Low Self-Esteem
Low self-esteemTherapy | Psychologist in Maastricht | English & Greek
When the way you see yourself becomes harder to live with
The way we see ourselves can influence almost every part of our lives: the choices we make, the relationships we form, the opportunities we pursue, and the way we respond when things don't go as planned.
When self-esteem is low, you may find yourself being much harder on yourself than you would ever be towards someone else. A mistake can feel like evidence that you are not good enough. A rejection can feel like confirmation that something is wrong with you. A compliment may be difficult to believe, while criticism can stay with you for a long time.
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You may compare yourself with other people, question your decisions, apologise even when you haven't done anything wrong, or feel that you need to achieve more before you can feel genuinely proud of yourself.
Sometimes low self-esteem is obvious.
Sometimes it sits quietly underneath anxiety, perfectionism, people-pleasing, relationship difficulties, or a constant feeling that you are somehow falling short.
Therapy can provide a space to understand where these beliefs about yourself come from, how they influence the way you live and relate to others, and how you can gradually develop a more balanced and compassionate relationship with yourself.
Does this sound familiar?
You might often question whether you're good enough, attractive enough, intelligent enough, successful enough, or simply enough as a person. You may compare yourself with other people and automatically focus on what they seem to have that you don't.
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You may find it difficult to accept compliments because part of you doesn't quite believe them. At the same time, criticism may feel disproportionately painful and stay in your mind long after the conversation has ended.
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Perhaps you regularly second-guess yourself or look to other people for reassurance before trusting your own judgement. You might apologise frequently, even when you haven't done anything wrong, or find yourself agreeing with other people because expressing a different opinion feels uncomfortable.
You may also put a great deal of pressure on yourself. You might feel that you need to achieve more, look different, be more productive, or behave differently before you will finally feel comfortable with who you are.
Sometimes low self-esteem appears through thoughts such as:
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“I'm not good enough.”
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“Other people are better than me.”
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“If people really knew me, they wouldn't like me.”
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“I should be doing better by now.”
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“Everyone else seems to have it together.”
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“I don't deserve this.”
You may recognise these thoughts immediately, or they may operate more quietly in the background and show themselves through the decisions you make.
Understanding self-esteem
Self-esteem refers broadly to the way we evaluate and relate to ourselves. It is not simply whether you think you are “good” or “bad.” It can influence how worthy, capable, acceptable, or deserving you feel, particularly when you encounter mistakes, criticism, rejection, or uncertainty.
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Healthy self-esteem does not mean believing that you are exceptionally talented or never experiencing insecurity.
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It means being able to recognise both your strengths and your limitations without allowing either to determine your entire sense of worth.
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Someone with relatively healthy self-esteem can make a mistake and think: “I made a mistake.” Low self-esteem can make that same experience feel more like: “I am a failure.” The difference is important.
When your sense of worth becomes closely tied to what you achieve, how other people respond to you, or how well you perform, everyday experiences can begin to feel like judgements about who you are as a person.
When your worth starts feeling conditional
Low self-esteem often involves a sense that you need to be or do something in order to deserve acceptance, respect, or love.
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You may feel worthy when you are successful, productive, attractive, useful, liked, or needed.
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But when something goes wrong, that sense of worth can disappear very quickly. You might think:
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“I'm okay when I'm doing well.”
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“I'm valuable when people need me.”
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“I'm attractive when other people find me attractive.”
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“I'm successful when I'm achieving.”
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This can create an exhausting way of living because your sense of self-worth is constantly being tested.
A difficult day at work can become a judgement about your competence.
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A relationship ending can become a judgement about your desirability.
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Someone else's success can become evidence that you are falling behind.
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A mistake can become proof that you are not capable enough.
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Instead of experiences being things that happen to you, they can begin to feel like evidence about you.
How low self-esteem can shape the way you treat yourself
When you have a negative view of yourself, you may develop an internal voice that is considerably harsher than the way you would speak to anyone else.
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You might call yourself lazy when you are exhausted, stupid when you make a mistake, selfish when you set a boundary, or inadequate when something doesn't go according to plan.
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Over time, this criticism can become so familiar that it no longer feels like criticism. It can simply feel like the truth.
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You may not even notice how often you dismiss your own achievements or focus on what you could have done better.
Perhaps you receive ten positive comments and one criticism, but the criticism is the thing you remember.
Perhaps you accomplish something important but immediately move on to the next thing instead of allowing yourself to feel proud.
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Perhaps you tell yourself that your achievements don't really count because they were “easy,” “expected,” or simply the result of luck.
