The Pyschology of Confidence and Respect
From the acclaimed author of The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem comes a powerful guide to growing your self-confidence and creating a more fulfilled life.
The challenge to honor the self calls on the heroic possibilities of our nature-on the will to think, to understand, to remain true to our understanding, to struggle, to endure, to persevere, and to remain open and responsive to life, sometimes in the face of dread, despair, confusion, and loneliness.-from the introduction
What is the most important judgement you will ever make? The judgement you pass on yourself. Self-esteem is the key to success or failure.
"Tell me how a person judges his or her self-esteem," says pioneering psychologist Nathaniel Branden, "and I will tell you how that person operates at work, in love, in sex, in parenting, in every important aspect of existence-and how high he or she is likely to rise. The reputation you have with yourself-your self-esteem-is the single most important factor for a fulfilling life."
In Honoring the Self, Branden offers comprehensive, thoughtful advice for raising your self-esteem and teaches you how to-
. Grow in self-confidence and self-respect.
. Nurture self-esteem in children.
. Break free of guilt and fear of others' disapproval.
. Honor the self-the ethics of rational self-interest.
Self-concept is destiny. Using the sage advice and self-reflective prompts in Honoring the Self, you can discover the power of personal transformation and build a better life.
Industry Reviews
Another stuffy, verbose credo by the repetitious author of The Psychology of Self-Esteem, The Disowned Self, The Romantic Love Question & Answer Book, etc. An Ayn Rand disciple and Los Angeles therapist, Branden intones that "to honor the self is to practice selfishness in the highest, noblest, and least understood sense of that word." In terms of psychological theory, this approach involves a little anti-Freudian emphasis on free-will - but mostly just longwinded jargon for basic, highly generalized principles of ego development: the need for self-esteem; the ways in which children do or don't get ego-reinforcement; the problems that arise when self-esteem is lacking - guilt, dependence on outside valuation, lack of self-acceptance; passivity, defense mechanisms. ("I call any value chosen to support pseudo-self-esteem a defense value.") As for treatment, Branden gives examples of his sentence-completion techniques (cf. If You Could Hear What I Cannot Say), while also recommending meditation/relaxation methods for increasing self-awareness. And, after touching briefly on death anxiety ("fear of autonomy entails fear of self-responsibility entails fear of identity entails fear of aloneness entails fear of death"), he offers some Rand-ish thoughts on the self in society - affirming the nobility of "proself, individualist ethics." Kernels of truth float here and there, but they're mired in a soggy replay of Me Decade terminology at its most pompous: more an incentive to snooze than self-actualize. (Kirkus Reviews)
