Self Confidence and Low Self Esteem

Understanding Self Confidence and Low Self Esteem, Causes, About and Treatment

Whilst self-confidence and self-esteem are usually linked, they are not the same thing. Self-confidence is the way feel about our ability to carry out tasks and roles. Self-esteem refers to the way we feel about ourselves, the way we look, behave and think.

We all have an ‘Inner Critic’, the voice inside our heads that passes judgment on ourselves and on others and determines how we perceive ourselves and make meaningful sense of the world. People with healthy self-esteem engage with their ‘Inner Critic’ in a way that enables them to work through life challenges and feelings of vulnerability  and strengthen their levels of emotional resilience and self-acceptance. People with low self-esteem tend to believe everything their ‘Inner Critic’ tells them, letting an often false, outdated, unrealistic script run the show.

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What is Self Confidence

Self Confidence is state of mind. When we feel confident, we accept ourselves and believe in our abilities. When we don’t feel confident, we can become stressed, anxious, unfulfilled and ultimately, unhappy.

How we feel about ourselves is often influenced by our past experiences, both positive and negative. The things we experience in our everyday lives, how we – and those around us – react to those events, can all have a significant impact on how we view ourselves and the world around us.

What is Self Esteem

Self Esteem is the opinions, feelings and thoughts you have about yourself. Although childhood experiences play a role, self-esteem can and does evolve and change in response to life events and experiences. The changeable nature of our self-perception is actually good news, because it means that you can change the way you feel about yourself so that it enhances your life and increases self-confidence.

What Causes Low Self Confidence

Low self-confidence is something many of us suffer with. It can be a result of many factors, such as fear of the unknown, low self-esteem, or fear of how other people see us. This lack of confidence can hold us back from developing both personally and professionally.

Automatic thoughts are an internal monologue that runs alongside our daily life, usually outside of our awareness. Automatic thoughts can be helpful or unhelpful. They can be realistic or unrealistic. We are so used to this running commentary that we rarely even notice it. What we notice is the feelings that the commentary creates. For instance, we may be unaware of our automatic anticipation of failure or success in a given situation, but we are aware of whether we feel anxious or calm.

What Causes Lack of Self Esteem

There are many possible causes, we are especially in our childhood. Factors that affect self- esteem include: unsupportive parents, teachers, careers, friends who are bad influences, stressful life events such as divorce or moving houses, trauma, abuse, poor performance (school, work, personal), mood disorders such as depression or anxiety.

How we see ourselves may be influenced by friends, family, colleagues, peers, or even the media. Big, memorable events such as a traumatic experience can have a significant impact and can cause our sense of belief in ourselves diminish.

Those with low self-esteem generally have low self-confidence too. Having said this, people with low self-esteem can have confidence in certain areas and those with high self-esteem may lack confidence in certain areas.

Treatment of Low Self Esteem and Low Self Confidence

Yes, hypnotherapy is a very powerful tool for targeting the root cause of low self-esteem. It can help prevent those negative, overly critical thoughts from telling us how to feel about ourselves and empower us to rid ourselves of these negative thinking patterns. Hypnotherapy can help you reprogram those old patterns, so that you interact differently with your ‘Inner Critic’, generating new helpful beliefs and thought patterns so that the outcomes are more supportive of your enjoyment of life and your highest good.

Erickonian hypnosis as developed by Milton Erickson’s (spanning over 50 years) it sparked a fundamental shift in modern psychotherapy and revolutionised the practice of hypnotherapy. Ericksonian hypnosis recognized as an highly effective type of therapy. It allows the clients to identify or resonate with their own strengths, abilities and resources that can assist in resolving the issues the seek to change. He developed the art skillful communications combined with observation and expectancy. He understood that the client’s resourcefulness is the key to solving their own problem, and the role of the therapist is to help them find the way to it.

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is a treatment that research has shown is the effective for remedying low self-esteem. Cognitive behavioral therapy is the cutting-edge treatment of choice for most psychological problems, designed to be brief, problem-focused, and active.

Our Lake Macquarie Psychotherapy Treatments

Can Change Therapy offers the following treatments in Lake Macquarie and Newcastle: