To ask which therapy is best if you have very very low self esteem.

[Rogerthis]

Unsurprisingly, I've had a crap childhood. I've got poor boundaries, perfect for bullies, I'm not assertive. I self sabotage. I've just floated through life doing what other people want me to do. I've surpressed myself so much, I don't know who the real me is. I'm extremely shy and have social anxiety. Ive failed in life. I just haven't grown and blossomed in life. I've watched by the wayside as my peers flourish through their lives.

No career. I've been in low paid jobs all my life. No friends. A big fat failure. I literally hate myself and who I am. I am not suicidal but would be happy if I knew I was going to die soon. Id be more than happy to swap my life for someone who was going to die, if we could.

I've tried a few different therapies via NHS and self help but things are limited with NHS as only short term and only CBT was offered to me.

I desparately need help to improve my life so I can at least 'live' in whatever is left of it.

Psychotherapy might help. Maybe psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Some NHS trusts offer this but not sure if all do. Like any counselling - you may blah e to shop around to find the right fit.

Hope you find something that helps.

Have you heard of inner child work?

Good books recommended by the lovely MNers:

Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving: A Guide and Map for Recovering from Childhood Trauma

Book by Pete Walker

You Can Heal Your Life

Book by Louise Hay

How about taking a course on counselling and learn about the different types of therapy that exist? It gives you lots of insight into yourself, you meet people and it will give you some confidence that you’ve achieved something. Have a look at your local FE college for more info. There are so many different types of people who take the course from all walks of life.

It’s a good way to gain some understanding of the process and yourself.

In the meantime I’d recommend keeping a diary about your thoughts and feelings, and think about doing activities that make you feel positively about yourself and your body.

I wish you well, bear in mind that what happened to you was not your fault or your responsibility. You deserved a good happy safe childhood.

OP your description of your life could also be mine. What has helped me is to change my life completely. I moved away and found life completely different and very much improved.

User57327259 it's interesting you should say that as I have often felt the same. I'm still stuck in the same old town as I grew up in with the same people. I know have children's and feel like I'm trapped here now.

Generally the rapport you have with your therapist is more important then the type of therapy they do. Personally I found CBT quite harmful because it labelled some of my thoughts as wrong or nonsensical when they had helped me survive in the best way I could at the time, and I found it really insulting having someone try to correct my thoughts instead of removing my need to have them.

You’ll get lots of different answers, but personally I would recommend against psychoanalytic therapy as has been mentioned up thread - it can be really unhelpful if you’ve experienced trauma which it sounds like you have.

Looking at humanistic and integrative practitioners may be helpful for you. Above all else though, you need to feel right about them!

A trauma informed counselor would be helpful I think, someone who is familiar with the work of Pia Mellody (look her up) and the Meadows Clinic in Arizona. I also like Stacy Lee Hoch on youtube. The Body Keeps Score by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk is helpful.

How about taking a course on counselling and learn about the different types of therapy that exist? It gives you lots of insight into yourself, you meet people and it will give you some confidence that you’ve achieved something. Have a look at your local FE college for more info. There are so many different types of people who take the course from all walks of life.

This is a really bad idea. For any serious course, the OP would be required to undergo extensive therapy herself, in order to ensure she's in the right headspace to counsel vulnerable people without passing on her own hangups. When my sister trained, only two of a starting class of 30 completed the training 'on time' -- the others were all held back at various points to do more personal therapy as they hadn't yet made enough progress. I don't think that 'failing' to progress in that way would help the OP's poor self-esteem.

I'd suggest schema work personally.

@Vellum you’re not quite right, OP would have to start with a Level 1 or Level 2 course - neither involves seeing real clients and neither requires personal therapy. I agree it’s not a great idea though, these courses aren’t therapy and that’s what OP says she wants.

@Rogerthis a huge factor in the success of therapy is the relationship between you and the therapist. While schema therapy or person-centred work would be great for you, I think it’s also worth looking up counsellors online to see what they say about themselves and contact them to see what feeling you get from them. Try the Counselling Directory website - it has loads of profiles and sections about different types of therapy.

There are so many misconceptions about counselling/psychotherapy, I think learning about what it is and the different approaches is a good way to access help for yourself. I was not recommending it as vocational training for the OP.

As a pp says the Introduction to Counselling course is short and only a few people who take it go on to further study. It helps listening and reflection skills, but of course you’re not seeing clients, I’m not sure why you thought I might be suggesting that?

I second the poster's suggestion to move to a new place and travel (after lockdown obviously). There are no mirrors reflecting your past back at you when you travel. You can start a fresh story and can be anything you want to be.

I can't recommend any therapies but I wanted to comment as someone who has had a similar experience.

I'm a shy person and was painfully shy when I was at school. I've found self confidence and having boundaries have come through life experience. I'm still working in having boundaries but getting older and not caring so much what people think of you makes you bolder.

