Are You Terrified of Feeling Confident?

"As counterintuitive as it may sound, some want to become confident, even attempting to learn how to increase their confidence, while simultaneously resisting their own attempts. We see this in treatment when a patient vehemently expresses that they have little reason to feel good about themselves (a forcefulness that speaks volumes). So, we may do the work of exploration, prevalent in cognitive behavioral therapy, searching for evidence for and against the belief that the patient is incompetent or worthless. While the reframes are often effective (i.e., the patient feels better due to newly formed beliefs), there remains a sense of ambivalence, with the underlying question being: "Is this safe?""

"In the psychoanalytic literature, ambivalence refers to the conflicting feelings we have toward a person, object, or experience. So, we may both love and hate something. Since this state tends to cause tension and confusion, as we prefer clarity and certainty, one part is often conscious, and the other is hidden deep inside one's psyche, denied or suppressed. A patient lacking confidence, for example, may enter treatment certain of their intention to feel better about themselves."

Ambivalence denotes holding conflicting feelings toward something, such as wanting confidence while resisting it. Confidence can feel threatening when it is believed to sabotage one’s life or invite others' contempt. Therapy often uncovers forceful statements that mask hidden resistance and part of the psyche that denies change. Cognitive-behavioral exploration can produce useful reframes, yet ambivalence persists because one part favors familiar, unfairly privileged beliefs. Resistance functions as an implicit commitment to irrational patterns. Increasing confidence frequently requires restructuring core assumptions about how life operates and confronting unconscious fears about safety and social judgment.

Read at Psychology Today