Most people can describe their self-esteem in a sentence or two. Fewer can explain the story that keeps that level of self-worth in place. Psychodynamic therapy asks about the story behind the story. It searches the rooms you stopped entering long ago, the ones where old rules were written and old roles were assigned. For those who feel chronically not enough, too much, or always on thin ice with themselves, this way of working can reorganize the inner narrative that shapes every choice.
I have sat with people who could run a team of fifty but still apologized for taking up a chair. I have also sat with people whose anger at work was a mask for a fear that if they made one mistake, they would be cast out. Self-esteem problems rarely come from laziness or a lack of affirmations. They come from psychological compromises made early and repeated often. Psychodynamic therapy gives us a map for finding them, and the time to rewrite them with care.
What we mean by self-esteem
Self-esteem is not a constant sense of confidence. It is a working estimate of your worth that updates, often badly, with new information. It shows up in your risk tolerance, the way you pick friends, your tolerance for praise, and whether you can recover after a misstep. It interacts with mood and anxiety, but it is not the same thing as either. In psychotherapy we treat self-esteem as a living system. The inner critic, shame, and the allergic reaction to vulnerability are parts of that system. So are pride, joy, curiosity, and the capacity to take responsibility without collapsing.
People want a quick fix, which is understandable. Cognitive behavioral therapy can give you skills to dispute a thought like I always fail, and that helps. Narrative therapy can help you reorganize the plot of your life so you are more than the worst thing that happened to you. Those tools matter. When self-esteem problems are stubborn, however, my experience is that the core story was written before you had words for it. That brings us to attachment theory and to psychodynamic therapy.
The origin of the inner narrator
The inner narrator is the voice that tells you what experiences mean. It formed in response to how people treated you and to how you protected yourself. In simple terms, if you learned early that being small or quiet kept you safe, your narrator might interpret assertiveness as a dangerous deviation. If your caregivers were critical, your narrator might equate flawlessness with survival. Psychodynamic therapy looks closely at those associations.
Attachment theory contributes a practical lens. People with secure attachment tend to have a narrator that expects workable repair after conflict. Dismissive attachment often carries a narrator that insists on self-sufficiency and belittles needs. Anxious attachment predicts a narrator that scans for rejection and overfunctions to prevent it. Disorganized attachment blends fear and longing in a way that can make any relationship feel like a trap. None of these patterns are destiny, but they do shape the baseline of self-esteem and the meaning your mind assigns to events.
Trauma complicates this further. Trauma-informed care reminds us that the nervous system prioritizes survival over nuance. When survival mapping dominates, the narrator favors certainty and control. If you grew up with chaotic caregivers, your mind may read even neutral feedback as a threat. In trauma recovery work, the goal is to widen your window of tolerance so you can register safety where it exists and respond to danger proportionally, not reflexively.
What psychodynamic therapy does differently
Psychodynamic therapy is a form of talk therapy that focuses on the unconscious patterns that organize your feelings, relationships, and choices. It assumes that what you cannot say directly, you will show indirectly. You might arrive wanting to discuss your hostile boss, and we end up uncovering a long-standing dread of dependence that makes any authority figure feel like a trap.
Sessions often include free association, close attention to moments you feel a sudden shift in mood, and exploration of early memories or dreams. The central mechanism is not a clever interpretation. It is the therapeutic alliance, a real relationship where both people pay attention to how the relationship itself stirs repetitive themes. If you apologize for needing extra time in session, the pattern shows up live and can be explored with curiosity and respect. That is not a trick, it is a reflection of your inner narrative playing out where it can finally be noticed.
Defense mechanisms, a sometimes misunderstood concept, are central here. Perfectionism, sarcasm, intellectualizing, compliant niceness, contempt, even humor at the wrong moment, all have jobs. They protect you from feelings that once felt unmanageable. Psychodynamic therapy respects defenses as creative adaptations. We do not rip them away. We update them. When AVOS Counseling Center group therapy the cost of a defense is higher than its benefit, we experiment with gentler ones.
