Get Help for Low Self Esteem

When you look in the mirror, you don’t like what you see. You don’t understand why anyone has anything to do with you. Most of the time you feel worthless and find it hard to trust your decisions.

Your low self-esteem interferes with all parts of your life. It affects how you perform in school, at work, how you behave with friends and family, and especially and how you feel about yourself.

If your life were a bike, the feelings of anger, shame, and doubt that come from low self-esteem are like a wrench that keeps getting thrown in the spokes. It stops you in an instant. It hurts. And it damages you.

Feelings of low self-esteem are not natural, or something you deserve.

The thoughts that are making you feel bad about yourself are rarely ever true. They are unhealthy thoughts and feelings that came from negative experiences, things that were said to you, or how you were treated. This could have happened when you were younger or it could be happening right now. Regardless, at some point, you simply accepted these negative things as the truth. They because a part of you, and you felt like you deserved them.

Unfortunately, these negative thoughts and beliefs you have about yourself get in the way of you really being yourself. They hold you back, lower your potential, and cause you to pass on opportunities. They may make you avoid challenges which are the times when you can use your strengths, abilities, and talents. These challenges are actually opportunities to grow and develop your best qualities.

So, take back control of your life, and rediscover what it’s like to feel good about yourself and who you are with therapy to boost your self-esteem.

Common Causes of Low Self-Esteem

  • verbal, or emotional abuse

  • being bullied

  • experiencing trauma

  • physical abuse

  • mental health issues including depression and anxiety

  • negative peers

  • negative thought patterns

  • breakdown of a significant relationship

  • neglectful, uninvolved or overly critical parents

  • financial problems and financial loss

  • loss of employment

  • ongoing physical health issues

  • physical disability

Are You Ready for Self-Esteem Counseling

We help you gain back your confidence through therapy designed to treat self-esteem. In therapy, you will address the self-doubt and self-criticism that have been getting in the way of you feeling better and doing more of what you want.

You will learn tools to reduce negative thoughts about yourself. Then, you will learn to see your qualities and strengths in a more realistic way.

If you’re done with the doubt and feeling bad about yourself then contact My Winnipeg Therapist. Then, you can meet with a counsellor for free a consult and schedule your first appointment.

Teen Boys and Poor Self-Esteem

Boys and young men do suffer from low self-esteem. And it can be really confusing. Maybe, you get the message on social media that you should be ‘tough’ and ‘handle it.’ But, that’s easy for you at all. So, you feel like you have to hold everything in and no one understands you.

Low self-esteem can be especially difficult if you’re a teenage male and young man. You are going through a time in your life when you’re just discovering who you are, and you’re going through so many changes. It’s confusing. And, it leaves you wondering ‘what am I supposed to do’?

As someone who struggled with self-esteem as a teenage boy and a young man. So, I know how hard it is to ask for help. I also know how painful it is to struggle in silence. And, I know how lonely it feels. But, I also know that if low self-esteem goes untreated, then everything can get so much worse

Signs of Low Self-Esteem in Boys and Young Men

  • spends more time alone in his room or allow away from others

  • has ‘friends’ but relationships are not close

  • has recently lost friends or has few or no friends

  • spends a lot of time playing online video games with other ‘friends’ he only knows online

  • easily frustrated by difficult activities

  • gives up easily when trying a new activity

  • refuses to do activities that seem difficult

  • controlling or bossy as a way of hiding feelings of not being good enough (smart enough, strong enough, big enough, good-looking enough)

  • hangs out with peers who are negative

  • does drugs or gets drunk often with friends

What Parents Can Do To Help Their Son

Both mom and dad’s attention is important now. Who your son identifies with the most, will tell you as parents, who may play a bigger role in helping boost his self-esteem, but both parents can help. Often in the teen years, boys are looking to dad for guidance, assurance, and acceptance (whether your son identifies as straight or LGTBQ). But, that doesn’t mean mom’s guidance is not important. Even another trusted adult in the boy’s life can play an important role in helping your child feel more confident in himself. This might be someone who he likes, enjoys being around, likes talking to, or learning from.

Simple ways you can boost your son’s self-esteem

  • he needs to feel both mom and dad’s acceptance and interest, so set aside time spend with him

  • let him know you love him—just for who he is—your son

  • if he likes doing stuff with mom, praise and encourage that

  • if he prefers doing stuff with dad, praise and encourage that

  • find something you know he likes and encourage him to participate

  • encourage, but don’t pressure

  • let him know you’re supportive regardless of what he does

  • if he’s not sure what he likes or is good at, help him find something

  • give him attention, show interest in what he does

  • it may be hard for him to talk about what’s going on because as a teenager, he doesn’t understand or have the language to express himself- so, let him know you’re there

  • cheer him on for his effort (not only the wins)

  • ask how he is doing—even if he sounds annoyed

  • let him know you care—and tell him

  • if he likes sports, go to his games

  • if he plays music or draws, ask to hear or see something

  • praise him for his achievements, successes, even the small ones

  • don’t let him get away with ‘that was nothing’ let him know that’s self-defeating

  • the more he is able to do, the more he will grow in skills

  • notice the changes and growth and let him know what you’re seeing

Is there an effective treatment for low self-esteem?

