Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel BrandenMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I took my time reading this book as there is so much to process. This was my first book from Nathaniel Branden, and I will definitely seek out others he has written as I found this so helpful.
This book focuses on what self-esteem is and how to raise your self-esteem. This was the author's forte in his practice as a therapist. The six pillars are The Practice of Living Consciously, of Self Acceptance, of Self Responsiblity, of Self Assertiveness, of Living Purposefully, and of Personal Integrity. Some might feel that is enough to know, but Nathaniel Branden goes into detail about each of these and how they apply. It enables the reader to full understand the meaning of self-esteem and how to create and build it, if it was missing from your upbringing (as it was in mine). He also touches on those that had it damaged and how to work with that.
Nathaniel Branden uses a sentence completion system to repair and build self-esteem. He provides the beginning of a sentence for the reader/patient to complete. Through repetition daily, using the same 4-5 sentence stems for a week to two weeks, the reader/patient is able to trigger some conscious and subsconscious changes in their thinking to aid their self-esteem. Each pillar has its own sentence stems the reader can use, but at the back there is also a 31 week program or course where you can focus each week on 4-5 sentence stems and review them each week to really go indepth and work to build it properly and constructively. I am currently following it and finding it quite profound in places.
Some reviews of this book and of Nathaniel Branden's work are criticised due to his connection to Ayn Rand. Some feel that this connection negates his work in some way. I haven't fully understood why as I haven't found anything that Rand has written to contradict Branden's work. Or that she believed or wrote anything negative. On his own, his work has merit and for those seeking to improve their self-esteem and thus their outlook on life, and achieve more in life, this book is definitely worth your time.
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