Two brief vignettes
Alex came in with a stellar CV and a constant fear of being found out. Any praise felt like a setup. In the first months he would say, I know this is ridiculous, then share real distress. The key was not convincing him he was great. It was noticing, together, how quickly he attacked his own need for reassurance. In his family, display of need triggered mockery. Over time, Alex learned to register that I was not mocking him, that the small pause I took to think was not withdrawal or disgust, and that his body could ride out the spike of shame. His inner narrator shifted from I am a fraud to I am learning, and sometimes I need contact to steady myself. The change was slow and specific. After nine months, he asked for mentorship at work, something he had avoided for years.
Mara’s story looked different. She described herself as easygoing and kept conversations light. She rarely fought with her partner. Yet she felt numb in most areas of life. In session, she smiled when she was angry. We explored where that smile had come from. As a child, caretaking for her depressed mother earned praise and temporary calm. Any complaint drew silence. The smile was a peace treaty. We practiced noticing sensations under the smile, using mindfulness and some gentle somatic experiencing techniques. Awareness of tightness in her chest became a cue to slow down. After six months, Mara could say to her partner, I am not okay with this, without fearing abandonment. Numbness softened into specific feelings. Her self-esteem rose not because she liked herself more in the abstract, but because she could inhabit herself in the moment.
Where emotion meets body
People often say their self-esteem collapses under pressure. That collapse is not only a thought pattern. It is a physiological shift. The heart rate jumps, breathing shallows, muscles tighten, the body prepares for shame or fight. Emotional regulation skills help. Breath work, grounding, and mindfulness make it possible to stay in contact with the feeling long enough to understand it. In psychodynamic work, we use these tools not as the destination but as a bridge so insight can land.
Some therapists integrate elements from somatic experiencing, which pays close attention to the nervous system’s choreography. Others may weave in bilateral stimulation methods, often used in trauma-focused therapy, to help the brain digest memories that otherwise repeat as present-tense alarms. Purists may prefer to stay strictly within a psychodynamic frame. In practice, the best psychological therapy is the one you can use. Proper trauma-informed care means we pace the work to your capacity, never to a theory’s purity.
The role of stories and counter-stories
Narrative therapy teaches that the meaning you give events is as important as the events themselves. In psychodynamic therapy, we borrow this insight and add depth. You are not just writing a new story, you are discovering who in you wrote the old one and why it made sense at the time. If your grandfather’s bankruptcy turned your family into chronic savers, your anxiety about spending on yourself has a lineage. Knowing that makes compassion possible. Compassion is a more stable fuel for change than self-attack will ever be.
I often use language like, A part of you expects rejection here. What does that part fear would happen if we did not prepare for the worst? This is not a trick. It is a respectful way to let protective parts speak without taking over. When they are heard, they relax.
How it looks across weeks and months
A typical psychodynamic counseling process for self-esteem involves weekly sessions, sometimes twice weekly if circumstances allow. The early phase focuses on history and building safety. The middle phase often includes more focused exploration of conflicts, the push-pull between dependency and autonomy, and the meanings attached to achievement, sexuality, anger, and care. The later phase, which may arrive after six to eighteen months depending on goals and complexity, consolidates gains and explores endings, an area rich with information about loss and trust.
People ask about duration. There is no single number. Some feel a real lift in ten to twelve sessions, especially if the work unveils a specific pattern like compulsive self-criticism around performance reviews. Others need longer, particularly when early neglect, complex trauma, or entrenched defenses are in play. Frequency and fit matter. A strong therapeutic alliance shortens the road. When the alliance is strained, repair is part of the work and often becomes the turning point.
Making change measurable
Self-esteem is not a lab value, but it can be tracked. I encourage clients to watch for four markers over time:
- Shifts in self-talk after mistakes, from global self-condemnation to specific feedback. Willingness to ask for help or to set a limit without hours of rumination. Recovery time after criticism, measured in minutes and hours rather than days. Changes in relationship patterns, such as choosing friends who celebrate wins instead of competing or minimizing.
These are not abstractions. A client once reported that after a tense meeting, she left the building for a five-minute walk instead of catastrophizing for a day. Another noticed that he could send a follow-up email after a lukewarm response rather than assuming he had ruined the relationship. These moments, multiplied, create a different baseline.
