Overcoming Low Self-esteem

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy treats emotional disorders by changing negative patterns of thought. It is now internationally established as a key method of helping overcome longstanding conditions such as panic attacks, depression, anxiety, gambling addictions and some eating disorders.

The first thing that is attractive about this book is the total lack of "technicalese"; this, coupled with its logical construction makes it not only interesting but also easily accessible to the lay reader.

To begin with, a guest author explains the history, meaning and relevance of cognitive therapy. This is followed by Melanie Fennell focusing on "Low Self Esteem" as an introduction to the main body of the book. The reader is then asked to participate in a self-assessment exercise. Having proven to have low self esteem, the reader is shown not only the impact self-esteem can have on their lives, but also many of the resultant issues--physical, emotional and social.

"Having cleared the ground", the author proceeds to explain the importance of and means to identifying triggers to bouts of low self-esteem. This can be as a long-established predilection or as the result of learned behaviour. Once this is achieved, Fennell goes on to advise ploys to overcome these triggers.

There follows a reinforcement to overcoming the triggers by the use of a Daily Action Diary (DAD), where the reader plans their daily routine. Once these "tasks" have been accomplished, they can be ticked off, proving not only self worth by achievement but also acting as a self-distracter.

The book concludes by offering suggestions for "Putting Life Together" and "Planning for the Future". This is done by the use of simple graticules as an easy way of spotting self- critical thoughts and a "Precaution Record Sheet"

This is a very useful book that achieves its stated aims of explaining the nature of low self esteem and self- destructive thinking, providing a complete self-help programme and monitoring sheets and basing its advice on clinically proven techniques of cognitive therapy. -- Peter Kidd, trained Community Psychiatric Nurse

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Really helpful book - Rated
I have really enjoyed reading this book. Having suffered with several anxiety disorders over the years I decided to look at the cause rather than the symptoms. I have read many self help books but this is the only one that has had a significant effect. I think maybe some readers have missed the point of the book, it is really about accepting yourself, flaws and all, but also trying to focus on the positive rather than negative, obviously this isn't an easy task but this book sets you on the right track. Personally to me self esteem is all about acceptance, it's not about doing things perfectly, or looking a certain way, or even relying on other people to boost it - that's why I'm a bit confused over some of the other reviews. There are lots of different tasks to follow to help you understand your thinking patterns etc., and the author does explain at length the reason for undertaking each one. All in all I would say this is a really useful book if you suffer with self esteem issues. My only complaint would be that although she gives us several examples of people with low self esteem at the beginning, she does seem to focus on the same person throughout the majority of the book. It would have been nice to see different examples throughout.

Confused and badly structured - Rated
While I found I could identify with much of the symptoms and causes of symptoms in this book I found it badly written and unstructured to the extent of being almost unreadable in parts. Also, the self-help program was based on the assumptions that situations that are affected by your low self esteem have TANGIBLE and OBSERVABLE outcomes which is not generally appropriate to myself. I don't mean to knock this book outright - I found it useful in helping identify certain causes of my social-anxiety and can see that it could be very helpful for certain anxieties. Unfortunately however, not for me.

A waste of time... - Rated
I bought this book because I have always had low self esteem about my appearance, ever since days of name calling, ridicule, teasing in my school days about how I looked.

This book is as much use as an inflatable dart board if you suffer low self esteem because you are self conscious and feel negative about parts of yourself.

It gives an example of 'Karen', the girl who is overweight and her self esteem is ruined when she weighs herself and sees she has put on weight.
Her way to overcome this is to believe she is attractive, think of her qualities and even if she feels fat she should go swimming.
What a load of rubbish.
What about Karen's negative self image? What about Karen being self conscious over her weight and believing if people see she is fat that they will judge her negatively and ugly. What about Karen's beliefs that she is fat and ugly and believing no guy would be interested in her? What about Karen's beliefs that fat means ugly? What about when Karen looks in the mirror and sees she is fat and thinks negatively of herself? You cannot just believe 'Oh I am attractive' when you don't believe it.
This book does not tackle people feeling self conscious.

The book does however describe what self esteem is very well and shows some nice diagrams on how low self esteem reflects in low self confidence and anxiety.

But this book is basically a dud. The only people this book will help is people who just lack a bit of belief in themselves.
Throughout the book its funny that it gives examples on mainly 2 examples - someone who believes they are not good enough because his Dad said he wasn't and someone who believes they are bad because her step dad raped her. Your typical self esteem victims eh? It doesn't give examples of Karen who believes she is fat and ugly. Why? Because the writer knew that she hadn't a clue how to tackle such a problem.

Absolute waste of time. I could write a better book than this.

Definitely the first step in tackling low self-esteem - Rated
I was given this book by my Clinical Psychologist at the beginning of my therapy for depression, anxiety and low self-esteem. Nearly every page that I read shows me where I have been going wrong with my thought process. The book explains clearly why you have been thinking the way you have and how to reassess those negative thoughts. And she manages to do all this while making complete sense.

This book has been as important in my therapy as the sessions have been with the Clinical Psychologist.

Give it try. It should be the first thing you try to beat low self-esteem.

This book is a must read and a must do - Rated
wondeful book. It has been by far the best self help book I have bought and I have hundreds. Reading about things helps but doesn't change the way we think. This book shows how we can do and not just read. It gives a clear picture of the excercises needed and if you do what the book says it will help. There will always be setbacks, as our self exteem eroded over a long period of time but the book helps you to deal with those too. I have extreme social phobia and nothing has helped or givenme the options and backup that the excercises in this book has in over 35yrs the way this book has through the cbt. Am v grateful I found it.