1. Self Esteem and Mental Disorders Section 1: Building Your Self Esteem
Chapter 3
Self Esteem and Mental Disorders
Section 1: Building Your Self Esteem

2. Risks of Low Self Esteem & Benefits of High Self Esteem
Feels insecure
Disrespects self and others
Speaks up for self
Vulnerable to peer pressure
Respects self and others
Doesn’t feel valuable
Has confidence
Feels depressed
Tries new things
Fears failure
Feels valuable to society
Uses drugs and alcohol
Adjusts to change
Feels pessimistic
Feels optimistic
Behaves destructively
Makes decisions based on values
Risks:

3. How and When Does our Self Esteem Begin?
Self Esteem begins to develop the day you are born. Self esteem can vary from one stage of life to another. Teen years can be especially challenging.
The ways in which people interact with you and respond to you can build up or tear down your self esteem.

4. What are Some Ways to Improve our Self Esteem?
Use Positive Self Talk (Even though this is a hard class, I am a hard working student and I can do it)
Act With Integrity (Stand up for someone who can’t stand up for themselves)
Choose Supportive Friends (Friends that share your values and will support you)
Accept Yourself (Don’t compare yourself to others, focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses)

5. Section 2: Using Good Communication Skills

6. Why is Good Communication Important?
Prevents Misunderstandings
Builds Healthy Relationships
Allows You to Express Yourself

7. What are the three Types of Communication?
Passive: Does not offer opposition when challenged, goes along with what other people want, even if it’s not desirable
Aggressive: Hostile and unfriendly and usually leads to bigger conflicts
Assertive: Expressing yourself in a friendly and direct way. This is the most desirable form of communication.

8. Scenarios: Your best friend tells someone else one of your secrets
Passive:
Aggressive:
Assertive:
Your boss asks you to work late for the third night in a row

9. Describe the 4 speaking skills:
Voice Volume: how loudly or quietly you speak. Loud: angry, Softly: secretive, personal
Tone and Pitch: Where you put emphasis on your words. WHAT are you doing? What ARE you doing?, What are YOU doing? What are you DOING?
“I” & “You” Messages: You messages make people defensive, I messages show ownership of what you are feeling and are less hostile
Empathy: The ability to understand another person’s perspective

10. The 2 Listening Skills
Active Listening: Lets the speaker know you are listening, and clarifying anything that is confusing. Example: Nodding your head, asking questions, making eye contact
Paraphrasing: Using your own words to restate what someone has said
Let’s try: I’m really not getting this math assignment. It’s too hard with all those letters and numbers, I get too confused when you talk so fast and just do the problems without letting us learn it.

11. Section 3: Mental and Emotional Health
Goals and objectives:
Describe the characteristics of positive mental and emotional health
Describe how you can learn to express emotions in positive ways
Identify the limitations of defense mechanisms
Describe 3 positive strategies for managing your emotions

12. Characteristics of positive emotional health?
A sense of control- take responsibility for behavior, do not blame others for your bad situation
Ability to endure failures and frustrations-persist through setbacks, frustration is a part of learning
Ability to see events positively-see challenges as opportunities
Ability to express emotions in healthy ways- talk with friends when you need support

13. Importance of expressing emotions
Emotions are not good or bad, but they can have positive or negative effects. Ex: You can’t study at home because there is too much noise. Frustration is normal, but running around screaming and failing a class doesn’t get a positive response.

14. Then how does a person learn to express emotions positively?
Practice expressing emotions in a positive way. Role play a situation (with a friend) in which you lost your temper. This time use the speaking skills you learned in section 2.
Practicing will help you for the next time. It will eventually become more natural.

15. Tips for managing emotions
Talk it Out: talk with someone you can trust, this is an excellent way to get things off your chest
Blow off Steam: You need to release the energy of the emotion. Exercise, walk, build something.
Be Creative: Some people write or draw, some sing or write music, others play an instrument, some paint or write.

