Self – depreciation

Events on their own do not cause us to depreciate ourselves. Rather,

self-depreciation is an attitude of mind that we bring to these events
which results in us feeling badly about ourselves. This does not mean that
the events of our lives are unimportant in understanding self-depreciation.
This is certainly not the case, in that we normally do not put ourselves
down in a vacuum. But these events contribute to rather than directly
cause our feelings of inadequacy, worthlessness and the like.

Our beliefs about ourselves largely determine our feelings about

ourselves.

A. The most common areas in life in which we depreciate

ourselves and the most common effects of such self-
depreciation are:

Failing to achieve an important goal

When you fail to achieve something that is important for you to achieve
and you put yourself down for your failure, you tend to equate your failure
in this area with your failure as a person. As I will discuss more fully in the
next chapter, this is an example of you defining yourself according to your
behaviour. If you fail you think that this means that you are a failure as a
person. Once you have defined yourself as a failure, you then tend to give
up pursuing your valued goal because you think that it is not worth you
exerting further effort since, as you see it, there is very little or no chance
of success. In addition, once you regard yourself as a failure then you tend
to access memories of past failures and find it increasingly difficult to
think of times when you have been successful. Even when you can
remember times when you have been successful, your view of yourself as
a failure affects how you think of these successes. Thus, you tend to
attribute these successes to luck rather than to your own abilities.

When you consider yourself to be a failure for having failed to achieve an

important goal, you tend to avoid other people whom you see as being
successful. If you are unable to avoid such people you try to steer the
conversation away from areas where they have been successful and you
have failed. Sometimes you compensate for your sense of being a failure
by mixing with people whom you do not find threatening (e.g. people who
have failed to achieve much in life or people who have achieved less than
you). Thus, you try to manage your relationships with people so that you
are not reminded of being a failure.

Acting incompetently (in public or private)

When you act incompetently in public or in private and you depreciate
yourself for this, you again equate yourself with your behaviour. For
example, if you act foolishly you tend to think of yourself as a foolish
person. If this happens in the presence of others you experience a strong.
tendency to withdraw from others, and if it happens in private you try to
avoid being with others who may find out about your behaviour. When
you consider yourself to be a fool for acting foolishly, for example, then
you overestimate the extent to which other people who witnessed or
found about what you did will disapprove of you and how long they will
remember your foolish behaviour. You also overestimate the negativity of
their response to you. Thus, when you depreciate yourself for your
incompetent behaviour you think that others will either look down on you
or turn away from you. You certainly don't expect others to empathize or
be compassionate towards you, and if they do show such responses you
tend to think that they are only doing so out of pity.

Breaking your ethical/moral code

When you break one of your ethical or moral codes and you condemn
yourself for doing so, you tend to view yourself as a bad or rotten person
for doing so. If what you did was bad then in your mind you are a bad
person. In thinking this way about yourself, you tend to want to hurt or
punish yourself in some way. This may take the form of a passive
punishment where you refrain from doing anything to enjoy yourself, or it
may involve you actively punishing yourself where you destroy something
that you value.
You may even experience a strong desire to hurt yourself physically. If
this is the case, especially if you act on these destructive impulses, then I
suggest that you seek appropriate professional help for you need more
assistance than I can offer you in this book. If transgressing your ethical or
moral code has involved you hurting others, then when you condemn
yourself for your actions you will either beg others for forgiveness or do
far too much in the way of offering reparation. Even when you go "over
the top' in your efforts to make up to the other person for having hurt or
harmed them, feeling that you are a rotten person for breaking your code,
you think deep down that you are beyond forgiveness, such is the nature
of your badness as a person. Thus, you are suspicious of the other's
forgiveness and think that you do not deserve any understanding that
they may show you. If you are religious, when you think that you are bad
for breaking your code then you consider that God will not forgive you and
that you will go to hell when you die.

Being criticized

When you are criticized and you put yourself down in the face of this
criticism, you again tend to overgeneralize in one or more ways. For
example, if someone criticizes you for being mean with money, there are
a number of possibilities:
1. The person is criticizing you for being mean with money: this is a
fair criticism, but she does not depreciate you for this.
2. The person is criticizing you for being mean with money: this is a
fair criticism, and she does depreciate you for this.
3. The person is criticizing you for being mean with money: this is an
unfair criticism, but she does not depreciate you for this.
4. The person is criticizing you for being mean with money: this is an
unfair criticism, and she does depreciate you for this.

