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Were you ever ‘teacher’s pet’?

      

Were you picked on or taken for granted?

      

How were you disciplined?

      

Was corporal punishment used?

      Your Friends

      

Were you bullied, ignored or welcomed into ‘the gang’?

      

Did you keep the same friends for a long time or did you have to keep changing them, perhaps because you moved frequently?

      Your Position in Society

      

Were you from a privileged or underprivileged background?

      

Could you count on receiving the basic necessities of life?

      

Were you discriminated against?

      

Were you expected to do better, or worse than most people?

      Your Lifestyle

      

Was it sheltered or were you constantly ‘in the limelight’ and forced to socialize or compete?

      

Did you experience many changes and upheavals?

      

Did you travel very much?

      Your Religion

      

Was it the kind of religion which made you feel good about yourself?

      

Was it full of foreboding or was it optimistic about this life on earth?

      

Did it regard some individuals as more equal than others?

      

Were men given more responsibility, or perhaps privileges, than women?

      Traumatic Events

      

Were you physically or emotionally abused at any time?

      

Were you brought up in a peaceful society?

      

Did you lose any important people, jobs or possessions in your life, through no fault of your own?

      I have met many hundreds of people suffering with problems of confidence and as yet, I have not met anyone whose problems could not be traced back, to some substantial degree, to their childhood or other important formative experiences.

       What Is the Point of Looking Back?

      If we look back we will begin to understand.

      Some people may need to take longer than others to find the clues. For example, some parents are sophisticated enough to know the ‘right’ way to bring children up and this may seem very praiseworthy on the surface. But then children can feel doubly guilty for not being confident and successful.

      Hunting for the double messages, the hidden jealousies, and disguised ‘put-downs’ may be time-consuming, but it is important because it helps us to accept that our lack of confidence is not an integral part of us – it is a learned response. It was learned when we were powerless and were right to feel threatened.

A guilty conscience is the mother of invention. Carolyn Wells

      The kind of family we grew up in is perhaps the most important factor of all. Virginia Satir, a world renowned therapist, writes:

       I am convinced that there are no genes to carry the feeling of worth. It is learned. And the family is where it is learned . . . an infant coming into the world has no past, no experience in handling himself, no scale on which to judge his own worth. He must rely on the experiences he has with the people around him and the messages they give him about his worth as a person.

      We do not need a perfect environment to give us a healthy confidence in ourselves but we do need a ‘good-enough’ one. D W Winnicott, an excellent and well-known psychoanalyst, wrote:

       A good enough environment can be said to be that which facilitates the various individual inherited tendencies . . . it requires a high degree of adaptation to individual infant needs.

       Do Women Have Special Difficulties?

      The feminist movement has, of course, had a tremendous impact on the lives of women.

      But, although women have achieved tremendous advances in their battle against sexism and inequality, we still live in a society in which men hold real power over the vast majority of women. Equal opportunity is really still a dream. In Britain, even after a spell of being governed by a woman Prime Minister, the nation remains ruled largely by men. Women are slowly creeping up the management ladder in industry and the professional organizations, but it will be many years before any real balance of power in the public world is achieved.

Nobody can argue any longer about the rights of women. It’s like arguing about earthquakes. Lilian Hellman

      Although we are all aware of the many changes which have taken place, there is also abundant evidence to show that men still hold the real power in most families. This power is often embedded in the family finances.

      Nowadays most married women work. But we know that this is still often part-time, temporary and low-paid work. Very few wives are able to earn more than their husbands. Working mothers are particularly hard-hit because not only do they have to battle with the general discrimination against women in the world of work, but they also have to cope with many other practical problems.

      Even in the most liberal of families, where equality is genuinely being strived for, you find that choices have to be made. The result is that a woman’s earning power may be reduced. If one partner’s job has to suffer because a child is sick, a child minder is on holiday, or the family decides to move, whose job is protected? Usually it is the man’s, if only because it seems to make sound economic sense to protect the job which pays the most and is the most secure. Even as a successful, assertive, professional woman, this is a choice I have had to make many times in my life, and it is a choice that hurts. It can eat away at your self-esteem, especially

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