When psychodynamic therapy is not enough on its own
If you are in acute crisis, heavily depressed to the point of functional impairment, floridly anxious, or managing bipolar disorder or psychosis, psychodynamic talk therapy may need to wait or be paired with other care. Medication can stabilize mood and anxiety so you have the bandwidth to reflect. Structured interventions from cognitive behavioral therapy can reduce panic or compulsive behavior quickly, creating room for deeper exploration later. If there is active substance use, safety and stabilization take priority.
It is not a failure to start where leverage is highest. In fact, good psychotherapists collaborate across modalities and disciplines to support mental health in a coordinated way. The through-line remains the same: help you regain authorship of your inner narrative so your preferences and values can guide you, not fear alone.
The role of relationships
Self-esteem is not only an individual matter. Couples therapy often surfaces how two inner narratives dance, sometimes destructively. A partner with low self-esteem may deflect compliments, which frustrates the other person and escalates conflict. Or one partner’s avoidance of vulnerability may read as contempt, triggering protest and pursuit in the other. Learning conflict resolution that respects each person’s history can transform how each partner sees themselves. When a partner consistently experiences fair repair, the inner narrator updates one small piece at a time, often faster than it would in individual therapy alone.
Family therapy can be equally powerful, especially for adolescents. Families create shared stories about who is the smart one, who is difficult, who is sensitive. Those roles stick. A teenager labeled as lazy might be demoralized by unaddressed learning differences, grief, or anxiety. Changing the family narrative from blame to curiosity can lift a surprising amount of shame.
Group therapy gives you real-time feedback from peers. It is a lab for practicing authenticity, learning how you come across, and tolerating both liking and being liked. People with low self-esteem often feel like outliers. In a good process group, you discover that your private hurricane has familiar weather patterns.
Practical work between sessions
Psychodynamic therapy is often caricatured as all insight, no action. In practice, insights that do not touch behavior feel fleeting. I ask clients to try brief experiments between sessions. Two or three minutes a day can alter well-worn tracks.
Here is a simple, structured practice for rewriting micro-moments of your inner narrative:
- Name the trigger specifically. Not I blew it at work, but I blanked when my manager asked me for an update. Locate the body cue. Tight throat, heat in the face, knot in the stomach. Identify the oldest version of this feeling you remember. Even if it seems fuzzy, note the image or age. Offer a one-sentence counter-story that is both kind and believable. I blanked because I was surprised, and I can follow up with the facts this afternoon. Take one tiny action within 24 hours that fits the counter-story. Send the clarifying email, or ask for five minutes to regroup next time.
The point is not perfection. It is repetition. The narrator learns by experience.
Working through obstacles in the room
Real therapy involves disruptions. You might feel angry at your therapist for missing a nuance, or ashamed after a revealing session. You might fantasize about quitting when things get close to a tender spot. These are not signs that therapy has failed. They are the openings. A good clinician invites direct talk about what is happening between you. Repair strengthens the work and offers a living counterexample to relationships where rupture meant exile or humiliation.
Shame is the stickiest obstacle. It makes you want to hide exactly what needs air. The paradox is that voiced shame shrinks. Unvoiced shame metastasizes. Part of my job is to build a space where bringing forward the thing you least want to say becomes possible, then survivable, then a source of pride. There is a profound difference between confessing a flaw and naming a strategy you learned to survive. The latter can be honored even as it is updated.
Integration with other approaches
Rigid allegiance to a single school of therapy serves the therapist more than the client. Many psychodynamic clinicians borrow, with care, from other approaches. Cognitive behavioral therapy techniques help when overthinking spirals. Mindfulness teaches a posture of attention that reduces reactivity. Elements of somatic experiencing can stabilize the nervous system enough to make reflective work viable. In trauma recovery, targeted methods that use bilateral stimulation can metabolize specific memories and reduce flashbacks, freeing you to engage in deeper meaning-making. These integrations should be transparent and collaborative, never surprise add-ons.
The key is sequencing. Stabilize physiology, then expand perspective. As self-esteem strengthens, the need to micromanage every situation drops, and flexibility returns.
Finding the right therapist
Credentials matter, but so does fit. The question to ask yourself after the second or third session is simple: Do I feel understood in a way that invites honesty, even when I am embarrassed? If the answer is no, it is reasonable to try someone else.