You can depreciate yourself in all these circumstances, but when you do
put yourself down in the face of criticism, you are likely to think that the
conditions outlined in the second scenario hold. In other words, you tend
to think that the person's criticism is fair when it may be unfair and that
the person is depreciating you when this may not be the case.
When you are particularly prone to depreciating yourself in the face of
criticism you anticipate being criticized in the absence of available
evidence that this might be the case. In addition, you may develop a
defensive attitude and immediately deny any criticism that you may
receive without considering whether the criticism has any merit.
Behaviourally, when you are prone to depreciating yourself in the face of
criticism, you may tend to avoid people who you consider are likely to
criticize you or you may criticize others before they criticize you. You may
also play safe and avoid taking risks that may lead to you being criticized.
Thus, fear of criticism tends to promote conformity and inhibits creative
and innovative thinking which if expressed to others may attract criticism.

Not being accepted, liked or loved by significant others

If you depreciate yourself when you think that another person either does
not accept you, does not like you or does not love you, then you tend to
think of yourself as unacceptable, unlikeable or unlovable. If you are
particularly prone to self-depreciation in the face of these conditions then
you tend to infer that another does not accept you, for example, in the
absence of evidence that this is the case. Or if another person does show
that they dislike you and you put yourself down, then you overestimate
the number of other people who may also dislike you.
When you put yourself down for being disliked, for example, since you
also believe that you need to be liked you will go out of your way to be
liked by the person who dislikes you. Thus, you may sacrifice your own
interests in order to get back into the good books of the person who
dislikes you, which you probably wouldn't do if you did not depreciate
yourself about being disliked. If you are particularly prone to depreciating
yourself for not being accepted, liked or loved, then you will do all you can
to be accepted before there is any hint of a threat that the other person
may dislike you.
Thus, you may attempt to ingratiate yourself with others you have just
met, a tactic which sometimes backfires because some people will dislike
you for your ingratiating behaviour whereas they would have liked you if
you were more genuine with them.

Having a defect or handicap

When you depreciate yourself for having some kind of defect or handicap,
you again begin by rating the defect or handicap negatively and then
overgeneralize by rating yourself negatively. You can put yourself down
for a range of defects or handicaps, examples being obesity, stammering
and dyslexia.

When you depreciate yourself for having a defect or a handicap, you are
doing two things. First, you are labelling something about you as a defect
or a handicap, and second, you depreciate yourself for having the defect
or disability. Not everybody regards being obese as a defect, for example,
and even among those who do, not everyone depreciates themselves for
having this condition.

The role of others is important here, but it is complex. I would say that the
more others regard something about you as a defect or a handicap, the
more likely it is that you will regard this aspect in the same way and the
more likely it is that you will depreciate yourself. However, this is not
always the case, as is demonstrated in a condition known as Body
Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD). In BDD (which is often referred to as
perceived ugliness syndrome in the media), the person thinks that some
aspect of her appearance is very ugly and she depreciates herself for
being defective in this way. The point, however, is that other people do
not think that the person has a defect. This makes little or no difference to
the person with BDD, who will not accept evidence that this is the case.
The important point is not what others actually think, but what the person
thinks about herself, which she then projects on to others.

As one of my BDD clients once said:

‘Since I know that 1 am a hideous person for having a large nose, I am

convinced that others think of me in the same way, and even when they
say they do not, they are lying to me.'

If you depreciate yourself for having a defect or handicap, you then

overestimate the extent to which others regard that aspect as a defect or
handicap and think badly about you as a result. You also experience a
strong tendency to avoid situations where your defect or handicap will
become apparent to others. Since you overestimate the extent to which
your defect or handicap is apparent to others, your avoidant behaviour is
likely to be widespread.

Not all psychological problems can be traced to low self-esteem (or what I
refer to in this booklet as self-depreciation), but a lot can.
However, problems with self-depreciation come in many different guises
and next we will consider the different facets of this debilitating attitude
towards yourself.

B. The presence of self-depreciation in common emotional

problems

Anxiety
When you are anxious you consider that you are facing some kind of
threat. There are, in fact, to types of anxiety: discomfort anxiety and ego
anxiety.

In ego anxiety, it the threat materializes then you will depreciate yourself
in some way. Typical ego-based threats concern the prospect of doing
poorly at a task (in which case you will consider yourself to be a failure or
incompetent), the prospect of being criticized (in which case you in
consider yourself worthless) or the prospect of being disapproved (in
which case you would consider yourself an unlikable person)

For example, Jamie was anxious about speaking in public and tried to
avoid doing so whenever possible. On the occasions when he had to speak
in public he was anxious in case he said something foolish in which case
he would regard himself as a fool.

Depression
When you feel depressed you consider that you have lost something very
important to you or that you have failed at an important task. Typical self-
depreciations in depression are: 'I am a failure', 'I am useless' and 'I am
unlovable'.

For example, Fiona became depressed when her longstanding boyfriend

ended their relationship. She regarded this loss as evidence that she was
unlovable and that no one else would want her.

Guilt
You tend to feel guilty about doing something wrong, not doing the right
thing or hurting someone's feelings. The most common self-depreciation
in guilt is: 'I am a bad person'.
For example, Bill, a single man of 40 who had lived with his parents all his
life, became very guilty when he left home because he regarded himself a
rotten person for hurting their feelings.

Shame

You tend to feel ashamed when you fall very short of some ideal or when
you have revealed an inadequacy or defect in public. In particular, you
think that others who witness your behaviour will look down on you,
ignore you or turn away from you in disgust. Typical self-depreciations in
shame include: 'I am insignificant', 'I am defective' or 'I am repulsive'.

For example, Josie considered that she was ugly and wore make-up to
hide the wrinkles underneath her eyes. If other people saw her wrinkles
she predicted that they would feel disgusted and she would consider
herself to be a repulsive person as a result.

Unhealthy jealousy

When you experience unhealthy jealousy, you consider that your

relationship with your partner, for example, is threatened by a rival for
your partner's affections. Typical self-depreciations in unhealthy jealousy
include: 'I am unlovable', 'I am no good' and I am nothing if I lose my
relationship'.

Harriet felt unhealthily jealous whenever she saw her boyfriend, Michael,
talking to an attractive woman, because she inferred that Michael was
interested in having a relationship with the other woman which would
mean that she, Harriet, was worthless.

Hurt

When you experience feelings of hurt you consider that you have been
treated in a way that you do not deserve by a significant other who you do
not expect to treat you in this manner (e.g. that the other person has
betrayed your trust). Typical self-depreciations in hurt include: 'I am
unlovable', 1 am of no account as a person', 'I am insignificant'.

Donald experienced hurt when his best friend forgot to send him a
birthday card, taking this as evidence that his best friend did not care for
him as much as he cared for his friend. If this was true, Donald reasoned
that it would prove that he was of less importance as a person, not only to
his friend, but to himself.

Unhealthy envy
When you experience unhealthy feelings of envy, you focus on the fact
that someone possesses something, such as a desired characteristic or
object, that you do not have, and you hold the belief that this proves that
you are less worthy than the other person.

For example, Janice experienced unhealthy feelings of envy towards Mary,

an acquaintance of hers, who got a first-class honours degree whereas
she only got a lower second. Janice concluded that this meant that she
was less worthy than Mary, although as often happens in unhealthy envy
she disguised this from herself and set about denigrating Mary instead.

Unhealthy anger

When self-depreciation is a major feature of unhealthy anger, you

consider that another person has put you in a bad light and you think that
this proves that you are unworthy or bad. Instead of feeling depressed,
however, you feel angry towards the person who you think has made you
feel badly about yourself. This is known as ego-defensive anger. You are
defending your ego against attack from another person by attacking that
person with your anger.

For example, Barry made himself unhealthily angry at his wife when she
criticized him for being thoughtless. Deep down, Barry agreed with the
criticism, but because he thought that this proved that he was worthless
he got angry at his wife for making him feel this way. I should point out
that this complicated psychological process normally occurs
extraordinarily quickly outside the awareness of the person who is angry.

C. Views of the self in self-depreciation

When you depreciate yourself, you can put yourself down in various ways.

Please note that all of these different forms of self-depreciation involve

you evaluating yourself in a global, negative and pejorative way.

‘I am bad' - here you judge yourself negatively in the moral sphere.

This form of self-judgment is most often found in guilt.

‘I am worthless' - here you judge yourself as having no value to you as

well as to others. This form of self-judgment is most often found in
depression and anxiety.

‘I am unlikeable/unlovable' - here you judge yourself in terms of your lack

of appeal to others. This form of self-judgment is found in a number of
emotional problems, including depression, anxiety, hurt and unhealthy
jealousy.

‘I am insignificant' - here you regard yourself as having little or no

importance, whereas others are seen as having much more importance.
This form of self-judgment is most often seen in shame and lack of self-
assertion.

'I am defective' - here you consider that there is something radically

wrong with yourself. This form of self-judgment is most often found in
shame.

'I am repulsive' - here you consider that you are hideous to yourself and
others and this often relates to an important aspect of your appearance.
This form of self-judgment is again most often found in shame.

‘I am useless' - here you regard yourself as having no utilitarian value to

the world. This form of self-judgment is most often found in depression.

'I am stupid' - here you tend to judge yourself on the basis of your
Incompetence or self-defeating behaviour. This form of self-judgment is
most often found in unhealthy anger towards yourself.

"I am inferior' - here you judge yourself in relation to others and are found
wanting in that comparison. This form of self-judgment is most often
found in unhealthy envy, shame, anxiety and depression.

"I am pathetic' - here you rate yourself for having an unacceptable

weakness or for acting weakly. This type of self-judgment is particularly
found in shame and unhealthy anger towards yourself.

