Alfred Adler, the progenitor of Cognitive Therapy, had a non superficial concept of self-esteem. He saw the human being as having a need for a realistic sense of efficacy (the human “striving for ‘superiority’” - a better translation of which might have been “striving for mastery”), and that to the degree this was deficient humans could approach the deficiency in realistic or non-realistic ways. In line with this view his therapeutic approach had a lot to do with encouraging clients. (In this video I also discuss, critically, the work of Albert Ellis.)