by Adele Gregory

Created on: February 23, 2007   Last Updated: April 18, 2007

The irony of "assessing self-worth" is that it's something people are more likely do when they're feeling down or uncertain, and less likely to think about when they're feeling positive and secure. So there can already be a bias towards negative conclusions. It's one of many vicious circles that makes depression so hard to fight.

This isn't to say that people never reflect on themselves and their behaviour when they're feeling okay. But there's a difference. These self-appraisals are usually less global; people can feel bad about something they did without seeing it as a sign that the whole of them is bad or not good enough.

If you think about it, self-worth, like the worth of any human being, is far too complicated for anyone to fully assess. There are too many different ways to look at it and too many factors to consider. You would need to think of all of the virtues it was possible for anyone to have, and then calculate how much a person had shown any of them throughout their entire life. You'd also need to take into account what was or wasn't possible under the circumstances. It's just too big a question. And as soon as you try to narrow it down, you're being selective.

A more realistic way to approach self-assessment may be to accept that we can only measure how we think we're doing in a few specific areas at a partiular point in time.

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