D. How you can tell if you are depreciating yourself?

There are four ways: by inspecting your emotions; by identifying what you
really believe; by examining the way you act or 'feel like' acting; and by
considering the ways in which you subsequently think. Let me consider
each one in turn.

1. Inspect your emotions.

Self-depreciation tends to lead to unhealthy negative emotions about

negative life events, whereas self-acceptance tends to lead to healthy
negative emotions about those same events. So, if you experience
anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, unhealthy jealousy, ego-defensive
anger, hurt or unhealthy envy and your attitude towards yourself is the
point at issue, then it is likely that you are putting yourself down, whereas
if you experience concern, sadness, remorse, disappointment, healthy
jealousy, healthy anger, regret and healthy envy, it is likely that you are
not depreciating yourself.

2. Identify what you really believe.

If you are unsure whether or not you are depreciating yourself, ask
yourself what you really believe in the situation in question. Don't just
inspect your surface thoughts about the event in question, focus on what
you really believe. Your feelings will also help in this respect. Indeed, if
you truly believe that you are inadequate for falling far short of your ideal
in a given situation AND you feel ashamed in this situation, then there is a
very good chance that you were depreciating yourself in this episode.

3. Examine your actions and your action tendencies.

When you put yourself down this has a great bearing on the way you act
or 'feel like' acting (or what are known as action tendencies). Self-
depreciation tends to lead to actions that are self-defeating or potentially
self-defeating (in the case of action tendencies), whereas self-acceptance
tends to lead to actions that are constructive or potentially constructive
(in the case of action tendencies).

4. Consider the ways in which you subsequently think.

When you put yourself down the thinking that you subsequently engage in
is unrealistic and biased, whereas when you accept yourself your
subsequent thinking tends to be realistic and balanced.

E. The Importance of Unconditional Self-acceptance

The chances are that, if you are reading this booklet, you tend to put
yourself down either in specific situations or more generally. If the latter is
the case, you would probably say that you suffer from low self-esteem. It
may be that you are hoping that reading this booklet will help to raise
your self-esteem. If so, I am not going to help you to do this. No, your eyes
have not deceived you. I am not going to help you to raise or improve
your self-esteem. Why not? Because self-esteem is not a useful concept
and if you begin to like yourself more this has its problems. You are
probably confused about what I've just written, but trust me - all will
become clear presently. Let me begin my explanation about why
improving your self-esteem will not help you in the long term by defining
what we mean by self-esteem.

What is self-esteem?

In order for you to understand what self-esteem is, I first have to define
the terms 'self" and 'esteem'. Let's begin with the term 'self. What is the
self?

Let me see if I can help you to answer this question by asking you a
further set of questions.

1. Are your actions or behaviour part of your self?

 2. Are your thoughts part of your self?
3. Are your personality characteristics part of your self?
4. Are your feelings and emotions part of your self?
5. Are your sensations part of your self?
6. Are your images or pictures that you see in your mind's eye part of
your self?
7. Are your dreams parts of your self?
8. Are your bodily parts part of your self?

In all probability you have answered 'yes' to all eight questions because
you realize that all these different aspects are either a part of you,
authored by you or experienced by you.

Paul Hauck has provided a very useful definition of the self. He says that
the self is 'every conceivable thing about you that can be rated'. All of the
aspects that I asked you about in the above eight questions can be rated
and thus form a part of your self.

Taking this approach, your self, then, is extraordinarily complex since it

encompasses all the behaviour you have performed in your life, all the
thoughts, images and dreams you have had, all the feelings and
sensations you have experienced, and so on. Also, it is important to note
that the self is a process and changes over time. Your self today,
therefore, is not exactly the same as it was yesterday, nor will it be the
same tomorrow.

So, what is not a part of your self? Well, your possessions are not part of
your self. You may object here and cite your most prized possession which
has great importance to you. However, I would say that it is your feelings
about this possession which are part of your self and not the possession
itself, which exists as an entity independent of you. It is the independent
existence of an object or person that makes it not a part of your self, no
matter how important that object or person is to you and no matter how
much you 'feel' they are a part of your self.

Let me present a diagrammatic summary of what I have said so far about

the self.

Self

The self is every conceivable thing about you that can be rated:

• behaviour
• thoughts
• personality characteristics
• feelings and emotions
• sensations
• images
• dreams
• bodily parts.

The self is extremely complex.

The self is constantly changing.

Now let's consider the term 'esteem'. It comes from the verb 'to estimate',
which means to judge, rate or evaluate. So, what does self-esteem mean?
It means rating the self.

Now here is the problem. Can you legitimately give your self a rating or
evaluation that can do full justice to it, given that, as we have already
seen, the self is exceedingly complex and constantly changing? The
answer is a resounding NO.

