Is Self-Loathing an All or Nothing Proposition?

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Several comments to my post on "The Single Self-Loather" were incredibly insightful, and forced me to think about self-loathing in new ways. For instance, Ashley wrote, "Perhaps I still don't grasp what a self-loather actually is—if there is a precise definition. Is it a global self-loathing (i.e. you hate everything about yourself with no redeeming quality)—or are there just some things that you find loathe-worthy which you feel devalues the entire person?" To which Jo replied: "Maybe this reflects the difference between self-esteem and self-worth, the first being more 'situational'... and the other related to your basic worth as a human being? Personally, I have achieved good academic results and 'succeeded' in some important areas, but while I recognize that I am a good student and have academic abilities (and, as such, have at least some self-esteem in certain areas), the feeling of being a bad PERSON pretty much remains the same (i.e. low self-worth)."

As I mulled over these comments, they began to invoke two issues that arise in virtue ethics: the unity of virtues and their variability across situations (or the situationist critique). Before we begin, please understand that I'm not saying that self-loathing is a virtue, though a person can be a "virtuous self-loather" by dealing with other people in a virtuous way despite his or her self-reagrding issues (as described in my last post). All I mean is that there are similar ways in which self-loathing and the virtues are be described or understood, and that claims about the unity of the virtues and the situationist critique have some implications about the nature of self-loathing, which I want to explore.

The unity of the virtues is the claim that possessing one positive character trait necessarily implies possessing all of them. According to this position—which many virtue theorists share, though in vastly different forms—one cannot be truly honest, for example, without also being kind, courageous, and so forth. In other words, there is something essential to being a virtuous person which underlies having the individual virtues, and without that one central, basic thing, you can't be truly virtuous in any specific ways.

Both comments quoted above made me think of self-loathing in similar terms. Does self-loathing imply that you must regard every facet of yourself as inferior, or can you have good opinions of some aspects of yourself and still feel inadequate overall?

I think the answer to this depends on how we understand the nature of self-loathing itself. As I understand it, self-loathing reflects a radical devaluation of one's overall character—in effect, a denial of one's virtues. A self-loathing person considers him- or herself a "bad person," unworthy of concern or love, presumably because the virtues—the good character or personality traits that would justify concern and love—are missing. But do these virtues have to be lacking completely or can some exist and others not? (Never mind the issue of whether one can possess a virtue "partially"—is some kindness better than none, or is halfhearted kindness no real kindness at all? That's a whole other can of worms.)

For some people, feeling like a "bad person" implies a complete lack of any virtues at all. In this view, if a good or virtuous person embodies the unity of virtues, a bad (but not evil) person embodies the unity of lack of virtue. (I'm being careful here not to invoke the opposite of virtue, which would be vice—a self-loathing person can consider herself to be bad in the sense of inadequate or worthy without thinking herself evil.) This is the easiest way to account for self-loathing: obviously, if a person feels he lacks any redeeming qualities at all, he is very likely to loathe himself utterly and completely. If this turns out to be the best way to understand self-loathing, in a backwards sort of way it may also be a supporting argument for the unity of virtues: they're a package deal, and you either have them all or you have none of them.

Is Jo being inconsistent or insincere when she claims to acknowledge her academic success but then downplays her overall quality as a person? Perhaps she does not regard her academic success as reflecting any moral virtue, giving most of the credit to her inborn intelligence or luck rather than her own dedication and perseverance. We may disagree with this judgment, of course, but this would not make her insincere—just modest. More likely, though, she recognizes these positive character traits but does not consider them as important as the other virtues she feels she lacks. This view, however, speaks against the unity of the virtues (or lack thereof), since this position does not usually distinguish between more and less important character traits, simply claiming that they're all connected. The possibility of someone like Jo recognizing goodand bad things about herself implies that her virtues are not unified, that some exist within her while others don't, and that her feelings of inadequacy result from weighing the good and bad against each other—and possibly ranking some, presumably the ones she feels she lacks, as more important—and coming up short overall.
This also suggests a way to combat self-loathing: changing the way you assess your own virtues and lack thereof. If you're a self-loathing individual, besides assessing yourself too harshly, you are likely also overemphasizing the traits in which you feel you fall short—judging those, perhaps not coincidentally, to be the most important ones—and underemphasizing the ones in which you may feel you shine. This may not get to the heart of your predisposition to see yourself in a negative light, but it may help you to remember the ways in which you are a good person, and help you improve your overall self-evaluation.
Next time, I'll discuss the parallels between self-loathing and the situationistic critique of virtue theory: Is self-loathing always the same, or can it vary according to the situation in which it arises?
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For a list of my previous Psychology Today posts on self-loathing (and other topics), see here.

