Self-Confidence & Counselling for Low Self-Esteem

When you are in a cycle of self-doubt and being constantly self-critical, Counselling for Low Self-Esteem can help you by challenging the negative view of yourself, helping you to form a more positive, confident self-image.

What is self-esteem?

Self-esteem is connected to self-confidence . . . how confident we feel in regards to our self-worth, how much we respect ourselves and how much we value our own abilities and strengths.

Signs of Low Self-Esteem

When your self-esteem is low, it is connected to feelings of not being ‘good enough’ and of disliking or even hating yourself. These feelings can then lead to:

Being self-critical, self-loathing and self-judging
Feeling inadequate, unworthy or undeserving
Comparing yourself negatively to others
Finding difficulty in asserting yourself
Doubting yourself and finding it difficult to make decisions
Feeling guilty
Thinking that you are to blame for things that are not your fault
Being overly-sensitive
Feeling eager to please others

Thus, low self-esteem can have a debilitating impact on living the life that you would like to live.

Where Does This Self-Doubt & Low Confidence Come From?

Early Life Experiences: Often, things from our past have led to a sense of low self-esteem . . . for example a past abusive or bullying experience. Often when we are young we feel that we have to live up to expectations that are either created by ourselves or by other people . . . Even the media, particularly when young can have a powerful impact on our esteem and the expectations and pressure we put on ourselves and then feel we don’t ‘live up to’.

Present Day Events: Sometimes it is not the past, but rather low self-confidence can be connected to a relationship in your life, or perhaps a recent trigger such as stress, another mental health problem or a physical illness or a bereavement that has caused you a sense of low self-esteem.

“Do you doubt yourself, are you self-critical? If so then therapy to build your self-worth can help.”

How can counselling and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy help?

There are a multitude of reasons that low self-esteem and low-confidence could have built up in an individual, and the process of counselling helps to reveal and recognise those causes, to bring about the changes you want to see.

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for low self-esteem

Negative self-beliefs

Low self-esteem and self-confidence are often connected to negative self-beliefs. Negative self-beliefs can become negative self-talk.

Individuals experiencing low self-esteem often hold negative self-beliefs about themselves, and thus think and talk about themselves in a negative way. This negative self-talk has often become so frequent, ingrained and ‘normal’ for the person that they do not realise they are doing it.

How we will work on your Self-Confidence in Counselling

Noticing and then challenging negative self-beliefs can have a very positive impact when working with low self-esteem and low-confidence. I can work with you in a cognitive-behavioural way to do this.

We cannot change events from the past, events that happen around us, or other people. However we can change our responses to these things . . . The way that we think about them. As a result, we can challenge the way we feel about ourselves, and as a result how we treat ourselves. CBT focuses on this . . . What are your self-beliefs? What are your triggers? How can you challenge your negative self-talk?

Perhaps you would rather come to therapy to access these practical tools? In which case, cognitive-behavioural therapy will be the right mode for you. It can be used instead of, or alongside, counselling for confidence.