The Sorensen Low Self Esteem Recovery Program: Your guide to a life free of fear and anxiety

The Sorensen Low Self Esteem Recovery Program: Your guide to a life free of fear and anxiety

by Marilyn J Sorensen Ph.D.
The Sorensen Low Self Esteem Recovery Program: Your guide to a life free of fear and anxiety

The Sorensen Low Self Esteem Recovery Program: Your guide to a life free of fear and anxiety

by Marilyn J Sorensen Ph.D.

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Overview

This interactive resource offers the culmination of extensive work on self esteem presented in a single, low self-esteem recovery program and guide. Available to all who suffer, it allows the reader to do this work on their own with careful guidance from Dr. Sorensen, a foremost expert in this field. It also provides professionals in need of understanding this serious issue, access to this complete and effective self-esteem recovery program. - Allows you to walk side by side with the therapist as she leads you up a new life-path - Gives you the specific tools to overcome this devastating problem - Provides you direction and encouragement to keep going to overcome this life controlling issue - Enables you to quickly see progress if you follow her guidance and stick with it.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780983298588
Publisher: Wolf Publishing Company (OR)
Publication date: 08/21/2017
Pages: 122
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.26(d)

About the Author

Marilyn J. Sorensen PhD is an international 'expert' for her decades of work on self-esteem. Her Low Self-Esteem Recovery Program is recognized as a successful guide for thousands with low self-esteem (LSE). Founder of the Self-Esteem Institute, she has written numerous books on the subject, now published in five countries and translated into six languages. She holds a doctorate of philosophy in clinical/counseling psychology and master's degrees in counseling and music.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Why Low Self-Esteem Is An Important Issue

Low self-esteem (LSE) is an important issue because those who suffer from it are affected in the following ways:

• Their interpretations/perceptions are inaccurate.

• Their expectations of self/others are excessive.

• Their goals and priorities are not consciously set.

• Their creativity and hope are lessened.

• Their emotions and behavior are extreme and self-destructive.

Because those of us who suffer from LSE tend to fall at the end of possible extremes, having LSE then means that we will likely become either:

• Passive or aggressive

• Underachievers or overachievers

• Have unrealistic goals or lacking goals entirely

• One who acts superior while feeling inferior

• One who doesn't know whom/when to trust (and can be too trusting)

• Either controlling or overly dependent

Additionally, I believe that:

• LSE is the main cause of failing relationships.

• LSE creates a paranoia that causes sufferers to view others as not authentic in who they "pretend" to be and are "using" us for their own purposes.

• LSE is the main reason kids join gangs. They get a sense of belonging, feeling respected, and that they fit in with the others. They are not treated that way anywhere else.

Low Self-Esteem: What It Is And What It Is Not

LSE is NOT a mental illness. LSE is a problem of learned, faulty thinking about ourselves and our ability to fit in the world. This results in a view of ourselves as less than others — less capable, less intelligent, less knowledgeable, less likeable, or less experienced.

While this is a wholly inaccurate self-view, it can control and ruin our relationships, negatively affect our energy, and limit our courage to strive to fulfill our goals, ultimately controlling our lives.

LSE affects people in every culture around the world, and it produces similar results everywhere. LSE is not only present everywhere, it is prevalent everywhere, even among therapists, most of whom subscribe to the profession's diagnostic manual that says that low self-esteem is a symptom of nearly 30 disorders, which is inaccurate.

People desperately search the Internet for answers and help for low self-esteem.

• They think they have LSE, but don't know what to do about it.

• They have seen one or more therapists who never even brought up the issue or discussed it as a possibility. Instead, it wasn't until they read Breaking the Chain of Low Self-Esteem that they began to understand their problem.

• Most of them were put on medication they didn't need and that didn't work.

• Most people have little or no understanding of what LSE really is, including when or how it forms; how it affects our life or how we can get over it; who has it.

Most mental health professionals don't even have a specific way to work with LSE, or an understanding of the when, why, and how of its development, or how someone can overcome it. Instead, they look to one of many "programs" that have been developed to help a person overcome this problem. However, these programs generally haven't been proven successful, with the possible exception of some short-term results, because the developer doesn't really understand LSE either. Some of these programs are designed to help a person "feel better for a while," as though that will be valuable over time. It isn't.

Consequently, I recommend that you avoid books that talk of "boosting self-esteem" or "raising self-esteem." They are generally a waste of time.

You may be asking: What makes you think that you alone have been able to figure this out? No other therapist they'd seen had a clue, calling it something else and then putting them on medication. Those who have gone through this recovery program say that the process has dramatically changed their lives in a very short time.

Here are my goals for you as a reader of this book:

• Develop an understanding of the inner experience of those who suffer from LSE.

• Be able to identify how and when LSE develops.

• Be able to recognize the thinking, feeling, and behavior patterns that indicate the presence of LSE.

• Become equipped to apply the necessary steps of this proven recovery program to your own life.