Thus, if you have low self-esteem you are consistently giving your
exceedingly complex and changing self a single, global. negative rating.
The remedy is not to give your exceedingly complex and changing self a
global positive rating, which is what you would have to do if you wanted
high self-esteem. So, if improving your self-esteem is not the alternative
to self-depreciation, what is? The answer is developing unconditional self-
acceptance.

What is unconditional self-acceptance (USA)?

The concept of unconditional self-acceptance (USA) is best explained by

considering a set of principles which I will discuss one at a time. In doing
so I will outline where applicable the relevant principle underlying self-
depreciation.

1. As a human being you cannot legitimately be given a single

rating, but parts of you can be rated, as can what happens
to you

I have already made the point that human beings are incredibly complex.
Thus, you are a complex mix of behaviours, thoughts, personality
characteristics, feelings and emotions, sensations, images, dreams and
bodily parts. How on earth are you going to arrive at a legitimate single
rating that completely accounts for you in all your complexity?

The answer is that you can't do this. Also, even if you could give yourself a
single rating, this would soon be out of date because as soon as you
assigned a rating to yourself, you would have moved on, acquiring more
experience and processing them in slightly new ways. In short, it is not
possible to assign a process like your self a rating, which is by definition a
fixed thing.
You can, however, rate parts of yourself and the events in your life and it
is important that you do so, otherwise you will not be motivated to change
negative aspects of your self and negative life events.

When you depreciate yourself you are operating under a very different
principle. This principle states that human beings can be given a single
global rating. Thus, when you believe that you are inadequate, you are
assigning to yourself a single, negative, global rating (i.e. inadequate)
which is unwarranted.

2. As a human being your essence is that you are fallible and

unique

Can we say that as human beings we have an essence, a feature that all
humans share, that defines us? In my view our essence is twofold. First,
all humans are fallible. We all make mistakes.
As Dr Maxie C. Maultsby Jr has said, all humans have an incurable error-
making tendency.

Your second essential feature is summed up in the song title "There'll

never be another you'. In other words, you are unique. Even if we cloned
you, you and your clone would not be identical since you would each have
different experiences.

To sum up: if you have an essence as a human it is that you are fallible
and unique

When you depreciate yourself, you are operating under a very different
principle, namely, human beings are perfectible. Thus, when you fail to
achieve your standards and depreciate yourself you tend to do so because
you believe that once you set goals for yourself, you must literally must,
achieve these goals.

3. You are equal to other humans in terms of shared

humanity, but unequal in many specific respects

If you cannot legitimately rate another person, then it follows that one
person is not worthier than another, for assigning worth to a person is a
form of rating a person. Rather, it makes more sense and is more accurate
to say that all humans are equal in being human but unequal in many
different respects. Thus, I may be better at practising psychology than
you, but you may be better at gardening than me. I may be more
persistent at doing tasks than you, but you may be more creative at these
tasks than me.

It follows from this that it is not realistic or helpful for you to compare your
self with the self of another person, but it is realistic and helpful for you to
compare your behaviour or any other rateable aspect with that of another
person. This aspect-based comparison can help you to learn from others
who are better than you at the aspect under consideration, whereas self-
based comparison can only lead you to feelings of superiority or, more
often, feelings of inferiority.

When you depreciate yourself, you do think that selves can be compared
and that human beings differ in worth. When you come off worse in such
comparisons, you render yourself very vulnerable to depression, anxiety
and other emotional disorders.

4. When you accept yourself unconditionally, you think

logically and avoid overgeneralization errors

When you depreciate yourself, you tend to make illogical

overgeneralizations. In particular, you make what is known as the part-
whole error. In this error you focus on and rate a part of yourself and then
on the basis of this rating you rate your whole self.

For example, Maurice gave a presentation at work and because he was so

nervous he kept putting on the wrong overheads. After the presentation,
Maurice felt ashamed because he thought that he gave a poor
performance at the presentation and, more crucially, because he thought
that he was a defective person for his poor performance. Maurice's part-
whole error is revealed in the following: because I gave a poor
presentation (part), therefore I am a defective person
(whole).
In counselling, I helped Maurice to see that while he may have given a
poor performance at the presentation, this only proved that he was a
fallible human being who was capable of doing well and poorly, and that
he was not a defective person. Maurice then refrained from rating his self
(whole) on the basis of his performance at the presentation (part) and
thus was no longer guilty of making the part-whole error.

