Conditions of Worth in counselling are conditions we believe we have to meet to gain acceptance, love, or positive regard from others.
Some examples of conditions of worth are:
• work hard to be successful
• please others before yourself
• men do not cry
• do not get angry
• do not show any weakness
• be quiet and do as you are told
As children, we quickly learn what behaviours please parents, caregivers, teachers, friendship groups, and society in general.
Eventually, these become introjected values – internalised ways of behaving based on the expectations of others. These expectations may eventually clash with our individual world views, which may lead to unhappiness, depression, or anxiety.
An Example of Conditions of Worth
As a child, Johnny believes that if he does well in school, he is a better person and worth more.
This belief is then reinforced by others, like teachers and parents, who praise Johnny for his excellent work and tell him how clever he is.
Johnny believes that when he performs well academically, he is more valuable as a person. He is measuring his own self-worth based on how well he does in a test. This is an example of how a condition of worth is formed.
The trouble with measuring self in this way is that if Johnny does not do well, he may view himself as being less worthy.
He is also measuring himself against an external locus of evaluation. How other people expect him to behave.
Ask yourself how you would complete the following: ‘If I am to be of value, I must…’:
• work hard
• please others
• not cry
• not get angry
• not show any weakness
• be quiet
• do as I am told
Maybe some of these endings feel familiar to you. All reflect conditions of worth. They put pressure on us to behave in particular ways, even when they are contrary to how we actually feel. Thus, they lead to incongruence.
An example is a lady who was feeling guilty that she was having fun six months after the death of her sister. She worried that people would think less of her for being happy. She probably linked this to the fact that in her early home life it had been frowned on to have ‘too much fun – it tempted fate’. In her family atmosphere, she had received more positive regard for being morose than for being happy.
Use of the Term
‘Conditions of Worth’ is a theory by Carl Rogers, the father of Person Centred Therapy. He recognised that external factors could affect how we value, or measure our self-worth based on our ability to meet certain conditions we believe are essential.
Based on the idea of conditional love, conditions of worth are the messages we take on board about what we have to do to be valued by other people.
They are based on introjected values – that is, the values that we adopt from those around us, to enable us to gain their approval.
Conditions of worth are a result of receiving conditional positive regard from others – i.e., from what we experience others wanting us to be and do in order to be seen by them as worthy.
When Conditions of Worth are Acquired
Conditions of worth are usually acquired in childhood. They are transmitted to the child, who learns that he/she is acceptable or loveable if he/she behaves, thinks and feels in certain ways.
Conditions of worth are the messages we take on board about what we have to do to be valued by other people. We may be surrounded by this from birth, giving the message: ‘Comply if you want to be viewed as worthy of being loved.’
Conditions of worth include rules that govern values, beliefs and behaviours – if we break these rules, we expect to receive disapproval and rejection. They become part of our self-concept, and we accept them as the truth rather than as an opinion.
Conditions of worth can be very subtle and so extremely powerful, and they may not be obvious to us.
How can we Move Away from Conditions of Worth?
The process of leaving behind conditions of worth and beginning to operate as our real selves includes moving away from facades, away from ‘oughts’ and ‘shoulds’, and away from pleasing others.
As receiving the core conditions such as empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard enables us to identify and reject conditions of worth that are unhelpful, we move towards self-direction, openness to experience, a greater trust in self, and a greater respect for and understanding of others.
Accepting ourselves requires a movement towards being able to recognise – and ultimately reject – conditions of worth, moving towards using our own organismic [real self] valuing process.
What is the Organismic Self?
Although the organismic [real self] self is present at the birth of a baby, the expression of positive regard towards him by someone significant to him becomes more important to him than his own organismic valuing process, and he begins to seek positive regard from others at the expense of any other experience.
This process of taking on conditions of worth often continues without the child being aware of it, meaning that we end up as adults who experience incongruence.
The organismic self is who we really are inside. If an individual experienced unconditional positive regard from significant others in his/her life, then no conditions of worth would develop and the need for positive regard from others and positive self-regard would never come into conflict. The individual would be perfectly psychologically adjusted and would be a fully functioning person.