The short answer is YES!

Often low self-esteem is something that’s been there for some time before you realize it’s a problem. So, it’s not a quick fix. To be honest, it takes time and commitment. But, so does any important personal change. Noticing the changes is amazing and results in personal growth.

So how do we help you fix this? Research shows that one of the most effective treatments for low self-esteem is cognitive behavior therapy, or CBT, for short.

CBT is a therapy that’s specifically designed to reduce low self-esteem using the following approach:

Recognizing the origins of your low self-esteem

We’ll help you identify and understand the causes of your low self-esteem. Low self-esteem comes from negative experiences, relationships, events, and situations. Your counsellor will help you identify these experiences and understand how those situations specifically affect you. Giving voice to these situations and events helps in processing the negative impact they have had on you.

Understanding how negative experience caused your low self-esteem

Therapy helps you to understand how negative experiences caused your low self-esteem, and why. Through understanding these experiences, you can start to separate your identity from the messages you internalized from them. This reduces the impact they have on you. Unfortunately, when you’ve been treated badly, you think, ‘I deserved it’ or ‘it’s because of who I am’.

Accepting that your self-critical thoughts didn’t originate in you

In counselling, you will start acknowledging your self-critical thoughts and identify what’s causing you to have them. Oftentimes, people with low self-esteem have found the origin of their negative thoughts coming form parents, partners, ’friends’, siblings, work colleagues, teachers, and bullies. And, learning where these negative thoughts about yourself originated, you begin to understand that these critical inner voices are not you.

Sometimes, these critical thoughts can mutate into other words and phrases that can be even more hurtful than what was said or done to you. Therapy helps identify those, too. And, it’s important for you to separate who you are from those self-critical thoughts that came form someone else.

In counselling, we teach you how to replace those self-critical thoughts with a more supportive inner voice that’s actually on your side to help you.

Changing Patterns of Negative Thinking

Finally, improving your self-esteem means taking a big look at your patters of negative thinking. Low self-esteem is like a car and negative thinking patterns are the roads critical thoughts take to get to hurt you. Negative thinking is also known as negative thinking traps. These are traps our thoughts get stuck in, and they’re necessary for maintaining low self-esteem.

One common thinking trap that low self-esteem loves is ‘black and white thinking’ (also called ‘all or nothing’ thinking). This thinking trap throws up huge roadblocks in your mind and stops you from acting in your own self-interest and in doing things you don’t want to. It’s not surprising that black and white thinking stops you from setting boundaries with people who are not good for you—who treat you badly and keep you feeling poorly about yourself.

For example, you may have the black and white thought that “if I don’t say ‘yes’, they won’t like me.” So, you stop yourself from acting in a way that is more in line with what you really want. And, you agree to something out of fear of rejection.

Stop and think about how many times have your self-esteem has kept you from what you want

Negative thinking patterns get in the way of you speaking up for yourself when you need to—and in standing up for your wants and needs. So, in counselling, we work on identifying and changing these negative thought traps that give the inner negative voice its power. We neutralize negative thinking patterns, like ‘I’m a loser, so why should I stand up for myself.’ Those thoughts hurt, make you sad, frustrated, and self-loathing. Untreated, that only leads to more serious mental health problems like chronic depressions and anxiety.

So, self-esteem therapy helps you identify the self-critical thoughts and the negative thought traps that keep them working. With self-esteem therapy, we also give you techniques to build a positive view of yourself and a supportive inner voice. This changes how you feel about yourself and gives you the energy to take some risks.

You see situations and think, ‘I might be able to do that’ and ‘sure, I’ll give that a try.’ This happens because you’re committed to getting help and improving how you think and feel about yourself.

Because ultimately, you know that you want to feel good about yourself. And you can. And you’re ready for someone to guide you through the process.

Begin Self Esteem Counselling in Winnipeg, MN:

You deserve to feel better about yourself and silence the negative voices that are holding you back. Our talented therapy team can help. To begin counselling in Winnipeg, MN, follow these steps:

  1. Contact our counselling clinic to speak to our Care Coordinator
  2. Make an appointment for a free consultation with one of our compassionate therapists
  3. Begin self-esteem counselling and feel good about yourself and your life.

Other Services Offered at My Winnipeg Therapist

In addition to counselling for low self-esteem, our therapy clinic based in Winnipeg offers a variety of mental health services to help you feel better. Our counselling services include anxiety relief, depression counselling, teen therapy, and trauma counselling and PTSD treatment. We also offer online therapy for adults and teens living in the Manitoba province. Contact our counselling clinic to learn more.

Resources

*Whelan, A., Haywood, P., & Galloway, S. (2007). Low self‐esteem: group cognitive behaviour therapy. British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 35(2), 125-130.

Morton, L., Roach, L., Reid, H., & Stewart, S. H. (2012). An evaluation of a CBT group for women with low self-esteem. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 40(2), 221-225.

Waite, P., McManus, F., & Shafran, R. (2012). Cognitive behaviour therapy for low self-esteem: A preliminary randomized controlled trial in a primary care setting. Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry, 43(4), 1049-1057.