The Sense of Unworthiness and How It Impacts Relationships

The sense of unworthiness, inadequacy, or inherent 'badness' often underlies various psychological issues that bring people to therapy, including depression, anxiety, and problematic relationships. While these feelings and experiences are commonly recognised in the therapeutic setting, their deeper roots, purpose, and ways to address and resolve them are often underappreciated. These experiences typically originate from adverse or even traumatic events during childhood development, when children rely on parents for both survival and psychological growth. The experience of unworthiness develops from the parents' failure to provide appropriate developmental experiences, significantly impacting not only a person’s sense of self but also their perception of others, relationships, life in general, and both their past and future.

For whatever reasons one may engage in psychotherapy, the presenting issues are often underpinned by the conscious or unconscious perception of oneself as unworthy, not good enough, or with a sense of inherent ‘badness’. Symptoms such as depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, engaging in unfulfilling, toxic, or codependent relationships, a narcissistically inflated sense of self, and fears of rejection or abandonment are often associated with this deeply rooted sense of inadequacy, not-good-enoughness, or inherent 'badness'.

While those who struggle with feeling not good enough may be aware of it—unless the feelings aret masked by narcissistic defences like an inflated sense of self, grandiosity, and omnipotence—and while therapists work with a sense of inherent badness almost daily, the underlying purpose such self-experience serves is often neglected. So too is the impact of resolving it, which, if successful, is far greater than merely feeling better about oneself.

The Origins of Feeling Unworthy, 'Bad', Inadequate…

To understand how dealing with and resolving one's sense of badness or unworthiness could affect them, their perception of others, and their life in general, we first need to look at how the sense of 'badness' develops initially.

A person may develop a sense of unworthiness during childhood, as they are faced with traumatic experiences in the relationship with their parents while inherently depending on them not only for survival but also for emotional maturation and guidance. Parents play a crucial role in encouraging the child to separate, individuate, and grow into a psychologically independent, mature, and autonomous individual.

As the child undergoes traumatic relational experiences with their parent, they tend to internalise these experiences as a reflection of their own inadequacy or badness, rather than viewing the parent as bad. Fairbairn (1943) vividly describes this process, stating that when the child perceives their parents as 'bad', "he cannot reject them, even if they do not force themselves upon him: for he cannot do without them. Even if they neglect him, he cannot reject them: for, if they neglect him, his need for them is increased." (p. 332)

While traumatic experiences can be overt, such as overt trauma and abuse, or covert, like persistent micro-traumas or emotional neglect, these experiences are usually internalised unconsciously as emotional rather than cognitive awareness. This means the child is unaware of the sense of badness arising from them and does not actually know why they perceive themselves as ‘bad’ or inadequate. In fact, it is only in a minority of cases that the child may make a conscious and cognitive conclusion—what Berne (1966) regarded as a ‘decision’—where the child, at a certain moment, decides something about themselves and the parent. For instance, a child whose alcoholic parent forgets to pick them up after school may conclude they, as a child, are unimportant or a nuisance, along with a belief that men, in general, are selfish, unloving, and neglectful.

The Purpose of Inherent Unworthiness and Not-Good-Enoughness

Out of the need for mere physical and psychological survival—to 'protect' their parents from seeing them as ‘bad’—the child will instead see themselves as inadequate, unimportant, or ‘bad’. Recognising their parents for who they are would cause the child to feel unbearable fear, anger, resentment, abandonment, and even complete fragmentation and emptiness, experiences the child cannot cope with. By 'protecting' the image of the parent—by seeing them as 'good'—the child actually shields themselves from these overwhelming negative feelings. In the process, the child adopts a sense of inherent badness, unworthiness, unimportance, powerlessness, self-loathing, and other self-deprecating feelings.

How the Experience of Unworthiness Affects Adult Relationships

The perception of ourselves that we develop during childhood determines how we experience ourselves in adulthood. However, this applies not only to our self-experience but also to how we perceive others and our lives overall. A person who, during childhood, may have seen themselves as inadequate, ‘bad’, and not good enough—as someone mediocre, unseen, and irrelevant—might also view others as rejecting, neglecting, selfish, and manipulative.

The perceptions that shape how one experiences themselves and others are often unconscious, typically surfacing through relationship patterns. These patterns reveal how a person engages in relationships and how they usually end. For example, a person who, as a child, had to care for their mother's emotional needs may develop a perception in adulthood of themselves as not good enough. They might feel that, to be worthy, they need to care for others and neglect themselves. Such an individual may then feel engulfed and trapped in relationships, perceiving others as needy and selfish, only to abandon relationships where they feel overwhelmed and used. Similarly, a person may repeatedly engage in relationships where they end up traumatised, abused, used, or rejected.

