We’ve all known friends, coworkers or lovers who simply don’t like themselves or have low self-esteem. We see the good in them that they can’t see, and it feels frustrating and often downright painful trying to cheer them up or help them to see the bright side, because they reject our every effort to give them positive feedback. It’s frustrating as a person with high self-esteem to see the good in someone when they repeatedly tend to interpret constructive feedback and romantic, social or job rejections as a sign of their unworthiness. A recent study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology provides some insight into what may work best when supporting people with low self-esteem.
The study showed that people with low self-esteem are less receptive to support from others that positively reframes their experience than people with high self-esteem. Some study participants talked about how tiring and frustrating it can be to try to offer support to someone with low self-esteem, because they repeatedly reject the support, and it leaves the supporter feeling like the interaction went badly.
The study indicated that people with low self-esteem are generally receptive to support that validates their negative feelings. However, the study also indicated that in real interactions, friends were equally likely to offer positive reframing to people with low and high self-esteem but were less likely to offer validation to people with low self-esteem.
The lead author of the study, Professor Denise Marigold at Renison University College at Waterloo, states that people generally want negative validation to reassure them that their feelings are normal and appropriate to the situation at hand. Based on these findings, it appears that trying to offer positive reframing to a person with low self-esteem leaves both parties feeling badly. In an interview with Science Daily, Professor Marigold suggested that if attempts to point out the bright side of a situation are met with a reminder of the dark cloud, both parties may feel better if you simply offer acknowledgment of the difficulty and empathize with their perspective. For instance, you might say something to the effect of, “I’m sorry. That sounds really difficult. I can understand why you would feel so upset.”
Receiving good therapeutic support can help people with low self-esteem to gradually release negative beliefs about themselves, build self-confidence, and cultivate positive self-esteem. Mindfulness training can assist in developing awareness of the negative thoughts and beliefs that contribute to the low self-esteem and learning how to relate more skillfully with the difficult thoughts and feelings that arise, and Mindful Writing techniques can often assist someone in shifting their perspective and opening to the possibility of seeing the bright side of a situation by writing the story from a compassionate other’s perspective.