5. Unconditional self-acceptance is closely linked with a

flexible, preferential philosophy

The ideas in this booklet are based on a therapeutic approach known as

Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) which was originated in the
mid-1950s by an American clinical psychologist called Albert Ellis. Ellis
noted early on that people's self-depreciation was closely linked with their
tendency to make absolute demands on themselves. For instance, Albert
Ellis would show Maurice in the above example that the reason he was
depreciating himself as a defective person was because he was
demanding that he must give a good performance at his presentation and
he didn't do so. Ellis later argued that frequently self-depreciation stems
from a demand about the self (and sometimes about others) which has
not been met.
However, other REBT therapists argue that self-depreciation and demands
about self and others which are not met are linked, and do not argue that
self-depreciation stems from unmet demands. Sometimes, these
therapists argue, demands about self stem from self-depreciation.
Whichever is the case, for our purposes here, if you want to develop
unconditional self-acceptance, it is important that you challenge both self-
depreciation beliefs and demands about self (and sometimes about
others).

If self-depreciation beliefs are closely linked to demands about self and

others, what are self-acceptance beliefs linked to? The answer is 'full
preferences' about self and others. Full preferences take the form of
wishes, wants, desires and the like, but they also state that one does not
have to get what one wishes, wants or desires. When these full preference
beliefs cluster together to make a philosophy this is called a flexible,
preferential philosophy, which contrasts markedly with the rigid,
demanding philosophy that is closely linked with self-depreciation.

Here is a list of how the relevant full preferences and self-acceptance

beliefs, on the one hand, and the relevant demands and self-depreciation
beliefs, on the other hand, go together.

I want people to like me, but they don't have to. If people do not like me
it does not mean that I am unlikeable. It means that I am a fallible human
being with some likeable and unlikeable aspects whom some people will
like and others won't.

People must like me. If people do not like me, it proves that I am
unlikeable.

I want to do well at my job, but I don't absolutely have to do so. If I don't

do well at my job it does not mean that I am a failure. It means that I am
an unrateable fallible human being who has not done well in this area of
life at this time.

I absolutely must do well at my job. If I don't do well at my job it proves

that I am a failure.

I wish I hadn't hurt my mother's feelings, but there is no reason which

suggests that I am immune from doing so. I am not a bad person for
hurting my mother's feelings. I am a regular person who acted badly.

I absolutely should not have hurt my mother's feelings. I am a bad person

for doing so.

I don't want to reveal any weaknesses in public, but there is no reason

why I must not do this. If I do reveal a weakness in public it does not mean
that I am defective. It means that I am an ordinary human being with
strengths and weaknesses.

I must not reveal any weaknesses in public and I am defective if I do so.

I'd like to be more attractive than I am, but it isn't essential that I be so. I
am not worthless for being unattractive. I am acceptable because I am
alive, unique and human.

I must be more attractive than I am. I am worthless for being

unattractive.

6. When you accept yourself unconditionally, your emotions

are healthy and your behaviour is constructive

In Section B, I showed how self-depreciation is involved in a range of

emotional and behavioural problems.

Thus, when you depreciate yourself in the face of a negative activating

event you tend to experience one or more unhealthy negative emotions
such as anxiety, depression, guilt, hurt, shame, unhealthy anger,
unhealthy jealousy and unhealthy envy.

However, when you accept yourself in the face of the same negative
activating event you tend to experience one or more healthy negative
emotions such as concern, sadness, remorse, regret, disappointment,
healthy anger, healthy jealousy and healthy envy.

The following is a set of representative self-depreciating beliefs and their

emotional effects and a corresponding set of self-acceptance beliefs and
their different emotional effects.

For clarity, I will first consider the unhealthy emotion and its self-
depreciating belief before presenting its healthy alternative based on self-
acceptance.

Anxiety: 'If I fail at my upcoming test which I must not do, I will
be a failure.'

Concern: 'I would rather not fail at my upcoming test, but there is
no law of the universe to prevent me from doing so. If I
do fail, I will not be a failure. Rather I will be a fallible
human being who has failed.'
Depression: Since my partner rejected me, as she absolutely should
not have done, this means that I am no good.'

Sadness: I would have preferred it had my partner not rejected

me, but there is no reason why she absolutely should
not have done so. Even though she rejected me, I am
still a fallible human being. There is no evidence that I
am no good.'

Guilt: ‘I have hurt my parents’ feelings, which I absolutely

should not have done. I am therefore a bad person.'

Remorse: ‘I have hurt my parents’ feelings. I would rather not

have done so, but there is no reason why I absolutely
should not have done so. I am a fallible human being for
doing the wrong thing rather than a bad person.'

Hurt: ‘My ex-girlfriend is going out with my best friend, which

absolutely should not happen. Since it is happening, this
proves that I am unlovable.'

Sorrow: ‘My ex-girlfriend is going out with my best friend, I

would much rather that she did not do this, but I don't
have to get this desire met. The fact that she is going
out with him has no bearing on the way I view my whole
self. I am fallible rather than unlovable.'

