The Brain and Thinking - early childhood focus

Unconditional Self-Acceptance (USA) is a useful anti self disturbance belief resource developed by the grandfather of cognitive therapy, Dr Albert Ellis. He understood he was imperfect but he determined early on in the piece that despite his flaws he was always OK. OK, according to the gospel of St. Albert meant that he and everyone else could believe their way into unconditionally accepting themselves.

Unconditional self-acceptance renders a person psychologically resistant to the slings and arrows that others may cast their way in the form of put down, harsh criticisms; unfair and damning, and all manner of failings and personal imperfections.

This of course comes with practice and determination, vigilance and hard work. So how does one become self-accepting? This has been the focus of many or most of this blog content e.g Unconditional Self-Acceptance, but in a nutshell USA is knowing that a persons worth is not negotiable; it's a given, we're born with it!

However people are suggestible and are continually making sense of what's happening around them. If we receive information from around us, especially from significant others, which encourages and values our person we can learn to see ourselves in a positive light. If our carers and mentors address what we do and not who we are, we learn not to define ourselves, ascribe our total worth to aspects or personal traits we have developed. Be they good or bad we are not them. We can act badly and not 'be' bad and we can act 'goodly' and not 'be' good.

If on the other hand our mentors and significant others tell us we are bad because we do bad e.g. 'You are hopeless. You never do anything right!' we put two and two together and we compute four to mean, irrationally, that we are bad when we do bad etc.

These ideas can be taught successfully to younger folk in early childhood settings and the video below suggest we start off by establishing that as thinkers we direct and control how we feel and behave in response to life events. Our thinking can be helpful or unhelpful and these and other things will be explored through this video and others which will consider how we can help younger children to be happier and healthier unconditional self-accepters!

Nice and Too Nice - what's the difference?

What is nice? One person’s nice is not necessarily another person’s nice. How do we know we are nice is another consideration. People might comment on how obliging so and so is, that they are always available and seem so selfless and caring. This feedback either directly or via others might be comforting or assuring; it may also be affirming. Is this healthy? 

Niceness can be healthy if there is no sense of unreasonable obligation to general others attached to it. That is, one has a healthy dedication to one’s own needs and wants. She knows what these are and tends to them without fear or favour. She is not addicted to the needs, demands and appraisals of others. She intuitively understands that her worth is not dependent on others (unless allowed!). As Eleanor Roosevelt said:

If we worry about how others view us and we learn to need the affirmation of others we put ourselves at risk. What happens when we don’t get the acknowledgement we seek? What happens when our niceness isn’t rewarded? What happens when we don’t get what we have learnt we must have, the affirmation of our niceness; of us? Michelle Martin would say that we would be living in the realm of the overly nice; where we are too nice. 

Self-esteem is a concept that is used in many contexts when discussing mental health and well being. It is used to describe how a person views oneself. She makes estimations of her worth and usefulness; she makes assessments of her deeds and accomplishments and may ascribe a grade to her total efforts.

Some like Dr Albert Ellis who created Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy regards self-esteem to be detrimental to our mental health because it is conditional. How one esteems oneself is variable and can wax and wane depending on circumstances. This is self-defeating according to Ellis who asserts:

Ellis’ REBT talks about unconditional self-acceptance, the belief that our worth is not negotiable and can’t be attached to others assessment of us or how well or badly we may perform at tasks. This idea is taught to students in many schools and of course in the counselling context to help people develop a kind of ‘psychological muscle' or immunity to help deal with failure and rejection. Jonas Salk (creator of the polio vaccine) to Martin Seligman said:

"If I were a young scientist today, I would still do immunisation. But instead of immunising kids physically, I'd do it your way. I'd immunise them psychologically."

So are you a 'self esteemer' or a 'self-accepter' and how do these relate to niceness? Is there a healthy nice and an unhealthy nice?

Self esteemers may get caught up with pleasing others and ascribing self-worth to personal achievement. One may seek the approval of others and in doing so will ignore personal wants, needs and aspirations. This may in turn cause anger, anxiety, resentment and depression so strong is the need to please.

Self-accepters will not feel so obliged to others. They will consider their own needs and desires which reflect a healthy and unconditional sense of self-worth. They will not need (though they may desire/prefer) the approval of others nor will they always have to succeed at tasks (though they may want to) because they understand that their worth is inviolable and will remain intact even when things don’t go so well.

Are you a nice 'self accepter' or a too nice 'self esteemer?'