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

214 SELF-ESTEEM RESEARCH, THEORY, AND PRACTICE1. Self-esteem journal data.2. Week 5—Handout 1: Building a Self-Esteem Enhancement Project.3. Week 5—Program Evaluation Sheet (clinician’s design).ProcedureStep 1: Review. As usual, the session begins with a review of whatthe members of the group did with the problem-solving homework fromthe last session. Usually, one person presents a positive experience andanother presents an example in which the technique failed. Both experiencesare good grist for the therapeutic mill: the former reinforces, as anytestimonial tends to do, and the latter gives us an opportunity to practiceonce again. At this point, I have the group tell me what steps should beused as we walk through the particular problem. Such an active reviewreminds participants to use the method correctly and practicing it servesas an opportunity to reinforce the learning process. This step should takeno more than 45 minutes.Step 2: Introducing the Concept of Managing Self-Esteem. Remember,self-esteem involves facing the challenges of living in a worthy way overtime. The key to the program, then, is to help people find ways to buildon the work done to date and take it into the future with them. The criticalaspects of this endeavor include offering a way of continuing to beaware of self-esteem as a vital psychosocial resource in everyday life;finding individualized ways of becoming more worthy as a person andmore competent at living; and remembering how important it is tomanage self-esteem effectively so that, throughout life, self-esteem isearned more often than it is lost. One way to help participants that alsofulfills these requirements is to show them how to make self-esteem anongoing personal project, something that is done by developing a “selfesteemaction plan.”The activity for this week, which is presented in Building a Self-Esteem Enhancement Project (Week 5—Handout 1), is divided into twoparts. Part I is a visual representation of the idea of a self-esteem actioncycle. I organize this information as a cycle to show people how maintainingor increasing self-esteem works conceptually. Also, the diagram ishelpful in explaining the process before we go through its steps. Thus asthe chart indicates, participants are told that the current (or lived) statusof their self-esteem is where we must start, no matter where it is. Movingclockwise, the next step is to identify one self-esteem issue to work onthat is especially important or appropriate right now in one’s life. Oncesuch a goal is identified, we can use the information acquired from otherparts of the program to build an individualized self-esteem project. This