Shame: 'I have acted foolishly in front of my peers which I

absolutely should not have done, and this proves that I
am an inadequate person.'

Disappointment: ‘I have acted foolishly in front of my peers. There is no

reason why I absolutely should not have done so even
though I would have preferred it if I hadn't. I am not an
inadequate person for acting in the way that I did.
Rather, I am a complex, unrateable human being.'
Unhealthy anger: ‘You absolutely should not have criticized me.
Your criticism reminds me that I am a failure."

Healthy anger: ‘I would rather you hadn't criticized me, but there's no
reason why you absolutely should not have done so.
Your criticism reminds me that I am fallible and not a
failure.'

Unhealthy jealousy: ‘If my husband looks at another woman, which he

must not do, it means that he finds her more attractive
than me. This must not happen, but if it does it proves
that I am worthless.'

Healthy jealousy: ‘I would prefer it if my husband does not look at another

woman or does not find her more attractive than me.
However, there is no law forbidding him from doing
either. If he does, I can still accept myself as a fallible
human being who is equal in humanity with everyone
else. It does not prove that I am worthless.'

Unhealthy envy: 'My friend is making more money at his job than I am. I
must have what he has and because I don't this makes
me less worthy than I would be if I had what he has.'

Healthy envy: 'My friend is making more money at his job than I am. I
would prefer it if I was making as much as him, but I do
not have to do so. I am not less worthy than I would be if
I earned as much as my friend. Rather, I am the same
fallible, unrateable human whether I have what he has
or not.'

In addition, if you hold a self-acceptance belief you are more likely to act
in constructive ways, whereas when you hold a corresponding self-
depreciation belief you tend to act in self-defeating ways.

For example, if you believe you are a failure for doing poorly at a task at
work, you will tend to stop working at the task and turn away from
searching for ways in which you can learn from your errors. You will be
hesitant in doing similar tasks in the future, avoiding them whenever you
can.
However, if you accept yourself as an ordinary human with your successes
and failures rather than as a failure, you are more likely to keep working
at the task and Willi actively search for ways of learning from your
mistakes. You will be somewhat wary of attempting similar tasks, but you
will still do so.

7. If you still want to rate yourself, judge yourself against

conditions that do not change in your lifetime, think of
yourself as worthwhile because you are human, alive,
unique and constantly changing

As I have already shown, one of the main features of self-depreciation is

the rating that you make of yourself. I have argued earlier that rating
yourself is illegitimate in that you are too complex to merit such a
judgment, and in any case, you are not a static entity, but an organism
constantly in flux.

The alternative, then, to rating the self is to acknowledge that you are
human, alive, fallible and unique whatever you do, and to accept yourself
for being so. However, you may be among those who still want to rate
themselves.

You want to regard yourself as a worthy person or a good person, for

example. Is there a way of doing this without being vulnerable to
emotional disturbance? Yes, there is. You can choose to rate yourself as a
worthwhile person as long as you do so unconditionally. This position is
known as unconditional high self-esteem. It means that you base your
worth on conditions that do not change. What are these conditions? The
fact that as long as you are alive you are human, fallible, unique and
changing. Thus, there is very little chance that you will wake up one day
transformed into an animal, become infallible, be an exact replica of
someone else and stop changing. So as long as you believe that you are
worthwhile because you are alive, human, fallible, unique and changing,
then you will not experience emotional disturbance, at least in relation to
your feelings about yourself.

Of course, you can't prove that you are worthwhile in the same way that
you can prove that you are alive, human, fallible, unique and constantly
changing, so you are making a leap of faith. Someone could come up with
the equally valid view that you are worthless because you are alive,
human, fallible, unique and constantly changing. But if you are going to
rate yourself this is probably the safest way of doing so.

There are other ways of rating yourself that are conditional which do not
have to lead to emotional disturbance. Thus, if you believe that you are
worthwhile because Jesus loves you or that you have a fairy godmother
looking after you, as long as you believe this you will be fine. But the
trouble is that one day you may think that Jesus hates you or you may
stop believing in the existence of fairy godmothers, and then you will
become vulnerable to emotional disturbance (e.g. I am worthless because
Jesus hates me).

In short, the safest of all solutions to the problem of self-depreciation is

unconditional self-acceptance where you do not rate yourself at all. But if
you want to rate yourself, then unconditional high self-esteem is far better
than all forms of conditional self-esteem, which are at the core of self-
depreciation.

