Sunday, September 16, 2018
I am going to confront a large subject,
and I expect my comments to be controversial. I have noticed that
many in psychiatry teach self-esteem and self-love instead of
self-improvement. Someone told me that loving yourself is where it
starts. No, that is putting the cart before the horse. Loving
yourself is not the start of the process; it is the end of the
process. Rather you improve yourself, and then there is more in
yourself to love.
In many cases teaching self-love is not
the right solution. In many cases loving oneself as is, is a mark of
bad taste and lack of self-criticism. Is it appropriate that you love
yourself if you are Ted Bundy? Once on an Internet depression support
group an obviously depressed person was saying that he was a bad
person. Someone responded with screed including “you are a GOOD
person.” How on earth does he know if he is a good person? Maybe he
really is a bad person. You don't tell someone whom you know nothing
about that he is good.
The good news is that we are capable of
choice, and anyone capable of choice is capable of being a good
person. And I say this as someone who has gone from being seen by
most people I knew as a bad person to being seen by most people I
know as a good one.
Teaching self-esteem and self-love is
therefore in many cases misguided. If someone is a good person who is
getting taken advantage of, fair enough, teach them these things. But
it is not a panacea. Far from it. Teaching these things is building
the house on sand. Nothing real has changed, the person just feels
better about himself. That is a shallow foundation for a life.
Instead it is necessary to teach
character. It is necessary to develop good qualities. If you are
impatient, learn patience. If you are irresponsible, learn
responsibility. If you are dishonest, learn honesty. The more good
qualities you develop, the more there is about yourself to love.
So I believe that psychiatry has gone
off the cliff on this one. They should not be teaching self-love and
self-esteem. They should be teaching character. That way a real
change is affectuated, resulting in improvement in the person.
Following that improvement then comes self-love.
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