Self-esteem is a concept that is used to refer to the value that individuals place on themselves. Our clients may find that their self-esteem fluctuates or modifies with certain successes, challenges, and failures. Their self-esteem may be tested when they are faced with criticism or negative feedback from others. Keep reading to learn 8 self-esteem activities you can do with your clients in therapy.
Typically, those who have high self-esteem are less likely to experience mental health challenges and conditions. Those who do struggle with their self-esteem have a higher risk of developing mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and substance use disorders. Additionally, those with higher self-esteem are more likely to have greater job satisfaction, better relationships, and an overall improved quality of life.
Struggling with self-esteem is a difficulty that can affect children and adolescents in addition to adults. A research study conducted in Norway followed youth for a three-year period to learn about the relationship between self-esteem and mental health conditions. This study found a positive correlation between lower self-esteem and the development of anxiety, depression, and attention problems within three years.
Individuals who are struggling with their self-esteem may not meet clinical criteria for a mental health diagnosis. Clients may find themselves struggling to set boundaries, prioritizing others needs over their own, avoiding social situations, isolating, having negative self-talk, struggling to accept compliments, and avoiding new experiences. These behaviors can affect their relationships, academic performance, and career.
How Self-Esteem Activities Can Help Your Clients
Those who are struggling with their self-esteem often benefit from professional help. Depending on the severity of their symptoms and other mental health concerns, they may require inpatient or outpatient care. Treatment can include therapy, counseling, group support, and educational sessions. For younger clients, family therapy and other programming opportunities may be recommended to promote family involvement in treatment. This can contribute to positive changes within the home that promote long-term mental well-being.
Self-esteem activities can be tailored to each client, ensuring that they receive the treatment needed to decrease the severity of their symptoms. This can include learning valuable skills like reframing negative self-talk, improving their confidence, cognitive restructuring, and improving emotion regulation skills. There may be notable differences between self-esteem activities for kids and adults to address differences in maturity, emotional intelligence, and development.
In some cases, you may find that using professional worksheets reinforces the topic you are covering and promotes session participation. TherapyByPro is a trusted resource for mental health professionals that offers various mental health resources including customizable worksheets for clients struggling with their self-esteem and self-worth. Examples of worksheets that you could incorporate into your clinical work include:
Self-Esteem Activities for Your Clients
There is a diverse range of therapeutic approaches that can be used when working with clients who are struggling with their self-esteem. This can include cognitive-behavioral therapy, person-centered therapy, compassion-focused therapy, ACT, narrative therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, and more.
While you’re reading about self-esteem activities for adults and children, we encourage you to think about how you could customize these activities to fit the needs of your clients. You can use supervision or peer consultations to talk through and receive feedback on your ideas.
Self-Esteem Activities for Kids
- Children and adolescents can create a collage about themselves. You can encourage them to use words, pictures, and other graphics found in magazines and other forms of media. They can also use drawings to represent their interests, strengths, and positive qualities they see in themselves. This activity can promote self-expression and can be a way to promote session engagement. A collage can help clients focus on the positive aspects of themselves and allow them to recognize their value.
- Depending on your client’s age and development, positive affirmations may be a helpful self-esteem activity. With this activity, you will encourage your client to say kind and encouraging statements to themselves while looking in the mirror. This is something that you can practice in session, then encourage them to incorporate into their routine at home. As an example, you may ask your client to say 2 positive affirmations to themselves in the morning. Spend time processing their experience, including discomfort or challenges they experienced, as well as how these affirmations affected their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
- Role-playing is a therapeutic activity that can be modified for clients of varying ages. You can use this self-esteem activity to practice situations that cause distress, such as social situations. Practicing social skills in a safe and supportive environment can help your client become familiar with using them, which can increase their confidence and decrease anxiety about certain situations.
- With adolescents, you can use journaling exercises to help improve self-esteem. You may use weekly prompts for their writing or encourage them to write about one thing that they’re grateful for each week. Journaling exercises can be modified for each client, allowing you to incorporate goals for various challenges and mental health conditions. Journaling can help shift their automatic thoughts from a negative theme to a more positive experience. Encourage your client to bring their journal into session and process their experience.
Self-Esteem Activities for Adults
- Cognitive restructuring is an intervention from cognitive behavioral therapy that can be used to help your client identify and challenge automatic beliefs that contribute to their low self-esteem. This can include thoughts like “I am a failure” or “I am not worthy.” This self-esteem activity for adults will focus on gathering evidence to support or disprove this belief. Over time, clients can begin to pick up on the presence of negative beliefs and challenge them in real time.
- Values clarification activities are commonly used with acceptance and commitment therapy. With this activity, you will spend time helping your client determine what matters to them. This can include things like connection with others, growing as a person, and being creative. The goal of this activity is to shift their focus from self-criticism to actions they engage in that align with their values. Your client can also identify thoughts and behaviors that do not align with their values and work to decrease their presence in everyday life.
- Meditation is a mindfulness practice that can be used to help clients develop present-moment awareness. This can be an effective activity for clients struggling with anxiety, depression, and other conditions that affect their self-esteem. You can introduce your client to a range of meditation practices like meditation, guided imagery, and progressive muscle relaxation. You can practice mindfulness skills in session and encourage them to incorporate them into everyday life. Allow for time in session to check in about their experience with meditation practices, reinforcing their continual practice.
- You can help your client create a timeline of their life and the events that have affected their self-esteem. This activity aligns with narrative therapy and can help your client better understand the meanings and messages they have internalized from various times in their life. Your client’s timeline should include key life events related to their self-esteem. As you process this activity, you can bring awareness to patterns that you’re seeing and how they are related to beliefs about their worth.
Final Thoughts On Choosing The Right Self-Esteem Activities for your Clients
Self-esteem exercises for adults and children can be effective tools in individual and group therapy sessions. Therapeutic activities can be modified in many ways, allowing you to provide comprehensive and personalized treatment. Activities that introduce clients to new coping or life skills can have a lasting impact, helping them incorporate healthy changes into their thoughts and behaviors.
Self-esteem is a concept that can have a significant role in psychological distress and our clients overall quality of life. You can learn more about therapeutic approaches and interventions for low self-esteem by engaging in continuing education and other training opportunities.
TherapyByPro is a trusted resource for mental health professionals worldwide. Our therapy tools are designed with one mission in mind: to save you time and help you focus on what truly matters-your clients. Every worksheet, counseling script, and therapy poster in our shop is professionally crafted to simplify your workflow, enhance your sessions, reduce stress, and most of all, help your clients.
Want to reach more clients? We can help! TherapyByPro is also a therapist directory designed to help you reach new clients, highlight your expertise, and make a meaningful impact in the lives of others.
Resources:
- Henriksen IO, Ranøyen I, Indredavik MS, Stenseng F. The role of self-esteem in the development of psychiatric problems: a three-year prospective study in a clinical sample of adolescents. Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health. 2017 Dec 29;11:68. doi: 10.1186/s13034-017-0207-y. PMID: 29299058; PMCID: PMC5747942.
- Silverstone PH, Salsali M. Low self-esteem and psychiatric patients: Part I – The relationship between low self-esteem and psychiatric diagnosis. Ann Gen Hosp Psychiatry. 2003 Feb 11;2(1):2. doi: 10.1186/1475-2832-2-2. PMID: 12620127; PMCID: PMC151271.
