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The Power of Self-Esteem: An Inspiring Look At Our Most Important Psychological Resource

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According to Nathaniel Branden in this book, self-esteem is...

1) Confidence in our ability to think and cope with the basic challenges of life

2) Confidence in our right to be happy, the feeling of being worthy, deserving, entitled to assert our needs and wants, and to enjoy the fruits of our efforts.

However, he seems to focus mostly on #1 (and at that, the first part of #1, our ability to think), and little or not at all on our ability to cope, or #2 our right to be happy, etc.

Most of the book is about defining self-esteem, much less about where it comes from, or how to get it or repair it (he states this as the purpose in the introduction, to be fair).

Nonetheless, I got a new perspective on self-esteem. I learned it's not just "self-love", but confidence in our MIND, that is, our ability to understand our lives, ourselves, and the world, and therefore to make wise choices that lead to success in reaching our goals, if we are committed to the truth, the facts, and perceiving and accepting reality to the best of our ability.

It helped me understand why I have done as well as I have in the face of childhood trauma; because deep down I had a shred of faith that life could be better, and that I was smart enough to make sense of the chaos around me, if I learned enough and applied my mind enough.

The Power of Self Esteem is a great little book. In the first part of the book, Dr. Branden spends time creating a solid definition of self-esteem. This is very important. Many people are not aware of the power of self-esteem and they are going through life trying to repair symptoms when in truth their problems stem from a lack of or a damaged self-esteem.

Dr. Branden gives a very clear definition of self-esteem after pointing out some of the earlier and less correct attempts at the definition, and then informing us as to how self-esteem is damaged during many of our childhood years. Many parents are damaging the self-esteem of their children without even being aware of it. Some here made the point that the book does not tell you how to create a healthy self-esteem. However, once you understand fully what self-esteem is there a real need to tell you how to create a healthy self-esteem? You should be able to deduce that on your own.

The title of the book is The Power of Self Esteem not How To Create Self Esteem. The narrow focus allows one to extract a great deal of information that is on point and only relevant to the power of self-esteem. The examples that Dr. Branden gives of how the self-esteem of children is damaged without even being aware of it is worth the price of the book. If that is the only thing you take away from the book is the awareness of how your interaction with your children may be damaging their self-esteem then you have been given a wonderful gift.

After reading this work, it seems easy to believe that many of the ills that plague our inner cities can be tracked down to issue of self-esteem. Issues such as teen-age pregnancy and the alarming drop out rate come to mind. In most cases our solutions address symptoms instead of working on the root cause, which may very well be a lack of self-esteem.

Another wonderful discussion in the book is the discussion of addiction and its relationship to self-esteem. Dr. Branden states: When we become addicted to alcohol or drugs or destructive relationships, the unconscious intention is invariably to ameliorate anxiety and pain. What we become addicted to are tranquilizers and anodynes. The "enemies" we are trying to escape are fear and pain. This idea is very challenging to those who consider alcoholism to be dis-ease.

The other gold mine in the book arrives in Chapter 6 Recommendations for Further Study. On page 78 under the heading Trusting Yourself. Dr. Branden states: The most fundamental meaning of self-esteem is trust in your own mind, your own mental processes. Therefore, trust in your ability to learn, to judge, to decide.

How many of us can honestly say we trust in our own mind, in our ability to learn, to judge and to decide. This is part of our childhood development. If you do not feel good about these areas you should consider reading this work in order to gain clarity and go about the business of getting help and solving a foundation issue which may bring much success and happiness into your life.



Warmest Regards,
Kai Ajala Dupé

I totally agree with the first review of the paperback version - Dr. Branden concentrates on defining self esteem, and goes into great detail how it can be destroyed during childhood, but doesn't give a clue how to go about repairing it.

The lectures (and that's what these tapes are: recorded during one of his lecture series on an unknown date and probably abridged) seem to be addressing an audience of psychiatry students. His sentence structure is complicated and unwieldy, and sometimes difficult to understand, even for a college-educated person. It's not entertainment.

Finally, he winds up with a discussion of relationships that seems to start out with the assumption that most women are still housewives and are subservient to their man. I'm a man, but I was shaking my head at his old-school regard for women. He talks like it was discovered only recently that women have any intellect.

Not a good tape if you want to get fast answers to improving yourself. Buy it only if you are interested in the deeper roots of a lack of self-esteem, from an academic standpoint. Even then, you'd probably be better off buying the paperback and saving your time and cash.

I picked this book up because I greatly respect (if not entirely agree with) the philosophies of Ayn Rand and enjoyed Branden's revision of 'My Years With Ayn Rand'. I was expecting another fresh look at the self, something detailed, something useful. I was sorely disapointed.

Anyone who has had any exposure to Rand's Objectivist philosophies or ever thought for themselves at all will find this book incredibly dull. Thankfully, it's written in short bursts of a pharagraph or two at a time, seperated by various repetitive headers, unfortunately, the content of each paragraph burst is just as repetitive as the headers.

Meant for the ignorant, if you have any sense of self-worth whatsoever, this book will be of no use to you - there's nothing new there.