Review
How people experience themselves affects every moment of their existence. Their self-evaluation is the basic context in which they act and react, choose their values, set their goals, meet the challenges of life. Their responses to events are shaped in part by who and what they think they are-how competent and worthy they perceive themselves to be. Of all the judgments they pass in life, none is more important than the judgment they pass on themselves.To say that self-esteem is a basic human need is to say that it makes an essential contribution to the life process, that it is indispensable to normal and healthy development, that it has value for survival. Without positive self-esteem, psychological growth is stunted. Positive self-esteem operates, in effect, as the immune system of consciousness, providing resistance, strength, and a capacity for regeneration." (Nathaniel Branden)
From the Inside Flap
In the more than thirty years since Nathaniel Branden first published The Psychology of Self-Esteem, psychologists, counselors, educators, and the general public worldwide have come to appreciate the extraordinary power of the ideas expressed in his classic work. Since the book first appeared, the self-esteem movement has fundamentally transformed our culture.
This new edition of the original text reveals how Nathaniel Branden's landmark book broke the rules of conventional behavioral theory and promulgated his revolutionary ideas on the critical role that self-esteem plays in living a healthy, fulfilling life. The book offers an in-depth exploration of the need for self-esteem, the nature of that need, the conditions of fulfillment, and how self-esteem (or lack of it) affects our values, responses, and goals. Branden also debunks the misguided notion that self-esteem is a "feel-good phenomenon" and shows instead how self-esteem, rationality, perseverance, self-responsibility, and personal integrity are all intimately related.
This edition includes a new epilogue, Working with Self-Esteem in Psychotherapy, in which Branden presents his more recent thinking on the topic of self-esteem. As a testament to his own theories, Branden has spent four decades working as a psychotherapist guiding clients who constantly test his ideas about self-esteem. In all, this publication reveals how the basic conceptual structure presented in The Psychology of Self-Esteem is as relevant today as the book was when it was first published in 1969.
The Author
Nathaniel Branden is the author of many books on self-esteem including the perennially best-selling The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem (1995), A Woman's Self-Esteem (Jossey-Bass, 1998), and Self-Esteem at Work (Jossey-Bass, 1998). He is also the author of the memoir My Years with Ayn Rand (Jossey-Bass, 1999).