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PARENTS UNDERESTIMATE KIDS’ WORRIES

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Parents consistently overestimate their children’s optimism and downplay their worries, according to new research by psychologists at the University of California, Davis, Center for Mind and Brain.

The findings suggest that secondhand evaluations by parents or other adults of children’s emotional well-being need to be treated with caution.

Read more at http://scienceblog.com/57300/parents-underestimate-kids-worries/#XUBMecKQ6yi14qhp.99 

Many psychologists and researchers have long held that children under the age of seven cannot accurately report how they feel, said Kristin Lagattuta, associate professor of psychology at UC Davis, who led the study. So behavioral scientists frequently rely on the impressions of parents, teachers and other adults.

However, several studies have shown that parents think their kids are smarter than they really are — for example, parents often overestimate how well their children will perform on math, language or other cognitive tests.

“We thought this ‘positivity bias’ also might apply to how parents perceive their children’s emotional well-being,” Lagattuta said.

Lagattuta, with Liat Sayfan, a postdoctoral researcher at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain, and Christi Bamford, a former graduate student at UC Davis, made the discovery while conducting larger studies on individual differences in children’s social reasoning.

Rather than rely just on parent questionnaires, the researchers decided to assess kids’ views of their own emotions.

They developed a picture-based rating scale that children could use to rate how often they felt different kinds of emotions. The team got the children used to the scale with basic questions such as how often they eat a particular food or wear clothes of a particular color.

In three separate studies involving more than 500 children ages 4 through 11, they found that parents consistently rated their children as being less worried and more optimistic than the children rated themselves.

The questions involved common childhood anxieties such as being scared of the dark, or worries about something bad happening to a family member.

Lagattuta and her colleagues also found that parents’ own emotions biased not only how they perceived their children’s emotions, but also the degree of discrepancy between the parent and child reports.

The fact that there was a difference between adults and children in rating both anxiety and optimism showed that there wasn’t a simple effect of children giving themselves higher scores for everything, Lagattuta said. Instead, children consistently provided higher ratings than parents when reporting their worries and lower ratings than parents when evaluating their feelings of optimism.

Previous research with parents suffering from anxiety or depression have shown that parents’ own emotions influence how they evaluate their children’s feelings, Lagattuta added. The current findings show that this is a mainstream phenomenon not specific to adults with mood disorders.

The results do not invalidate previous work involving parent reports of children’s emotions, Lagattuta said. But they do show that secondhand evaluations by parents or other adults need to be treated with care. Ideally, researchers should get emotion reports of children from multiple sources, including the child, Lagattuta said.

Awareness of this parental positivity bias may also encourage adults to be more attuned to emotional difficulties children may be facing, she noted.

The findings are published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

Read more at http://scienceblog.com/57300/parents-underestimate-kids-worries/#XUBMecKQ6yi14qhp.99 
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Why Do You Feel the Need to Lie?

Lying is something that everyone does from time to time:  There is acceptable lying like the basic answer to 'How are you?"  But then there are people who's self-esteem isn't in good condition and may find themselves lying more and more often.  Can we look at why different people explain why they feel they lie. 

Reading the following may help get you started.

