Character And Self-Love

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.