hartzell, 2003), Ithink some insight may be gained by exploring the relationship amongvirtue, self-esteem, and selflessness. The connection is that acting virtuouslyoften involves behaving in ways that transcend the self, particularlythe ego. However, that line of thought is highly speculative at best andcertainly beyond the scope of our work.Summary of Findings about Enhancement ProgramsAt this point the phenomenologically significant question becomes whatdo these major self-esteem programs show us about how to design a goodprogram? In other words, is there a general structure that underlies scientific