8. Unconditional self-acceptance promotes constructive

action, not resignation

Unfortunately, the word 'acceptance' conjures up resignation in some

people's minds. If you think this, you may well believe that accepting
yourself means resigning yourself to the fact that there is nothing you can
do to change aspects of yourself that you don't like and that are self.
defeating. However, the good news is that the opposite is true. When you
depreciate yourself, you label yourself with the behaviour that you wish to
change. If you act selfishly, you are a selfish (and therefore a bad) person.
If you act foolishly, you are a fool (and therefore unworthy). Labelling
yourself increases, rather than decreases, the chances that you will resign
yourself to repeating self-defeating patterns of behaviour. It is as if you
are saying to yourself: "Since I am a fool, how can I learn to act non-
foolishly?
The answer is, I can't.'

However, unconditional self-acceptance means viewing yourself in a much

more complex and flexible way. You see yourself as someone who can
and does act selfishly and non-selfishly, as someone who can act foolishly
and sensibly. Since you do not label yourself with your behaviour when
you accept yourself unconditionally, you are much more likely to see that
change is possible than when you depreciate yourself.

In short, when you accept yourself unconditionally for acting negatively,

for example, you do the following:

 You acknowledge that you have behaved negatively.

 You regret acting in the way that you did.
 You acknowledge that regrettably all the conditions were in place
for you to act in the way that you did.
 You recognize that you can learn from this experience.
 You review all the relevant factors that were involved in leading you
to behave negatively.
 You decide what you can do differently in future.
 You commit yourself to act differently in future.

I hope you can see from the foregoing that rather than encouraging
resignation, unconditional self-acceptance promotes constructive change.
 9. You can learn to accept yourself unconditionally (but never
perfectly, nor for all time)

This ninth principle states that unconditional self-acceptance is a way of

thinking that can be learned. However, it is also true that in all probability
you will not be able to apply this philosophy perfectly so that you never
depreciate yourself again. It is against the principle of human fallibility for
you to do anything perfectly over time, and developing perfect, once-and-
for-all-time self-acceptance is therefore almost impossible for any human.

The best that you can hope for is to work towards ever greater self-
acceptance and accept the grim reality that, even if you rigorously
practise the principles and techniques that I outline in this booklet, you
will, at times, still depreciate yourself. This is a realistic position, and only
those of you who are looking for perfect self-acceptance are likely to be
discouraged by

10. Internalizing unconditional self-acceptance is difficult

and involves hard work

Wouldn't it be great if internalizing unconditional self-acceptance was

easy and all you had to do was to read this book - not act on it, just read
it? Yes. it would be great, but as you can probably tell from my tone, it
isn't that easy. Indeed, it isn't easy at all. Developing unconditional self-
acceptance involves a lot of persistent practice in challenging unhealthy
demands and self-depreciation beliefs and acting in ways that are
consistent with the healthy alternatives to these beliefs. Indeed, the more
ingrained yourself. depreciation beliefs, the harder you will have to work
to uproot them and replace them with self-accepting beliefs. The same is
true with self. depreciation beliefs that are general (rather than specific)
and unconditional (rather than conditional). The more you accept the grim
reality that developing unconditional self-acceptance is difficult, the more
you will put into practice what you learn from this book. Thus, if you are
looking for an easy solution to your self-depreciation problems, sadly you
will not find it here.

11. Internalizing unconditional self-acceptance requires

force and energy

The final principle of unconditional self-acceptance states that if you really

want to internalize this philosophy (as much as you humanly can), then
you need to do so forcefully and with energy. If you try to adopt a self-
accepting philosophy in a weak, half-hearted, 'namby-pamby' manner,
then it just won't take. Why? Because you probably hold your self-
depreciating beliefs with a strong degree of conviction and therefore
challenging these strongly held views with weak insipid methods just
won't work. To achieve psychological change, you often have to fight fire
with fire, so if you want to change your strongly held self-depreciating
ideas you do have to do so with strength, force and energy.
In summary, I present the eleven principles of unconditional self-
acceptance below.

Why not take a copy of it and read it several times a day to remind
yourself what unconditional self-acceptance means?

• As a human being you cannot legitimately be given a single rating,

but parts of you can be rated, as can what happens to you.
• As a human being your essence is that you are fallible and unique.
• You are equal to other humans in terms of shared humanity, but
unequal in many specific respects.

• When you accept yourself unconditionally, you think logically and

avoid overgeneralization errors.
• Unconditional self-acceptance is closely linked with a flexible,
preferential philosophy.
• When you accept yourself unconditionally, your emotions are
healthy and your behaviour is constructive.
• If you still want to rate yourself, judge yourself against conditions
that do not change in your lifetime. Thus, think of yourself as worthwhile
because you are human, alive, unique and constantly changing.
• Unconditional self-acceptance promotes constructive action, not
resignation.
• You can learn to accept yourself unconditionally (but never
perfectly, nor for all time).
• Internalizing unconditional self-acceptance is difficult and involves
hard work.
• Internalizing unconditional self-acceptance requires force and
energy.