For some reason when you look in the mirror you don’t like what you see. You find yourself questing if friends really like you. You might even wonder if they just feel sorry for you. When you make a mistake you can really feel bad about yourself. Sometimes it even makes you feel worthless.
What Does Low Self Esteem Look Like?
Low self-esteem makes you doubt yourself and making a decision can be really hard. It interferes with all parts of your life. It affects how you perform in school or at work. It holds you back. Being held back, missing opportunities only makes it worse.
Left unchecked, this can lead to other difficulties like relationship problems, poor job performance, exhaustion and depression.
Help with Low Self Esteem and a Lack of Self Confidence
We can help you reduce your low self-esteem. A fundamental part of low low self-esteem is the disconnect between what you think you are capable of—which is low—and what you’re actually capable of. For many people with low self-esteem that hard to believe. But it’s true. And we can help you understand that.
Feel Less Doubt with Self Esteem Therapy
A counsellor at My Winnipeg Therapist can teach you techniques to help you feel less doubt about yourself, reduce the thoughts that make you question yourself and trust yourself more. You’ll learn techniques to feel better about yourself.
Successful clients know it takes time and commitment. And successful clients know it’s worth the work because the skills you gain stay with you for the rest of your life.
Become a more confident version of yourself. Make an appointment now and start feeling better about yourself and your life.
Common Symptoms of Low Self-Esteem
It May be Time to Seek Self Esteem Therapy
If you have any of these symptoms of depression for an extended period of time and they’re interfering with you living your life, then you may need to seek help from a qualified therapist. Having low self-esteem doesn’t have to be a life sentence. Our therapists can help you.
Three Types of Self Esteem
People with low self-esteem think they are worth less than other people. They value others over themselves and find it easier to trust others views and decisions over their own.
Inflated self-esteem happens when you have an exaggerated sense of your worth. You believe that you are more important than others. Being famous or being from a wealthy family can lead to inflated self-esteem. This is because people with money or influence experience entitlement, the belief that you have a right to certain things more than others.
If you expect that you have a right to things more than others, this can cause many mental health and behavioural problems. People with inflated self-esteem often lack self-control and are quicker to act with anger and aggression when they do not get what they want. Someone with inflated self-esteem may get angry having to wait in line at a store, believing they should be served first.
Low self-esteem makes you vulnerable to feeling criticized or rejected by others. You can feel hurt or wounded easily. One of the main reasons for this is that you have an active inner-critic. Those inner thoughts are busy putting you down. When you make a mistake or things don’t go as you want, the inner thoughts can get pretty harsh. It’s no surprise that you lack confidence and feel bad about yourself. And you believe things like you’re unloveable, can’t succeed or deserve less than others.
This used to be referred to as ‘Secure High Self-Esteem,’ but the psychological state is more about a balanced sense of self that is generally positive but not exaggerated. You have a more balanced understanding of who you are. You are aware of your strengths and your limitations. Failure is not a threat to your self-esteem. Instead, the experience of failure is taken in stride. You understand that you are not perfect, so mistakes and failures are expected. You can accept this because you don’t lose sight of your successes and qualities. This is a healthy awareness and acceptance of yourself as you are. In terms of mental health, the benefit is more on self-acceptance which leads to happiness.
Our Approach to Self Esteem Therapy
Is There an Effective Treatment for Low Self Confidence and Self-Esteem?
The good news is that therapy can improve your low self-esteem. People who experience low self-esteem have a distorted view of themselves, a bias that makes you focus on the negative things about yourself and minimizes or ignore the positives.
Treatment helps change that. But it isn’t going to give you an inflated opinion of yourself or make you arrogant. On the contrary.The goal is to help you have a healthy, balanced view where you accept good qualities and limitations.
Recognizing the origins of your low self-esteem
A therapist can help you identify and understand the causes of your low self-esteem. They assist you in identifying experiences that harmed your self-esteem. By identifying these adverse events, your therapist works with you to understand how they affected you.
Improving your self-esteem means taking a look at your patters of negative thinking. The kind of negative thinking that affect people with low self-esteem are sometimes referred to as ‘negative thinking traps’. These are traps our thoughts sound convincing, but they’re not reasonable or based on facts.
One common thinking trap that low self-esteem loves is ‘black and white thinking’ (also called ‘all or nothing’ thinking). For example, some friends ask me to help them move. “if I don’t say ‘yes’, they will be angry and I will lose them as friends.” Is that true? Are they really going to say, “Hey, you didn’t help us move. We’re mad at you and we don’t want to be friends with you anymore”? So you’re afraid of being rejected, but that doesn’t mean you will be.
This thinking trap throws up huge roadblocks in your mind and stops you from acting in your own self-interest and you end up doing things you don’t want to. It’s not surprising that black and white thinking stops you from setting boundaries with people who are not good for you—who treat you badly and keep you feeling poorly about yourself.
CBT for Self Esteem
Cognitive behavioural therapy helps you work through the negative thinking patterns. Even though these thoughts are not true, they seem very convincing in our heads. And that makes them hard to ignore. Your therapist teaches strategies and techniques to identify, challenge and reduce these thinking traps.
While other strategies address unhelpful thinking patterns, CBT also helps us change unhelpful behaviours. Maybe you feel self-conscious around your friends and end up saying very little. But you later regret not saying anything and feel frustrated or angry at yourself. Your therapist teaches you techniques to gradually engage more with others.
Low self-esteem drains your energy. Doing the work and going through the therapy steps to reduce your low self-esteem can make you feel less self-conscious, worry less about what others think, and feel more confident in yourself.
How do I start counselling for low self esteem in Winnipeg?
If you’re ready to start counselling for low self-esteem, we’re happy to help you. You can book online, fill out the online form, or call us. Our Client Care Coordinator can answer your questions, see if one of our therapists might be a good fit, or help you start as soon as possible.
Other Services Offered at My Winnipeg Therapist
In addition to counselling for self-esteem, My Winnipeg Therapist also offers a variety of mental health services. Our therapists offer specialized counselling for men and male youth, relationship counselling, marriage counselling, anxiety treatment, PTSD treatment and trauma counselling, and low self-esteem counselling. Contact our Winnipeg counselling clinic today to get the help you need to move forward with confidence.