I would like to know how Freud would have responed to someone with low self-esteem?

-- Taylor johnson (Eyeo121@aol.com), February 08, 2002

Answers

The concept would not have been in Freud's vocabulary, nor is it really meaningful within Freudian theory. So you'd have to ask first in what way low self esteem might have manifested itself in his culture and his time. Freud's therapeutic rule was pretty much that the patient should simply free associate, and then the analyst might respond with interpretations. Or the patient might report dreams, which again required free association. The question is anachronistic: you're trying to apply an idea back in time, which is a pretty risky thing to do.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), February 09, 2002.

Taylor - We can speculate that Freud might have worked to produce some insight for this client regarding the emotional/mystical etiology of his low self-esteem (most likely parental disparagement).

He might then have guided his client towards an intellectual understanding of the self-defeating patterns that continued to produce this "loser".

After which he might have suggested ways of being/acting that would establish a alternate foundation for this client, one on which to create genuine self-esteem based on achievements appropriate to his real-life personality.

-- visualize me (visualizeme@webtv.net), February 10, 2002.

Taylor - We can speculate that Freud might have worked to produce some insight for this client regarding the emotional/mystical etiology of his low self-esteem (most likely parental disparagement).

He might then have guided his client towards an intellectual understanding of the self-defeating patterns that continued to produce this "loser".

After which he might have suggested ways of being/acting that would establish an alternate foundation for this client, one on which to create genuine self-esteem based on achievements appropriate to his real-life personality.

-- visualize me (visualizeme@webtv.net), February 10, 2002.