The Thriving Adolescent by Louise Hayes & Joseph Ciarrochi

Author:Louise Hayes & Joseph Ciarrochi [Hayes, Louise; Ciarrochi, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications Inc.
Published: 2015-10-30T04:00:00+00:00

Part 2

Advanced Skills: Applying DNA-V to Our Self and Our Social World

Chapter 8

Our Self in Action

The topic of the self is one of the most important subjects for humans. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What kind of person are you? Are you flawed? Broken? Special? Ordinary? Unlovable? Powerful? Our answers to these questions often reflect what we think is possible for us in life. And we can struggle for years with negative self-concepts. The DNA-V model teaches an alternative: our labels are not us; they don’t define us. In this chapter and the two that follow, we’ll show you how to help young people finally let go of this struggle and negate the power of their unhelpful self-concepts. We’ll also address how you can help them harness self-concepts when they choose to—when doing so allows them to respond flexibly to the demands of the world.

In this chapter, we’ll take a closer look at the self and demonstrate the power of looking at the self through the lens of the DNA-V model. Then we’ll discuss how our culture trains young people to believe that self-esteem is a thing that must be defended at all costs, and how this belief can lead to a failure to take on challenges, or persist in valued tasks. Finally, we’ll present an alternative: our DNA-V model for understanding the self, which we call flexible self-view. This new approach, which is grounded in behavioral principles and relational frame theory, is both practical and easy to understand. Looking forward, chapter 9 provides exercises for developing a flexible self-view that can be used in all contexts with young people, from individual therapy to classrooms. Then, chapter 10 discusses working with young people who are struggling with more complex self-issues, such as those arising from abuse, neglect, or trauma. Chapter 10 also provides exercises for promoting self-compassion.

The Difference Between Self-Concept and Self-Esteem

The words “self-esteem” and “self-concept” are used to mean slightly different things in the scientific literature. “Self-esteem” refers to a general evaluation of the self, such as “I’m a worthless person” (Marshall, Parker, Ciarrochi, & Heaven, 2014). “Self-concept” is typically used in reference to specific domains of self, such as perceived academic or physical abilities (Parker, Marsh, Ciarrochi, Marshall, & Abduljabbar, 2013) and can involve both evaluations, such as “I’m not good at math,” and knowledge, such as “I’m a law student.” In this book, we define self-concept behaviorally: it involves a symbolic self (“I”) being related (“am”) to a concept, such as an evaluation (“not good enough”), category (“American”), or description (“just like my father”). By this definition, self-esteem is subsumed under the notion of self-concept. Stylistically, we use the term self-esteem when we want to emphasize that we are targeting an attitude toward the self, rather than self-knowledge.

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