Understanding Self-Worth

Understanding Self-Worth: A Guide to Worth-Conscious Theory and Psychotherapeutic Practice is a guide for psychotherapists confounded by the struggle of working with clients who present with a pervasive pattern of denied self-worth. When self-worth is perceived as conditional or denied altogether, clients may become complicit in creating a lost-worth story-the story they tell that keeps them denying their own worth. The denial may include generational abusive and/or intrusive injunctions that go against their lived truth. Psychotherapists will come away from this book with a deep understanding of the importance of attending to the degree of trauma experienced when the client's self-worth is separated from their individual truth. Moreover, where there is worth-based trauma, the psychotherapist will learn models both for helping clients gently and honestly reestablish a worthy and true sense of self and for consciously guiding clients toward recovery of human worth as a birthright.

Dawna Daigneault, EdS, LPC, CCTP, is a writer, speaker, and professional counselor with twenty years of experience. She specializes in serving clients with self-worth challenges that complicate client trauma. Chris Brown, MS, PhD, is professor emerita in the Psychology and Counseling Department at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She is a licensed psychologist with more than forty years of experience providing psychotherapy to culturally diverse populations.

1. Theoretical Framework 2. Human Dignity and Wellness 3. Congruent Sense of Self 4. Worth-Conscious Theory (WCT) Constructs 5. Realized Self-Worth, Lost-Worth Stories, and Trauma-Informed Care 6. Systemic Exigencies and The Four Pillars of Self-Worth 7. The Four Quadrants 8. Psychotherapy Techniques