I will often get client enquiries where people will request help with “low self-esteem”
Low self-esteem is one of those terms that can mean many different things to different individuals. When clients request assistance for this issue, they are not feeling good about themselves. They have also frequently fallen into a pattern of thinking in which they feel they are not meeting their own expectations or those of others. Self-esteem issues are very common, and I regularly see clients for this problem.
Sometimes this assertion of low self-esteem may stem from a specific life experience, and at other times it may result from a number of events that conspire to create this unhelpful belief. Before arranging any appointment, I request that each client complete a full set of client notes detailing what they mean by the term “low self-esteem” and what they specifically want from a session.
People who have low self-esteem often make unhelpful suggestions to themselves, which creates the feeling of low self-esteem. Essentially, the person’s imagination produces an endless spiral of self-evaluation that is not based on any hard data, yet becomes a real problem. Often clients become withdrawn from social activity and increasingly spend time ruminating about how other people may be thinking about themselves and forming the view that they are “not good enough” Often they will imagine that other people have a low opinion of themselves and that they are in some way lacking in skills, social abilities or some other area in life.
My experience is that, with issues of low self-esteem, the problem is rarely usefully addressed simply by analysing the past, but is better addressed by changing the thought processes that create this evaluative condition. Many clients become so engrossed in their own thoughts that they become insular, and their world shrinks. When I see clients in my Leeds and Manchester hypnotherapy clinics, as well as on Skype, we address how to think and feel differently. These changes usually occur over a relatively short period of time.