Self-esteem has reigned unchallenged in the field of psychology and mental health for more than 100 years.

This is highly problematic, because self-esteem does not exist. We are trapping people into a destructive way of thinking about themselves. In schools, this is particularly damaging.

Warped narrative

Self-esteem refers to the opinion you have about “you” as a whole: your whole self, not just parts of you. If you have low self-esteem, you feel bad about all of yourself.

Viewing self-esteem like that, you may begin to see the issues.

What about our belief that “high” self-esteem is preferable to “low” self-esteem?

Whatever the context, whatever the difficulty, the proposed solution is always that the person needs to boost, build or raise their self-esteem. However, does believing yourself to have high self-esteem have a uniformly positive effect on you and those you interact with?

The answer is no. Having and maintaining “high self-esteem” can ultimately lead to arrogance and narcissism.

We need a new psychology and a new, more optimistic construct. And all it takes to do this is to add one additional letter. We need to talk about “self-esteems”.

Multiple ‘self-esteems’

We have multiple esteems. We interact with others in many contexts and we feel differently about ourselves in all those different contexts.

Self-esteem is about all of you as a person. Self-esteems are about some parts of you as a person.

One of my younger patients, Clarke, had “low self-esteem”. He told me how he struggled with reading and writing. I explained to him that this was only part of who he was and asked him about his skills outside school.

At this point, Clarke became physically animated and his voice rose by an octave. Outside school, Clarke excelled at two skills: breaking and entering. He was very proud of being exceptional in this regard.

His esteem was low in relation to literacy, but high in relation to burglary.

Listening to Clarke then, it was clear that he did not have “low self-esteem”. He had esteems that varied according to where he was and what he was doing. This rule applies to all of us.

I urge you to start talking to young people about self-esteems. When you do so, you will give every child a compassionate a mirror to look into that offers many ways of seeing who they are, and what they can be.

Dr Tim O’Brien is a former lecturer in psychology and human development at the UCL Institute of Education. His book, Inner Story: understand your mind, change your world, is out now
@Doctob

This is an edited version of a feature in the 16 September issue of TES. Subscribers can read the full story here. To subscribe, click here. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here. The magazine is also available in all good newsagents.

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