How the Experience of 'Badness' Affects Perspectives on Relationships, Life, and the World

The distortion of an individual’s reality can vividly emerge during the psychotherapeutic process. Often, people who feel as ‘bad’, inadequate, unworthy, or lack self-esteem will describe their childhood experiences as good or even ideal, despite often having complex relationships with their parents in adulthood. Thus, reports of ideal childhood experiences and all-loving parents often indicate the internalisation of a sense of ‘badness’, unworthiness, or inadequacy.

We can see this extend into adulthood, where a person may engage in toxic, unfulfilling, or even abusive relationships, often with various reasons and rationalisations for why this is the case. It is often only through the psychotherapeutic process and the awareness gained that the individual may see what they were previously blind to.

The experience of one’s own internal badness or not-good-enoughness helps the person see others in a different light. It helps individuals who repeatedly engage in relationships where they are rejected to see themselves as the cause of the rejection, thus 'protecting' the other person from any responsibility within the relationship. It aids those involved in controlling relationships with narcissistic partners to 'reframe' reality, maintaining the unconscious fantasy that if they only do their best, their partner will change. It also assists those terrified of being hurt in close relationships to perceive others as rejecting, which then helps them rationalise that there is no one out there they would even want to have a relationship with.

When analysed in the psychotherapeutic process, the extent to which an individual’s perception of themselves as ‘bad’ influences both their self-experience and their perception of others, as well as how it guides their life, can be seen.

The Psychotherapeutic Change: How Changing Your Self-Perception Affects How You See Others, Your Life, Your Past, and Your Future

When someone engages in psychotherapy and reports issues with self-esteem and feelings of unworthiness, it often seems intuitive to them—and sometimes even to the therapist—that addressing this isolated experience will solve the person’s problems. Many psychotherapists, especially those who work supportively or focus less on deep unconscious processes, may approach the issue through supportive interventions or by challenging the individual's belief system. This could, for instance, involve giving the person 'permission' to feel worthy, which fundamentally only reaffirms their sense of inadequacy.

However, because the sense of badness or unworthiness essentially has a protective function—guarding the person from perceiving others as bad and, thus, avoiding feelings of violation and eventual abandonment, while also providing a predictable identity—changing this perception in psychotherapy can be challenging, distressing, and even terrifying for the individual.

It is important to understand that once we begin to explore a person's beliefs and experiences about themselves, it affects not only this experience but also their perception of current relationships, their present life, and their past and future.

When the psychotherapeutic process focuses on resolving the experience of ‘badness’ at its core, it often leads the person to see their relationships in a completely different light. People they previously viewed as loving and caring may appear differently. The hardest part of this process arises when this shift occurs in the perception of one’s parents, requiring special attention of the therapist to work through.

Whilst all these feelings and experiences are difficult and even terrifying, they usually indicate the process of working through and are in their essence part of the treatment, provided that they are appropriately handled by the therapist.

Conclusion

While feelings of inherent 'badness', inadequacy, low self-esteem, unworthiness, or not being good enough are common experiences reported in therapy, these feelings influence one's perception of themselves and others, as well as their past and future. Such experiences are deeply rooted in childhood development and are embedded in a person's emotional experience rather than just their cognitive belief system.

Working through these negative feelings at the core involves the individual viewing their relationships in a new light and coming to terms with the time lost in meaningless or even toxic relationships, as well as pursuing purposeless goals.

Ales Zivkovic, MSc (TA Psych), CTA(P), PTSTA(P), Psychotherapist, Counsellor, Supervisor

Ales Zivkovic is a psychotherapist, counsellor, and clinical supervisor. He holds an MSc in Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy awarded by Middlesex University in London, UK. He is also a Provisional Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (PTSTA-P) and a Certified Transactional Analyst in the field of Psychotherapy (CTA-P). Ales gained extensive experience during his work with individuals and groups in the UK National Health Service (NHS) and his private psychotherapy, counselling, and clinical supervision practice in central London, UK. He was also a member of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). Ales works with individuals, couples, and groups. In clinical setting, he especially focuses on the treatment of issues of childhood trauma, personality disorders, and relationship issues. A large proportion of his practice involves online psychotherapy as he works with clients from all over the world. Ales developed a distinct psychotherapeutic approach called interpretive dynamic transactional analysis psychotherapy (IDTAP). More about Ales, as well as how to reach him, can be found here.

References:

Berne, E. (1966). Principles of group treatment. Grove Press.

Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1943). The repression and the return of bad objects (with special reference to the 'war neuroses'). British Journal of Medical Psychology, 19(3-4), 327-341. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8341.1943.tb00328.x