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This can make it very difficult for positive experiences to change the way you see yourself.
Comparing yourself with other people
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Comparison is a natural part of being human. We all notice what other people are doing and use it to understand ourselves.
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When self-esteem is low, however, comparison can become a way of repeatedly confirming that you are falling short.
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You may compare your appearance, career, relationships, finances, social life, achievements, personality, or progress with other people.
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And the comparison is rarely neutral.
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You are often comparing your internal experience with someone else's visible outcome.
You know your own doubts, mistakes, insecurities, and difficult days.
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You see other people's achievements, relationships, confidence, and carefully presented moments.
The result can be a feeling that everyone else is moving forward while you are somehow behind.
Social media can intensify this process, but comparison doesn't require social media. It can happen at work, within friendships, in families, or simply in your own mind.
Therapy can help explore what comparison means to you and what you are hoping it will tell you about your own worth.
How low self-esteem can affect your life
Low self-esteem rarely stays confined to the way you think about yourself. It can influence the choices you make and the way you relate to other people.
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Relationships
You may worry that someone will leave you, lose interest, or realise that you are not good enough. This can lead to reassurance seeking, jealousy, people-pleasing, difficulty expressing needs, or tolerating situations that don't feel good because being alone seems worse.
You may also find it difficult to believe that someone genuinely cares about you.
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Boundaries
If you believe that other people's needs are more important than your own, saying no can feel selfish or frightening. You may agree to things you don't want to do because disappointing someone feels more uncomfortable than ignoring your own needs.
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Work and achievement
You may feel that you constantly need to prove yourself. Success provides temporary reassurance, but the feeling doesn't last for long because another achievement is needed to maintain it.
This can overlap with perfectionism, overworking, procrastination, and fear of failure.
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Decision-making
You may struggle to trust your own judgement and look to other people for reassurance before making decisions. Even after deciding, you may continue wondering whether you chose incorrectly.
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Opportunities
Low self-esteem can sometimes lead you to underestimate what you are capable of. You may avoid applying for a job, starting a relationship, expressing an opinion, or trying something new because you assume that you are unlikely to succeed.
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Your emotional wellbeing
Constant self-criticism can contribute to anxiety, low mood, shame, and feelings of inadequacy. When negative beliefs about yourself become deeply established, they can influence how you interpret experiences and remember them.
How we can work with low self-esteem in therapy
Our work would begin by understanding how you experience yourself and where your difficulties tend to appear. We might explore the situations in which you feel most inadequate, what tends to trigger self-criticism, and what you believe those experiences say about you. We may also look at the standards you hold yourself to. Are you allowed to make mistakes? Can you disappoint someone and still feel like a good person? Can you rest without feeling guilty? Can you receive something positive without immediately questioning whether you deserve it?
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Depending on your needs, we may draw from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Schema Therapy.
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CBT can help identify negative automatic thoughts and patterns of interpretation that contribute to low self-esteem, and examine whether the conclusions you draw about yourself are as accurate or absolute as they feel.
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ACT can help you step back from harsh self-judgements and develop a different relationship with thoughts about inadequacy, failure, or worth, while reconnecting with the values you want your life to be guided by.
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Schema Therapy can be particularly useful when low self-esteem feels longstanding or deeply rooted. We can explore patterns and beliefs that may have developed through earlier experiences, particularly around criticism, rejection, comparison, conditional acceptance, emotional needs, or feeling that you had to be a certain way to be valued.
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The aim is not to convince you that you are perfect. It is to develop a more stable sense of self-worth—one that does not rise and fall so dramatically depending on achievement, approval, comparison, or other people's reactions.
Taking the First Step
You may have been aware of low self-esteem for a long time, or you may only have recently started noticing how much it influences your choices. Perhaps you know that you are overly critical of yourself but don't know how to stop. Perhaps you are successful in many areas of your life but still don't feel good enough. Or perhaps you have become so accustomed to comparing yourself with others that it is difficult to imagine relating to yourself differently. You don't need to arrive with a clear explanation of where your self-esteem difficulties came from. Part of therapy can be understanding how these beliefs developed, how they continue to affect you, and what experiences may help you develop a different relationship with yourself.
The goal is not to become completely free from insecurity or self-doubt. Everyone experiences these things.
It is to reach a point where a mistake doesn't define you, someone else's opinion doesn't determine your worth, and your limitations can coexist with a sense that you are still worthy of respect, care, and acceptance.
If you'd like to explore whether working together could be a good fit, you can arrange a short introductory call.