CHAPTER 2

Development of My Theory Did Not Happen Overnight

When I first examined my own inner experience (not realizing at the time that I had low self-esteem), I thought there was something wrong with me. Then, when I went to college, and later when I taught school and coached athletics, I was generally very successful. At times, however, I acted out in ways I regretted because I felt that others were not treating me with respect, which is typical of those who have low self-esteem. Indeed, it is one of the main issues that those who suffer from LSE most often mention.

Later I became a therapist and I listened to the stories of my clients, their interpretations and reactions, and I watched their behavior. Finally, I compared my experience with theirs, always looking for similarities and differences in our thinking and reactions. Soon patterns began to be obvious. From there it began to come together.

It's important to remember that those who have low self-esteem may not know that they have it, just as I didn't, even though its existence had both a negative and positive force in my life. Fortunately though, I was an overachiever and I somehow began to realize that instead of enjoying my successes, I was very critical of myself, expecting that I should be perfect. This trait of LSE leads to great disappointment in ourselves. I realized there was something there, long before the term was well known, but it was years before I understood what it was.

Now, long after the beginning of my transition, I recognize that it's a travesty that all teachers and others who work with young people aren't educated about self-esteem issues. If they have it, LSE will interfere with students' education, or if they don't, the likelihood of developing LSE through their school experience also exists. Starting a new year can create great anxiety in young people unless they come from the rare family in which both parents have healthy self-esteem, which has freed them of much of the anxiety that they might have otherwise passed on to their children. Anxiety is one of the main elements of LSE and always accompanies it in setting personal boundaries and making good decisions.

If students come into school with LSE, with no one there to help encourage, guide, and support their efforts in ways that enhance their self-esteem, their LSE will likely become more severe as they will be in the presence of others who have low self-esteem as well. They will not see a difference in how they view things from anyone else. LSE controls and negatively affects not only our lives, but the lives of those we may influence.

Why hasn't more been done on this issue?

Quite a large body of work has, in fact, been done on self-esteem by many interested people, but their efforts have not necessarily translated into an understanding of what low self-esteem is and/ or how it can be altered. Instead, the efforts have gone into theories that go nowhere rather than into solutions. Some look on self-esteem as an issue to explore for an understanding of what it is and may become or what it is not; however, most of that work is scientific rather than practical, so those findings linger in the professional conversation but cannot easily be translated into information useful to the average person, or even to teachers, school counselors, or practicing therapists.

You may wonder why this topic has not been seen as both a serious issue and a priority of school systems. Why is low self-esteem not recognized as a serious issue for all young people? What part does this omission play in the lives of students and young people, even in college, where it is not a focus of those who plan to become teachers?

My answer: Because they don't understand the mind of a self-esteem sufferer, they don't take it seriously. Although there are many books on the market on this subject, LSE is considered interesting, but not all that serious. Individuals are expected to "get over it," as though they wouldn't if they knew how. Still, one would expect that school boards, school administrators, teachers, and counselors would be aware of this issue that causes children to feel that they don't measure up to others, thus dampening their hopes and dreams, causing them to give up or only try half-heartedly, to have no dreams. Instead, with no intervention they gradually lose their way like a train veering off the tracks. I'm not saying that teachers are not good at what they do, but when I have approached a school, which was less than a block from my home, to volunteer to speak to the faculty, no one expressed interest.

At the same time, the destructive behaviors of those with low self-esteem continue to become more obvious in our schools. Many students are acting out in very destructive ways, are demonstrating excessive anger and depression, and seem to be heading in directions that make them a danger to self and others. These young people, who likely all have low self-esteem, respond this way because they are often ignored and sometimes ridiculed. They don't have anyone waiting to talk to them when they get to school and may not have good social skills as they have never had instruction, good models, or been treated as important in their homes. They may not have even one friend, and if they do, that person will likely have similar issues and behaviors.

Often young people feel discouraged, receiving the brunt of jokes or rude comments from other young people. If they then feel they don't fit in and aren't respected, they respond to the realization that others look down on them, talk down to them, make jokes about them, and are disrespectful. Often teens tease and goad those who dress differently, who don't speak up in class, who are heavy or different in some other way, causing the targets to feel like outsiders, never equal, never liked or respected as a person. It's likely true that schools only respond to this after it has grown to the point where the emotionally injured young person decides to get even, looking for means of revenge, and then the attention they receive is just more criticism or punishment.

The schools are not focusing on addressing this serious problem of low self-esteem and the part it plays in the child's ability to focus on, and value, the training they are getting because the schools haven't recognized it as a major problem until lately, and for many others, not even yet. Administrators have not seen low self-esteem as the responsibility of the schools, yet educators are in a position to teach children, to influence them in ways that enhance and build self-esteem (and which parents who are less educated may not).

