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Welcome the to Official Blog of Dr. Nathaniel Branden! Here you will find wisdom from Nathaniel that ranges from his groundbreaking philosophical and political views which tie into and further Ayn Rand’s Objectivist Philosophy, as well as his deep understanding of Psychology in both the areas of Self-Esteem and Relationships.

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Our Urgent Need for Self-Esteem

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Of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves. That judgment impacts every moment and every aspect of our existence. Our self-evaluation is the basic context in which we act and react, choose our values, set our goals, meet the challenges that confront us. Our responses to events are shaped in part by whom and what we think we are—our self-esteem. 

Competent to Cope

Self-esteem is the experience of being competent to cope with the basic challenges of life and of being worthy of happiness. It consists of two components: 1) self-efficacy—confidence in our ability to think, learn, choose, and make appropriate decisions; and 2) self-respect—confidence in our right to be happy; and in the belief that achievement, success, friendship, respect, love and fulfillment are appropriate to us.

The basic challenges of life include such fundamentals as being able More >

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Self-Esteem as a Spiritual Discipline

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Hello, everyone! Think about this and tell me what you think.

 

Self-Esteem as a Spiritual Discipline

Four decades ago, when I began lecturing on self-esteem, the challenge was to persuade people that the subject was worthy of study. Almost no one was talking about self-esteem in those days. Today, almost everyone seems to be talking about self-esteem, and the danger is that the idea may become trivialized.

And yet, of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves: it touches the very core of our existence. Some part of us knows this. We know that more fateful by far than what others think of us is what we think of ourselves.

“Self-esteem” is sometimes used interchangeably with “self-image,” which is unfortunate, because the concept is much deeper than any “image.” Self-esteem is a More >

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The Importance of Definitions

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Not long ago, I was asked to submit a paper that would address the following question: Now that more and more psychologists are doing research and writing books and articles about self-esteem, what do I see as the immediate challenges facing those who work in the field? In response, I submitted this short essay.

The Importance of Definitions

Some years ago, a number of professors, interested in self-esteem, were invited to contribute essays to a book entitled The Social Importance of Self-Esteem, edited by Andrew Mecca, Neil J. Smelser, and John Vasconcellos, and to be published by the University of California Press. I attended a self-esteem conference and found myself sitting next to one of the professors who would be contributing an essay.

I asked him what definition of self-esteem he was working for and if it was shared by the other contributors.

I was astonished to see him draw More >

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Capitalism: The Libertarian Vision – Part I

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Individualism is at once an ethical-psychological concept and an ethical-political concept. As an ethical-psychological concept, individualism holds that a human being should think and judge independently, respecting nothing more than the sovereignty of his or her own mind. As an ethical-political concept, individualism upholds the supremacy of individual rights, the principle that a human being is an end in him or her self–and that the proper goal of life is self-realization.

There are many persons who might describe themselves as subscribing to a philosophy of individualism in the abstract, as formulated thus far. But let us think through, concretely and specifically, what this means in social-political terms-because, especially among psychologists, there seem to be a great many persons who profess individualism while in their consulting rooms, working with therapy clients, but who become supporters of statism or collectivism when their focus More >

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Capitalism: The Libertarian Vision — Part 2

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It was the United States of America, with its system of limited, constitutional government, that implemented the principle of capitalism-free trade on a free market-to the greatest extent. In America, during the nineteenth century, people’s productive activities were for the most part left free of governmental regulations, controls, and restrictions; most thinkers considered themselves thoroughly emancipated from the discredited economic policies of medievalism, mercantilism, and precapitalist statism.

And in the brief period of a century and a half, the United States created a level of freedom, of progress, of achievement, of wealth, of physical comfort-a standard of living-unmatched and unequaled by the sum of humankind’s development up to that time. With the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the rise of capitalism, an extraordinary transformation took place in men and women’s thinking about the possibilities of life on earth, a revolution so More >

Who Is an Objectivist?

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For some time, there has been dispute over the question of whether Objectivism is an “open system” or a “closed system.” More specifically, the debate has been whether Objectivism is a philosophical system that can be refined, expanded on, amplified, and applied in new directions by those who share its basic premises or whether Objectivism is confined exclusively to the positions propounded by Ayn Rand during her lifetime.

Perhaps the following recollections can contribute to this debate.

In the winter and spring of 1958, I gave the first course of lectures entitled “The Basic Principles of Objectivism” which, although I did not fully realize it at the time, was to launch the Objectivist movement. These lectures included a lengthy discussion of the psychology of self-esteem and my theory of social metaphysics. This was work on psychology done not by Rand, but by me. Another lecture by me was entitled “Why More >

Nurturing Self-Esteem in Young People

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Some time ago I was invited to contribute a paper that would suggest ways that parents, teachers and therapists could nurture self-esteem in children. I offer this paper in its original form, unchanged, as it was addressed to colleagues.

Nurturing Self-Esteem in Young People

If we are to consider how self-esteem is best nurtured in young people, we must first be clear on what we mean by “self-esteem.” So I shall begin with a definition.

Self-esteem is the disposition to experience oneself as being competent to cope with the basic challenges of life, and as being worthy of happiness. Thus, it consists of two components: (1) self-efficacy — confidence in one’s ability to think, learn, choose, and make appropriate decisions; and (2) self-respect — confidence that love, friendship, achievement, success — in a word, happiness — are natural and appropriate (Branden, 1994).

If a person felt inadequate More >

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