I have always been a bit critical about self help courses – people charging lucrative amounts of money for books, CD’s, DVD’s and talks just to teach people to say good things about themselves. Always seems a bit dumb and pointless, and like it could never work.
Now it seems like my inner logic was right. BBC News were this morning reporting the results of a Canadian study (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8132857.stm) which found that the type of self help courses to raise self esteem where you say positive phrases about yourself only work on people who have already got high self esteem (and even then the effects are minimal). So the people who would need these self help courses, and need higher self esteem do these things, and then feel worse about themselves than they did in the first place! Inner conflicts take place because the person does not truly believe the statement about themselves, and so the negative thoughts this generates overides the positive thoughts.
And here’s the here’s the really amazing part: these programs generally discourage you from having negative thoughts about yourself. Kind of makes sense, right? Right? But it’s wrong! This research concludes that people with low self esteem are more happy when they have a balanced view of themselves, looking at both the positive and negatives.
So if you feel low, and want to feel better about yourself, don’t fall for the miraculous (and expensive) regimes of self help mantras that make you say “I am a wonderful person”, “I am completly happy with myself”, “Everybody loves me”. Simply look at it balanced: You will be wonderful to some people, you’re happy with some aspects of yourself but not all (no one is ever 100% happy with themselves), and while not everybody loves you there are people who do.
Do you disagree with me? Do you think self help can work? Do you think I’m over/underestimating the persons concerned? Then comment, I’d love to read any thoughts anyone might have. Tidy.