2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
Recently, at a seminar, one participant formulated an interesting question "is there any problematic, an actual psychological topic that affects every person?"
At first, of course, I wanted to answer in a stereotyped way that all problems are individual, depend on personal experience, a person's predisposition. But, nevertheless, this is not entirely true..
My impression is that there is one important topic that is the weak point of almost every person who comes to see a psychologist. The problem of intrinsic value. And already as a result of a weak feeling of their fundamental value, other difficulties arise: depression, anxiety, inner emptiness, low self-esteem, achievement orientation, problems in relationships.
A person who does not feel the value of himself spends a lot of energy and effort to maintain a stable psychological state, sometimes he is forced to do those things that are unpleasant to him, he is constantly waiting for external approval and still, unfortunately, does not receive it in the required measure.
In existential analysis, we, as a rule, talk about practical value (these are the achievements that are present in a person's life) and about fundamental value (this is a sense of one's own worth, let's say, by default, by birthright).
With the dominance of practical value, a person, as a rule, is constantly on the move, striving to achieve more and more new tasks, goals, the implementation of which allows, at least for a short time, but still feel their value and significance.
Of course, practical value is important for development, but if it is the dominant and key motivational force, then this will lead to a feeling of injustice, lack of freedom, and internal tension.
The inability to live and feel worth is formed by two options for development at the behavioral level:
- Excessive focus on oneself, self-centeredness, desire to receive recognition and attention from others as often as possible. Here we can talk about too high self-esteem. This behavior pattern is observed in people with pronounced narcissistic or hysterical radicals.
- Dissatisfaction with oneself, self-criticism, the desire to please others, not to take oneself into account. In this case, we are talking about low self-esteem. Such people often take responsibility of other people upon themselves, believe that they cannot afford much in life, and do not have the right to realize their dreams and plans.
In different life situations, a person with a weak sense of self-worth can use both versions of strategies.
The difficulty of working with the topic of fundamental value lies in the fact that it is impossible to speak, think or know about your value, you need to feel it. And how can this be done if there has been no such feeling for many years?
This is probably the deep theme that a person comes to in the course of long-term therapy. Someone in six months, someone only after a few years. This topic does not lie on the surface, but it is the basis of most other problems.
Someone gains this feeling through a sensitive and attentive attitude towards themselves, through an internal dialogue. Someone has a sense of self-worth after working with biographical experience, with life attitudes.
When consulting with clients, we, as a rule, look for consonant images, ideas, associations that help to get closer to this feeling.
However, I would like to formulate a simple thesis, which is important to integrate into my perception of the world:
There will always be a person who does this or that action better than you. But there is not a single person who has such a set of qualities, abilities, feelings, desires that you have. There is no point in striving to do perfect or better than others. The important thing is to make it feel like what you are doing is good and right for you. This is enough, it is valuable. And what you are is valuable and important. And then, when you can feel the value of yourself, then you can already feel the value of another. And between you personal communication can arise and develop. That communication that will strengthen the value of each other and being in this world.
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