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

A Two-Factor Self-Esteem Enhancement Program 201I always close this part of the session by offering participants the opportunityto ask questions about their results.Requiring people to consider both the areas in which they are strongas well as the areas in which they are weak is useful because there is a tendencyfor participants to pay too much attention to the negative aspectsof their self-esteem assessment. Indeed, allowing such a negative drift tooccur too often or too long in the group can actually reinforce self-esteemproblems. Also, we saw that increasing success is a valid route to selfesteemand it is sometimes better to encourage this possibility by workingwith a client’s strengths rather than with their weaknesses. Somepeople suffer such serious self-esteem problems that they can only affordto work on increasing what little strength they have before they canaddress more difficult challenges. Participants are then instructed to starttracking these positive and negative self-esteem themes in their journals,which should help them to increase their awareness of self-esteem as theylive it.Step 4: Finding Sources of Self-Esteem. Now that we have assessedself-esteem, it is important to be aware of its potential sources, especiallythose that are most readily available within the context of ourown lives. The handout for this activity, Finding Sources of Self-Esteem(Week 2—Handout 3), lists each major source of self-esteem we found inthe research, namely, personally significant achievements or successes,evidence of influence or power, acceptance or being valued by others, andvirtue or acting on beliefs. It is helpful to point out that these four sourcesof self-esteem are based on competence (achievements and influence) andworthiness (acceptance and virtue). After I describe the characteristics ofeach source, I include an example of a recent experience I have had ineach area. Then, the participants are asked to try and identify one or tworecent experiences of their own in each of the four areas.Some people complete this activity quite easily, but others have a hardtime with it because they tend to look for only major achievements, influence,actions, or acceptance. Occasionally, people worry that they do notseem to have much material to put into one or more of the categories, sothere is some value in having members share their work. Sooner or later, aperson says something like, “It makes me feel good about myself when Ifind my child waiting for me at the door when I come home from work,”or “Someone was having a problem doing something at work today and Iwas able to show him how to do it: that made me feel that I have somethingto offer.” Usually, others in the group then begin to look for small,but readily available, potential sources of self-esteem in their own lives.Another factor to be aware of when working with the group isthat self-esteem environments vary considerably. For instance, some