Self-esteem

A passing reference in a blog I read almost every day sent me looking for "Psychobabble that shields the seriously selfish," a 1999 essay by Theodore Dalrymple:

When someone says that he lacks self-esteem he says it as if he were denied something that is his of right. Merely by virtue of drawing breath, each person has the right to think well of himself. Are not all men created equal, in some not-quite-specifiable metaphysical sense? And is not man the paragon of animals, the beauty of the world, like unto a god? Should we not all, then, think well of ourselves? ....

Does anyone not know someone who is too full of self-esteem, who is pompous, puffed up, self-important, vainglorious, self-regarding and altogether too pleased with himself? Whose achievements or qualities are minimal, yet who seems walled around by an awareness of his own assumed superiority? And is it not the case that such inflated self-esteem is one of the most unpleasant qualities anyone can have, drawing immediate censure from almost everyone? ....

Many people come to me saying that they need to find themselves, on the assumption that somewhere buried deep within them, like a vein of precious ore in the Witwatersrand, there is a wonderful, exceptional, talented person trying to get out, about whom they will be able to feel good. The doctor is thus a miner in the hard rock of the personality. I sometimes astonish my patients by telling them that it is far more important that they should be able to lose themselves than that they should be able to find themselves. For it is only in losing oneself that one does find oneself. (emphasis added) ....

Anyone who even asks the question of whether he has sufficient self-esteem is, ipso facto, a lost soul. Whatever answer is given, the person is in trouble, in a state of profound error and confusion. It is a sign of our increasing self-obsession, of the narrowing of our emotional, spiritual and intellectual horizons, that a concept such as self-esteem should have assumed such importance and become central to so many kinds of therapy. I recall the words of Lord Bacon (admittedly not a man entirely without ego himself), which are as true now as they were when he wrote them: “It is a poore centre of a Man’s life, Himselfe.”

Theodore Dalrymple, "Psychobabble that shields the seriously selfish," The New Statesman, August 16, 1999.