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.

You might find it's as simple as no longer comparing yourself to others. Cutting some people out of your life who make you feel bad about yourself. Going on a social media diet.

I hear you OP. I would say person centred, humanistic therapy. And jump in with everything you have. You do deserve to feel better about yourself, you might not believe it now, but every single one of us does. And most of us are carrying around massive amounts of baggage that just increase our misery as we shell it out at each other too.
In the short term, every time you look in the mirror, try and catch any negativity and say something nice to yourself instead, or just smile. Start looking forward to seeing yourself. Force yourself to do this is you have to, initially anyway. You want to try and build a relationship with the most important, neglected person in your life, which is you. And you are so worth it.
Good luck.

OP, I could have written your post too, so my thoughts really go out to you

I've been having integrative therapy since July last year to work on my self-esteem. My therapist 'warned' me at the start that self-esteem work is hard and lengthy, but I've felt so many improvements already. It's a combination of talking about the past, thinking about links and triggers and establishing new behaviour patterns and boundaries. I'd really recommend this sort of approach.

Wishing you all the best

Schema therapy

Another vote for schema therapy here - it's made a big difference to how well I function after a crap childhood (and I'd already done two loads of CBT, so I empathise with your finding that CBT wasn't quite enough to help). I managed to get a new, more senior job, escaping a bullying boss and getting a decent pay raise in the bargain, thanks to the skills I'd gained from schema therapy

It's time consuming, but worthwhile. It'd help you make sense of how your various childhood experiences have led to all the difficulties you mention, but also give you tools to overcome the emotional legacy of those experiences and the automatic patterns we can all get stuck in when we're triggered by traumatic stuff. In some places, you can find it available on the NHS, but that's unfortunately not always the case.

I'm having trouble finding a good online summary that really covers how it works - this is kinda the best I could come up with:
www.harleytherapy.co.uk/counselling/what-is-schema-therapy.htm

This is a bit wordy, but good if you like detail: www.schemainstitute.co.uk/understanding-schema-therapy/

There's also a self-help book called, rather cringily, "Reinventing your life" by Jeffrey Young (the psychologist who created the approach), which'll give you a feel for the approach.

You may see schema therapy described as being for people with borderline personality disorder, but don't let that put you off if you feel that your problems are different to BPD. I have recurrent, treatment-resistant depression. My therapist describes schema therapy as really being for anyone with signficant difficult or traumatic childhood experiences, including unmet needs, that are affecting their adult functioning (and of course, many people with BPD have had such experiences, hence why it's helpful for them).

If you want a read, try Melanie Fennel 'overcoming low self esteem'. Psychotherapy or schema therapy would be good.

I had compassion focused therapy, which is specifically aimed at low self image. It helped me to gradually change my attitude towards myself and think of myself with kindness and acceptance.

It's very powerful.

Yes, I was going to suggest person centred counselling too. A good match for your user name since it was founded by Carl Rogers. Maybe it's a sign?!

Firstly I just want to say I'm so sorry you've had such a hard time and such a crap childhood. ⁣
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Schema therapy is good. Alternatively, Compassion-focused therapy is good and specifically focused on understanding self-criticism and working with it.⁣
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Best of luck OP, I hope you catch a break with this and find something that's useful for you x

Alot of you have suggested person centred / humanistic therapy. The only thing is I can't afford to go to a therapist Kong term for a year or so. Is there a way I can learn to counsel myself?!

mynameiscalypso kistanbul have you tried schema therapy for yourself? Did you have similar problems to me?

I can relate to some of what you say for sure; I have long held beliefs about myself from childhood that I'm not good enough which have manifested themselves in all sorts of ways. I have had phases of having schema therapy and it's hard but very useful to deal with the underlying issues. As some pp have said, I do think though that having a good relationship with your therapist is probably more important than the mode of therapy (other than CBT which is slightly different). Schema therapy involves a degree of attachment between therapist and patient so you need to be able to trust them.

There are lots of great therapists on YouTube & they talk about work you can do yourself. For example reliving traumatic childhood experiences but with you the adult there with you as a child, giving that child the love & support they should have had but didn’t receive. Be with your child, talk to her and support her. This work you have to do on your own. Find therapists on YouTube that resonate with you. Read books about it (all the ones recommended here are great) and journal, a lot of people find journaling very therapeutic. You could probs even do emdr online (again lots of YT videos on that). And spend time in nature appreciating the beauty of the world around you, so simple but it does work wonders, practice gratitude. I found the perspective of Eckhart Tolle very helpful too, less inward looking ego driven thoughts, less past & future and more present. All these things help.

Thanks I'll have a look on YouTube.

Last year I had hypnotherapy and in one session he tried inner child work. When I met my inner child I felt ashamed of her, I didn't like her. He wanted me to give her love but I didn't want to. I was disgusted of her. I disliked her. I felt awful. We couldn't get past that feeling I had. He said my issues were really really entrenched and then we moved onto other stuff as we couldn't make progress.

Do you really feel that way about you as a child? You now as an adult can you find compassion for a little girl in an awful damaging environment? My concern with trying inner child work hypnotised is that you are meeting your child as the child (or your subconscious you). You need to meet her and talk to her as a compassionate adult who sees the bigger picture, this is conscious wok. Patricia Sterry at the Block Clearance foundation might be of help too, their website has a lot of useful information.

