A lack of self-esteem can produce anxiety, that feeling of helpless fear, or depression, that feeling of self-hate. A lack of self-concept—not knowing who we are—can produce other horrors, such as a sense of pointlessness or invisibility. We are often mistaken about what we need when we are suffering, opting usually for relief rather than self-improvement.
We may find that the people who do us the most good to engage with are circumspect in their self-concept and robust in their self-esteem. They’re not constantly telling us how good they are—at their craft, at friendship, at life. They’re not constantly putting themselves down, either. They may possess a cool confidence in certain arenas, and they may look surprised when inexperienced whippersnappers claim to be equally expert, but they don’t spend much time with self-assessment.
Instead, they focus on getting a little better than they are now, and they focus on getting a little better by focusing on what they are doing rather than on the scoring system. I have been fortunate to meet several master clinicians in my life, psychotherapists who collaborate with patients to change their essential patterns of personality for the better. Not one of them thinks of themselves as a master clinician. The typical self-assessment, as expressed by one of them, is, “I think I’m starting to get the hang of this.”
Curious, Focused, and Circumspect
I mention expert psychotherapists because one way to look at psychotherapy is a chance to hang out with someone it’s good for us to hang out with. What makes them good to hang out with is not that they cheerlead, champion, or see us as special. It’s not that they try to relieve our distress directly. It’s that they are curious, focused, and circumspect. They relate to us as we would be well-advised to relate to ourselves.
I’ve written a bit (Karson, 2018) about the parallels between psychotherapy and the form of meditation that involves self-acceptance rather than self-appraisal. The therapist “provides interpersonal (versus intrapsychic) meditation, where the therapist notices the patient’s flow of thoughts without judgment, withdrawal, or pursuit.”:
“The point of meditation is to observe oneself without [a] filter, but isn’t that really a poor imitation of the real thing, the real thing being another person who sees you, who gets you, and still does not judge? Every other way we have of treating ourselves we learned from others, and so should acceptance be learned from others, to make it truly human and relational.”
Many studies have demonstrated the relationship between misfortune and negative self-concept (Melamed et al., 2024). The most common measurement of self-concept is the Rosenberg (1965) Self-Esteem Scale, with items like “all in all, I am inclined to think that I am a failure” and “I take a positive attitude toward myself.” But that definition of self-concept and self-esteem—having a positive view of oneself—makes sense only if we accept that the person is self-evaluating.
A better form of self-esteem is not to evaluate ourselves at all, but instead to concentrate on what we’re doing. I’d like a self-concept scale with items like this: “When I am with other people, my self-appraisal interferes with my listening, whether because I find myself worrying about whether they like me or because I find myself impatient to give them a chance to appreciate what I have to say.” Even more true than the finding that misfortune makes us think negatively about ourselves is that misfortune makes us think evaluatively about ourselves.
Skinner defined self-esteem as the feeling we get when we are good at something. We can improve our children’s self-esteem not by complimenting them but by teaching them, and especially by teaching them that learning involves setbacks and outright failures. Children with false self-esteem expect to be told that errors are not their fault; children with real self-esteem keep their eye on the ball, not on the coach.
Empathy Without Identification
The relational goal with other people should be the well-known “empathy without identification,” where we “get” other people but we don’t have to suffer what they suffer or act on their behalf. We may choose to do so, but we don’t have to. The reason literature is the greatest interpersonal guide is that we empathize with the characters, but there’s nothing we can do for them, so our identifications with them are transient. We are drawn to people who identify with us and champion us, but we are sustained by people who see us and take us in stride. Generally, people who see other people’s neutrality as unpleasant are living in a world of judgment, where neutrality is read as “not positive” rather than as “not on the spectrum of evaluation.”
The person we hang out the most with, of course, is ourself, so we, too, might want to let up on the positive self-talk and the negative self-talk and explore the benefits of welcoming curiosity and warm neutrality. We could try to provide for ourselves what Janna Goodwin (2021), at Grand Canyon, called:
“the glorious indifference of a universe that requires of me nothing. No apology. No flattery. No praise, pretense, or supplication. Yet, which stirs within me reverence, gratitude, and a sense of belonging to, well, everything.”