CONDITIONS FOSTERING LOW SELF ESTEEM

It is important to note that the environmental conditions listed below do not guarantee a dysfunctional, distressed life, but do seem to increase the potential probability for later low self-esteem. Complex factors such as disposition and healthy environmental or experiential variables can inoculate children to some extent from the destructive consequences of these environments. Certainly psychotherapeutic interventions can and do alleviate the destructive ravages of maladaptive conditions of worth on an adult’s life.

Conditions Reinforcing a Probability of Low Self-Worth in Adult Life

1. Children who were verbally, emotionally, physically, sexually abused
2. Children who were not loved and accepted unconditionally, either at home, at school or in the community
3. Children of parents or grandchildren of grandparents who came from a co-dependent or dysfunctional family system
4. Children of dependent parents (alcohol, drugs, gambling, food, shopping, sex)
5. Children of workaholic parents
6. Children of mentally ill parents
7. Children raised in a high-stress environment
8. Children raised in an environment where feelings were not openly expressed, experienced, or welcome
9. Children who have experienced the divorce of their parents
10. Children who have experienced the loss of a parent or significant other in their childhood
11. Children raised in an absolutist or fundamentalist environment
12. Children raised in a family headed by a single parent due to divorce, death, or absence due to career
13. Children who were abused emotionally or verbally in a school environment
14. Adults who have been hurt badly in a relationship, in marriage, in school, at work, or in the community
15. Adults who work in a co-dependent work environment
16. Adults hurt in a relationship at work or in the community with someone and/or married to someone who is dependent (alcohol, drugs, gambling, food, shopping, sex)
17. Adults in a relationship with someone or married to someone who is a workaholic
18. Adults in a relationship with someone or married to someone who comes from a co-dependent family or work system
19. Members of a family in which a child with a developmental disability is born and reared
20. Members of a family in which a chronically ill family member is cared for
21. Members of a family or work environment in which a compulsive individual lives
22. Compulsive or dependent individuals, once they are treated and enter recovery