16. Feeling angry?
Anger can always be dealt with in an appropriate manner. Anger is a normal feeling, especially if you have been wronged.
The first step is to recognize the emotion, then you can control it
Once you feel in control, talk to the person that upset you using the strategies from section 2 (“I” messages, voice tone, volume)

17. Feeling Fearful?
Fear is not pleasant, but it can be helpful. There are some things we SHOULD fear, like speeding cars.
Some things are not harmful, like public speaking.
Use positive self talk to get over fears.
Use controlled exposure to get over fears, or at least make the fear less scary

18. Feeling Guilty?
Can be unpleasant, but also serves a purpose, alerts you that you are behaving in a way that goes against your values
The best way to deal with fear is to right the wrong, correct the mistake. If someone was hurt, apologize.
Making amends lifts the guilt, you’ll feel better in the long run.

19. Feeling Jealous?
Jealousy is caused by fear that you will lose something you own or love. A twinge of jealousy is normal, but uncontrolled can ruin your relationships
If your sweetheart’s flirting with others is making you jealous, talk it out with them. Just remember, dating someone does not mean you own them.

20. Feeling Lonely?
Loneliness is an emotion that makes you feel isolated from others, emotionally. Ever been in a crowded room, and still felt lonely?
On the other hand, you can be alone and not feel lonely at all. Being able to be enjoy time by yourself is a sign of good mental health
A good way to manage loneliness is to make yourself part of a group: join a group or club, volunteer, get a job. Just don’t WAIT for people to approach you.

21. Defense Mechanisms
Behaviors that we use use to avoid something unpleasant.
Ex: When your parents yell at you about chores and schoolwork, do you tune them out and think about something else?
When you feel guilty about cheating, and you say everyone is doing it.

22. Matching Blocking out painful thoughts Refusing to accept reality
Denial
Blocking out painful thoughts
Refusing to accept reality
Sublimation
Shifting feelings about one person onto another person
Repression
Displacement
Redirecting negative impulses into positive behaviors

23. Limitations of Defense Mechanisms?
Defense mechanisms come in handy in the short term, they may even make you feel better temporarily.
However:
They have few (if any) long term benefits
They do not make unpleasant situation go away
You will never learn to cope with unpleasant emotions

24. How to Find Balance with Defense Mechanisms
All people use defense mechanisms at some point or another. It is a good way to temporarily cope with one’s feelings. Once you have mastered how to recognize and effectively cope with your feelings, you may not need defense mechanisms at all.

25. Section 4: Understanding Mental Disorders

26. Why are mental disorders often misunderstood?
Many people don’t get help because a person may not understand what it means
Some people are afraid of mental disorders and/ or the people that have them
Understanding the symptoms of mental disorders can take away the fear and anxiety many people experience

27. What are some possible signs of Mental disorders?
There are many types of mental disorders, and there are a variety of symptoms
Too much/ too little sleep
Feeling extreme sadness
Unexplained mood changes
Drug or alcohol use
Inability to concentrate
Extreme anxiety or irrational fear
Personality changes
False perceptions of reality

28. Common Types of Mental Disorders?
Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): difficulty concentrating, completing tasks, and following instructions, impulsive and hyperactive
Panic/ Anxiety Disorders: Sudden feelings of terror that strike without warning, may put themselves in danger by desperately trying to escape the situation
Phobias: excessive and persistent fear of something that may not really cause danger, such as spiders or giving a speech. Usually the result of a traumatizing experience
Depression: feelings of hopelessness and sadness that lasts more than a few days and may interfere with a person’s daily activities

29. Treatment for Mental Disorders?
Psychotherapy: form of counseling that helps a person resolve issues from a past trauma
Group Therapy: A group of people with a similar disorder that meet regularly as a source of support for one another
Medications: sometimes meds (like anti-depressants) can benefit the individual. Drugs are not the answer to all problems, try to avoid using a pill to solve all your problems. Meds are usually in combination with one of the other methods above.