Of course, low self-esteem begins in childhood and it goes without saying that parents raise the children, and the consequences of this are becoming more serious and more widespread. Children grow up with parents who themselves likely have low self-esteem, but are either unaware of it or don't understand it, and so they unknowingly pass it on to their children. Many parents attended school when this issue was not as well understood as it should be now. Since teachers may be the most educated adults children ever spend regular time with, the schools need to be the place where this is understood. Teachers are in a position to focus on this issue and to help increase the self-esteem of the children in their classes, yet the schools don't seem to be all that aware of this issue except when they see the negative results and then they don't know what to do about it.

Thus, school provides the opportunity for children to be taught and propelled in directions they might never know about from their home environment. Teachers are the first adults outside the extended family to influence children, and in many instances, they are the only educated adults in a child's young life.

Low self-esteem has been understood and generally recognized as self-destructive thinking followed by self-destructive behavior, the basis of which is "feeling that I don't fit in or that I don't measure up to others." If teachers and administrators could understand how it forms and how it plays out in a child's thinking and behavior and therefore how destructive it is in the lives of those who suffer from it, maybe they would make overcoming low self-esteem a priority for students.

By educating parents as well, we could deal with this issue, improving the lives and futures of many young people. However, our teacher preparedness programs and those in charge of curriculum have not included work on this issue. Thus it will be difficult for teachers, coaches, and others who serve as a model for our students to recognize when this problem is likely forming in a particular student and then have options for where to send this student for guidance and recovery.

Parents would need to be included, as that is the first obvious place in which low self-esteem can form, but classes that help and educate both the adults and their children would be a way to address this with the idea of helping young people get a healthy start toward a more satisfying life, free from the distorted negative self-talk that eventually fully controls their thinking, destroys relationships, and ruins lives.

Focus on self-esteem needs to be incorporated into our schools before more young people can start out on their own journey, healthy and able to make better decisions than those who doubt their abilities and drop out, or those who take all criticism as personal attacks, both of which accompany low self-esteem. What will it take, I wonder, for parents to realize the importance of requiring their schools to work with this issue? When will all schools incorporate this into their educational goal requirements for young people and parents alike?

CHAPTER 3

Low Self-Esteem Is A Stand-Alone Disorder

The professional diagnostic manual (known as the DSM) that therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists are required to use in order to get insurance payments, describes low self-esteem as a symptom of about 30 other disorders. LSE is thought to "go away" when these disorders are addressed. However, these disorders are serious ones that linger and may not ever be fully cured, leaving little hope for overcoming low self-esteem. In fact, LSE is often exacerbated by these mental health disorders and the problems that accompany them.

Here's an example of what I mean. Symptoms of the flu can include headache, upset stomach, and diarrhea. So when you recover from the flu, should those symptoms be gone? Of course, because if those symptoms are still there, you still have the problem. If they are not, the problem has been taken care of. If the symptoms remain, would you believe that the flu is gone? No, of course not!

So, shouldn't the same rules apply to disorders in the DSM that describe LSE as a symptom or criterion for something else? Of course, those symptoms should disappear. Instead, LSE is a stand-alone disorder; it's a learned thinking disorder, not a medical one. It is not something we can take a pill for and then be fine in a couple of days.

LSE isn't something you can get over with a pill, a shot, by exercising, or any other concocted remedy that implies it is an illness. Instead, LSE is a learned problem that can only be corrected by unlearning and then relearning.

The DSM was originally developed and written by psychiatrists who believed, and still largely believe, that medication is the answer to most, if not all, mental health disorders. At the time I am writing this (2017), the DSM states that low self-esteem creates/causes anxiety and depression, which is not true. Instead, low self-esteem is the result of faulty, distorted thinking that creates anxiety and depression in its wake. The main factor in a child developing low self-esteem lies in the early years of that child's life, depending on how they are affected by what goes on around them in the formative years and how they view themselves as a result.

(Continues…)



Excerpted from "The Sorensen Low Self-Esteem Recovery Program"
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Table of Contents

Preface,
Chapter 1: Why Low Self-Esteem Is An Important Issue,
Chapter 2: Development Of My Theory Did Not Happen Overnight,
Chapter 3: Low Self-Esteem Is A Stand-Alone Disorder,
Chapter 4: What Are The Most Important And Most Frequently Asked Questions About LSE?,
Chapter 5: Symptoms Of Low Self-Esteem,
Chapter 6: How We Respond To What We Hear And Experience,
Chapter 7: The Goal Of This Program Is To Break The Chain (Or Grip) Of Low Self-Esteem In Your Life,
Chapter 8: The Self-Esteem Attack,
Chapter 9: The Sorensen Self-Esteem Test,
Chapter 10: Introversion vs. Extroversion,
Chapter 11: Positive Statements Can Actually Be Detrimental To Those With Low Self-Esteem,
Chapter 12: The Sorensen Low Self-Esteem Recovery ProgramTM,
A Special Section for Parents,
About the Author,

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