A short checklist can help you choose:
- Training and experience with psychodynamic therapy and trauma-informed care. Comfort discussing attachment patterns and how they show up between you. Willingness to integrate skills based on need, not ideology. Clear plan for pacing the work, addressing safety, and setting goals you can recognize.
Insurance coverage and cost vary by region. Some clinics offer sliding scales or group therapy options that are financially accessible. It is fine to ask about frequency and expected duration up front. Responsible clinicians will give you a range and revisit it as your needs evolve.
The quiet shift you might notice
At some point, you may realize you are not rehearsing lines before every meeting, or that after a social gathering you are not dissecting your every comment. You might catch yourself smiling at a mistake, then fixing it. Gratitude may feel less like a foreign language. The inner narrator becomes less punitive and more of a guide. It is a small, ordinary miracle.
The change is not a manufactured positivity. It is earned. You will still have days when you feel small. The difference is that you can recognize that feeling as old, as weather, as something that passes. You can treat yourself as you would treat a friend who matters. You will be able to disagree without self-erasure, to accept praise without suspicion, to apologize without groveling, and to aspire without needing to be the best.
A final word on pacing and patience
The pressure to fix self-esteem quickly can itself be a reenactment of the problem. If you learned that your worth depended on performance, you may approach therapy like a test. The slower rhythm of psychodynamic work, with its curiosity and attention to nuance, can feel initially frustrating. It is meant to. The therapy’s pace models a world where you do not have to constantly justify your existence.
Healthy self-esteem is not loud. It is even. It allows for joy without arrogance and humility without self-hate. It lets you risk love, deepen friendships, and tolerate loneliness without panicking. For many people, that is a new experience. It is also one of the most durable outcomes I see in long-term counseling. The inner narrator does not vanish. It matures. It stops confusing safety with self-erasure. It learns to tell a true, kinder story, one you can live inside without having to fight yourself every day.
Business Name: AVOS Counseling Center
Address: 8795 Ralston Rd #200a, Arvada, CO 80002, United States
Phone: (303) 880-7793
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Popular Questions About AVOS Counseling Center
What services does AVOS Counseling Center offer in Arvada, CO?
AVOS Counseling Center provides trauma-informed counseling for individuals in Arvada, CO, including EMDR therapy, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP), LGBTQ+ affirming counseling, nervous system regulation therapy, spiritual trauma counseling, and anxiety and depression treatment. Service recommendations may vary based on individual needs and goals.
Does AVOS Counseling Center offer LGBTQ+ affirming therapy?
Yes. AVOS Counseling Center in Arvada is a verified LGBTQ+ friendly practice on Google Business Profile. The practice provides affirming counseling for LGBTQ+ individuals and couples, including support for identity exploration, relationship concerns, and trauma recovery.
What is EMDR therapy and does AVOS Counseling Center provide it?
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is an evidence-based therapy approach commonly used for trauma processing. AVOS Counseling Center offers EMDR therapy as one of its core services in Arvada, CO. The practice also provides EMDR training for other mental health professionals.
What is ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP)?
Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy combines therapeutic support with ketamine treatment and may help with treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, and trauma. AVOS Counseling Center offers KAP therapy at their Arvada, CO location. Contact the practice to discuss whether KAP may be appropriate for your situation.
What are your business hours?
AVOS Counseling Center lists hours as Monday through Friday 8:00 AM–6:00 PM, and closed on Saturday and Sunday. If you need a specific appointment window, it's best to call to confirm availability.
Do you offer clinical supervision or EMDR training?
Yes. In addition to client counseling, AVOS Counseling Center provides clinical supervision for therapists working toward licensure and EMDR training programs for mental health professionals in the Arvada and Denver metro area.
What types of concerns does AVOS Counseling Center help with?
AVOS Counseling Center in Arvada works with adults experiencing trauma, anxiety, depression, spiritual trauma, nervous system dysregulation, and identity-related concerns. The practice focuses on helping sensitive and high-achieving adults using evidence-based and holistic approaches.
How do I contact AVOS Counseling Center to schedule a consultation?
Call (303) 880-7793 to schedule or request a consultation. You can also reach out via email at [email protected]. Follow AVOS Counseling Center on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
For nervous system regulation therapy in Scenic Heights, contact AVOS Counseling Center near Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities.