Part 3 - Theory and Practice

Chapter 31 - THEORY AND PRACTICE

This chapter is mainly for those who help others to feel good.

Experience in personal and relationship counselling first con-vinced me that low self-esteem is behind most self-created problems. This belief was supported by marriage counsellors, drug and alcohol counsellors and other specialty teams.

In 1976 I began my search for ways to teach self-esteem as a means of preventing couple relationship breakdown, the use of alcohol and drugs as a crutch, psychosomatic dis-eases, and more. Years later, like Dr Albert Ellis, I ended up teaching not self-esteem but self-acceptance.

This chapter outlines:

1. Why self-acceptance is more practical than self-esteem
2. Insight into a crucial difference between self-esteem and self-acceptance
3. Practical uses for self-acceptance built by the personal skills-
   • answers and solutions to puzzles
   • teach youngsters (and anyone) to circumstance and have the strength to say No to peer pressure, thugs, incest, etc.
   • adapting to change
   • a new approach to psychological measurement remedial teaching
   • potential for other practical applications.
4. The skills in this book.