ABSTRACT

Self-esteem plays a key role in most formulations of psychopathological processes (Cooper, 1986) and in many models of therapeutic techniques (Bednar, Wells, & Peterson, 1989). For several highly prevalent emotional disorders, such as depression and borderline personality, vulnerable self-esteem is a defining characteristic. For other disorders, such as narcissistic personality disorder and eating disorders, fluctuations in self-esteem triggered by stressful interpersonal encounters prompt self-destructive behavior and maladaptive responses to others. Recently, researchers have begun to focus on people’s implicit (i.e., unconscious, relatively uncontrolled, and overlearned) self-evaluations (for reviews, see Greenwald & Banaji, 1995; Koole & DeHart, 2007). Research has demonstrated that implicit self-esteem predicts important psychological and physical outcomes independent of explicit self-esteem (i.e., feelings of self-worth that are consciously considered and relatively controlled). In this chapter we review and integrate theory and research from social psychology and clinical psychology to elucidate the role of implicit and explicit self-esteem in emotional disorders.