If you’re looking for anymore reading, some books I really enjoyed when I was at the start of my journey are Alice Miller’s The Drama of being a Child and Dr Arthur Janov’s Primal Scream.

WellIWasInTheNeighbourhoo yes I really do feel that way about myself as a child. It's me isn't it. It's that girl that I hated then and still do. I don't think I have liked myself or been happy about myself ever. Even when I look at my childhood photos of myself when I am conscious I actually feel the same way too.

It sounds like you might have complex ptsd, try reading from cptsd: surviving to thriving and see if it resonates with you. This isn’t easy to fix and you probably do need to see someone. I do recommend Patricia Sterrys clinic it’s quite an usual approach but I know people who have been helped enormously. In the meantime in lockdown just trying to take your focus out of yourself is helpful, opportunities to help others can make a huge difference. People who volunteer through charities or church gain a great deal themselves, a focus on giving allows you to be more outward looking. You might feel you have nothing to offer but simply offering the shared experience with people who feel the same is powerful. Pour yourself into learning about these issues, empower yourself with knowledge and take baby steps, always being mindful to be gentle, patient & kind with yourself.

@Rogerthis

yes I really do feel that way about myself as a child. It's me isn't it. It's that girl that I hated then and still do. I don't think I have liked myself or been happy about myself ever. Even when I look at my childhood photos of myself when I am conscious I actually feel the same way too.

There are two possibilities here. Either you were told (and treated) as a child that you were worthless and hateful, to the point where you have absorbed that so completely into your self image that you can't let it go. OR you are in some way believing that you were responsible for the way you were treated, and that you should have stood up for yourself and as an adult you hate yourself for not doing.

Can you articulate (and I may be wrong above about the only two possibilities - there may be something else) just why you hate your child self so much? What was so disgusting about her?

I could spout platitudes about what happened to you was in now way your fault, that the adults were responsible for their own behaviour - but just saying it doesn't help you in the slightest. You have to find a way to make peace with yourself, and unpicking the feelings about your child self is key to achieving that.

Your self sabotage is an indicator that you place so little worth on yourself that you make sure no-one else can hurt you by hurting yourself first. By guaranteeing that anything you have or do that is good is ruined because you don't believe that anything good should happen to you. Because sabotaging yourself maintains the image of yourself that you are hateful and don't deserve anything nice in your life, so you make sure nothing nice is allowed to happen.

The one thing I would ask you to take on board though, is that your childhood has taken away your adulthood so far. Please try to find a way to overcome this and not let it take the rest of your life too. And if you haven't, please read the article I linked on person centred therapy by Brian Thorne. It's absolutely not just about the practice of PCT. it explains how and why we develop the feelings we have about ourselves and how much they harm us.

Hi, OP, person-centred therapist here. Though really, the relationship with the therapist is more important than what modality or approach they use. A trusting relationship with a therapist can help you learn about yourself - and knowing how you feel is where you begin to develop your boundaries. In terms of time - a bit longer may be better if you want to address something deeply rooted, but blocks of shorter term work interspersed with time to act on what you have learned about yourself can work well too. You could do an introductory counselling skills course and see where that takes you, but it’s not essential.

Hi op,

I really feel for you. It really sounds like cptsd to me. I have the same and have been having person centered therapy for 5 years and it has helped me shed a lot of very old patterns and beliefs about myself.
I am fortunate as I got funding for therapy because of the origins of my trauma. Is there anything about your childhood specifically which has caused this? I ask because there are organisations which can help. My funding ended a year ago and I was directed towards quite a few different organisations but luckily my therapist kept me on at a nominal rate.
Maybe give these a try:
[email protected], a registered charity offering therapy for those abused in childhood, I think it's a pay what you can set-up.
I hope you find some help. Pm me if you like.

I feel fairly similar and have started exploring DBT - it was designed for borderline personality disorder and recommended by a friend treated for it. I don’t have it but avoidant personality fits fairly well. Ideally it’s a group therapy but I’m using aspects of it to explore, accept and manage my emotions better. I was fed up of talking about my childhood and CBT failed. Unfortunately it’s private and not cheap. It would be hard to access via the NHS.

Feedingthebirds1 im ashamed of my child self, I'm embarrassed about her. Why was she so quiet and gormless. People didn't like her and so I don't too.

I probably didn't know it then but I had just accepted that people didn't really warm to me and that was just the way it was. I expected people to suddenly out of the blue treat me horribly and I knew it was because of the way that I was. I remember clearly when I was around 8 years old saying to myself that I will never have a best friend as in I shouldn't because they will end up hurting me.

soulfuleyes WellIWasInTheNeighbourhoo

I have read the book by Pete walker and yes I do believe that I have cptsd but I don't know how to help myself. I feel like without long term therapy which I can't afford, I am lost.

Feedingthebirds1. Could you please resend the link. It comes back as an error.

I’ve posted here saying the same things. Nobody seems to like me either. I have a failed marriage with two teenage dc my eldest a daughter has gone to live with her dad last week as she doesn’t like me. I dont speak to my mum or my sister because I’m treated badly by them and can’t take anymore. I must be horrible and I also feel like I wish I could swap lives it’s my cousins husband who has just been diagnosed with cancer.

I just have spent the last 3-4 days crying.