Don't give up hope of changing things in your life

OP there is a form of therapy specifically designed to address low self esteem and its causes. And unlike CBT it won't lead you to think that some of your feelings are wrong, even though it's true that they are unhelpful.

The therapy is Person Centred Therapy and it's been around for nearly 80 years now. The downside of PCT is that it can take a long time, and some people don't take to it because t can seem like you're just sitting there talking about yourself, and you think you can do that at home. However the therapist isn't just sitting passively as it might seem.

If you Google person centred therapy there are a lot of very short articles giving a skimpy outline, but I would really recommend this article by one of the world's leading PCT therapists who is also a leading academic on the subject. Although it looks long, it isn't written in academic language so it's very easy to read. Even reading the article, without undergoing therapy, might help you make a start at understanding yourself.

www.elementsuk.com/libraryofarticles/personcentred.pdf

I was going to say You can Heal your Life, Louise Hay.
It's a bit woo but some of the advice such as repeating things 100 times a day (something like that) actually work. Read the whole book.

The fact that you can see your faults, and realise you need to change, means you are on your way.

When I was shopping around I looked at an index and one just stood out to me, she specialized in childhood trauma and getting to the root of issues rather then just trying to change behavior without understanding why we do so.

IMO CBT actually kept me in crap work/relationship/family situations that I just shouldn't have been in (your life isn't shit just think it is, write down all of the evidence that your feelings are wrong in this column or you aren't doing the course properly, now give me a number higher then the one last week so we can prove this is working).

Knowing yourself, self esteem, learning to set and manage boundaries, assertiveness, managing the consequenses of trauma - these are all separate issues (even if they are linked they aren't all one thing.) You could start by researching each one.

Another thing you can do is learn to connect with yourself. Focus on one thing at a time and ask yourself what you like and what you dislike. Food, music, clothes, colours. Keep written lists.
Find one activity you enjoy and do it for pleasure.
Find one thing you are good at and build on your skill.

CBT has some useful skills; you can analyse and change your thinking style. If you are stuck in the habit of black and white thinking, or tend to catastrophise, you can change that.

Psychodynamic therapy involves understanding how your past life experience informs your current thinking and behavior. It gets to the root of problems and helps you recognise and understand your own inner voices, what they tell you, where they come from (they always come from somewhere) how to challenge them and how to incorporate new ways of relating and feeling. Self sabotage for instance is a character trait that often accompanies low core self-worth and has some very interesting and understandable dynamics driving it. I hope you find the help you are looking for.

Knowing yourself, self esteem, learning to set and manage boundaries, assertiveness, managing the consequenses of trauma - these are all separate issues (even if they are linked they aren't all one thing.) You could start by researching each one.

The problem with that is that they're not just linked - they are inextricably entwined. They are different manifestations of the same root cause, so addressing them one by one doesn't work. The others get in the way. You address that cause and then synergistically they all improve slowly.

I agree with moving away and starting over - it made the bad things feel so much further away. Time outside and my pets help me. I’m sorry you’ve been through such a lot and are feeling so low, your life has value. Think about where you’d ideally like to live, city, village, near a beach, near lovely parks etc and see if you can make a plan you can see hope in.

OP I could have written this.

I’ve often thought about moving far away like other posters have mentioned but my children are at school now and I wouldn’t like to move them even though I’m probably setting such a bad example of how to be as a person.

Is moving an option for you?

I second Person-centred, it changed my life so I may be biased! I have been homeless, signed off on sick benefits, agoraphobic for years, lonely and feeling I was capable of nothing to now having a (v stressful) job I love, owning my own home, 2 (incredibly annoying) DC, really good friends. I spent years thinking I couldn't cope with life, I couldn't even hold down a volunteer job in a charity shop, now I cope and thrive with stuff I'd never have dreamed of.

I would say shop around though, plenty of therapists out there who are a bit crap, plenty more who just aren't the right fit for you. So if you dont click with a therapist that doesn't mean there's something wrong with you, it's just not the right fit for you now. And as a pp said, the relationship you build between you has more effect on the success of the therapy than anything else, so it may turn out a therapist from a different approach is right for you.

I think often people try therapy and then go 'well I tried it but it's crap' when they just need a different therapist or different approach. You don't go to a crap dentist then say 'right I tried having a dentist but it's all bollocks', you go to a different dentist! All the best.

@Rogerthis and @lovinglavidaloca
I moved away as posted above. My DC were grown up and living their own lives. I do wonder if we all would have had a better life if I had moved away with the DC when we all lived together. With hindsight I think moving with the DC could have worked out so much the better for us all. There can be many reasons why children could have to move house while still at school. It would be better for the DC if you were happier and that would reflect on you all including the DC.

Psychotherapy was a gamechanger for me.

I found this book really helpful.

www.amazon.co.uk/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748?tag=mumsnetforu03-21