I feel I am far too old to be grappling with this at this point in my life. I have a 2 year old, a newborn, a beautiful wife, a mortgage, and am a recent graduate from law school. I can’t stop lying though. The lying has always been for remedial things (telling people I played football when I was really in the marching band, etc.), but it has now infiltrated into all areas of my life. I have lied about past successes in school, work, faith, and general areas of character and integrity. I have been in sales for about 6 years now and I lie to customers about successes, mistakes that I have made, personal accomplishments, etc. I have most recently been caught by my boss lying about making a sales call I really didn’t make, and almost lost my job over it – over something he really wouldn’t have even cared about! I have a wife, a 2 year old, and a newborn who all depend on me, and I feel like I’m selfishly regressing.
I have thought long and hard about what is at the root of all this. My father, who died when I was 22, had a major stroke when I was in 7th grade. He was mentally and physically transformed, and at 13 years old in 7th grade I remember trying to cover up what was really wrong with dad to friends…even though I don’t remember any of them ever saying anything…just that feeling of ‘needing’ to cover it up. I remember it being very difficult to have dad come into a school function on canes or in a wheelchair, and then feeling ashamed that I was embarrassed of him. I truly believe that this is where the lying began, and it has continued ever since to some degree or another. I constantly embolden stories just to make them more interesting (perhaps because I don’t feel like I’m interesting enough on my own?). As an aside, I have also been caught for shoplifting twice before, have cheated many times in school and on taxes, and have struggled with my faith over the years; I also don’t do drugs and only drink alcohol in moderation.
So with my boss catching me recently, it just hit me that I can’t do this anymore. I’m tired of all the lies. And although I think I know why I lie and where it’s rooted, I can’t stop. I don’t know if I’m afraid of what my raw exposure to the world would surface, or if I’m even worthy of such a “re-start.” I don’t know how to wipe the slate clean and start anew. I just know that I have to because I hate who I have become. I have never considered suicide (because I do believe that I am here for a purpose), but I truly hate who I have become, and I want to be someone my 2 sons want to model.
I feel like I have allowed these years of lies to define who I am, and while I don’t want that to go on anymore, I am afraid I will not have the will to steer the ship. How do I do it? I just don’t know if I can come clean to my friends and family about all this because, quite frankly, where would I start?
This feel awesome to write though. I can’t explain how good it feels to write all this down (or think it all clearly through for the first time) because…it’s the truth! Please help me.

A. When people lie it is always for a purpose. In my experience, the purpose of the lies is to make someone appear to be better than they are, which is indicative of a poor self-image/shame. People lie because they don’t think they are good enough/shame. As you said, you lied about being a football player when in reality you were in the marching band. This indicates that you thought that being a football player made you appear better than being in the marching band. If you would have thought that being in the marching band was better than being a football player you would have told the truth. You would not have lied about playing football because the purpose of your lies was to make you look better. As you can see from my example, lying had nothing to do with anything external. It had to do with your internal feelings about yourself/shame. In your mind, being a football player was better than being in the marching band. In other people’s minds, they may have thought that being in a marching band was better than football. You were lying to make yourself look better to yourself, not to the world.
It would be a mistake to think that you are the only person in the world lying. Lying is very common to human nature. People lie on their taxes; they lie on their resumes and in many other areas of life. They embellish stories, which is just another way of saying they lie. I’m sure there are plenty of times when individuals of the highest moral character are asked a question and they do not tell the absolute truth. For instance, a question such as “how does my new haircut look?” may generate the same response from many people — “oh it looks great” — but the truth may be that they believe the haircut is hideous. How many times does someone ask “how are you doing?” and you simply respond “great” when it reality you may not be doing well at all.
In life, there are ‘acceptable’ or understandable lies and in some cases one may need to lie as a way to survive very difficult situations. For instance, you lied in grade school about your father. You may have had to do that because the reality is that one’s peers in grade school can be vicious. At that age, your peers often search for any differences, any weakness, and use them to torment or bully you. Today we recognize this behavior as bullying. You may have had to lie in that situation because it was advantageous and it was essentially a survival mechanism.
Generally, lying is part of human nature and it is a mistake to think that you’re the only one who’s guilty of lying. Your lying fits a pattern. You are lying to make yourself look better to your boss, to friends, and perhaps even to your children.
The heart of the issue is that you do not think that you are ‘good enough’/feel shamed the way you are. To be ‘good enough’ you need to lie to come up to ‘normal’ and this indicates that you have a poor self-image. This is an issue that can be dealt with effectively in therapy.
I also want to point out the very positive aspects of your letter. One is that you are fully aware of the issue. That may not have always been the case but it seems to be now. This awareness increases the likelihood that you can effectively deal with this problem. The second positive aspect of your letter is that you seem to have a new or heightened clarity about this issue. As you said, you felt very good about writing down your feelings and for the first time were able to think through them clearly. Third, you seem willing and open to make changes your life. I see this as the perfect time for you to deal with the possible long-running issue of a poor self-image/shame.
By Kristina Randle, Ph.D., LCSW

New Anger Workbook Now Available

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2. Dishonesty
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