The Psychology of Self-Esteem

Seminal book by Nathaniel Branden

• In a relationship with a person he admires, a major source of pleasure to man is the process of communicating his

estimate, making his admiration objective, projecting that the other person is visible to him. This is an important form of making his own self objective, of giving existential reality to his own values, of experiencing himself as an entity—through an act of self-assertiveness.

• A psychologically healthy man does not depend on others for his self-esteem; he expects others to perceive his

value, not to create it. ... ; the admiration of others is of value and importance to him only if he respects the standards by which others judge him and only if the admiration is directed at qualities which he himself regards as admirable. If other men give authentic evidence of understanding and appreciating him, they rise in his estimation; his estimate of himself does not change.

• Profound - [[As an example of the first of these factors, suppose that a self-confident man encounters a highly anxious and

hostile neurotic; he sees that the neurotic reacts to him with unprovoked suspiciousness and antagonism; the image of himself reflected by the neurotic's attitude is, in effect, that of a brute advancing menacingly with a club; in such a case, the self-confident man would not feel visible; he would feel bewildered and mystified or indignant at being so grossly misperceived. This is one of the most tragic and painful ways in which a psychologically healthy person, especially vulnerable when he is young, can be victimized by less healthy persons and given a bewilderingly irrational impression of the human realm. Not only are his virtues unrecognized and unappreciated, but worse: he is penalized for them. This is often one of the most vicious by-products of neurosis. The healthy person is made the innocent target for envy, resentment, antagonism—for responses from other people that bear no intelligible relationship to the qualities he exhibits—and he usually has no way to suspect that the animosity he encounters is a reaction, not to anything bad in him, but to the good.

• A significant mutuality of intellect, of basic premises and values, of fundamental attitude toward life, is the

precondition of that projection of mutual visibility which is the essence of authentic friendship.