Self-Worth: Paper Dolls, and the Concept of “Adoption”

 Self-Worth: Paper Dolls, and the Concept of “Adoption”

Where does your worth come from? How do you feel validated? A sense of fulfillment? A sense of importance?

Your sources of self-worth can be used to explain your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. “Belonging and Love” is the 3rd level on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but the need to be valued can outweigh all other basic needs. The need for validation can drive people to die from eating disorders, make them stay in physically abusive relationships, and to take their own lives. 

Validation trumps physiological needs. So, we need to make sure we have our basic need of validation coming from reliable sources, at least as much as we need reliable shelter and consistent sources of food and water.

The Paper Doll is a model we can use to visualize how validation is needed for a sense of security. The following model shows a person who draws the majority of their worth from a stable family environment–parents that often showed unconditional love and generally loving relationships with siblings. This person also draws validation from other sources: friends, work, talents, and personal appearance; but the loss of any one of these other sources will not lead to severe insecurity, or the person feeling “naked.” Losing them might hurt, but they are not essential.

Now, imagine the insecurity of someone without significant validation from primary attachments–they have poor or superficial family relationships. This person may get some validation from other sources, but they don’t provide security because they are temporary or inconsistent:

Last, consider a person whose entire sense of worth comes from one source, like romantic partners. This person must always be in a relationship to be ok, and the insecurity of losing this source of validation is unbearable, leading to anxious behaviors, which lead to breakups, and a string of desperate dysfunctional relationships:

So, take a look at your own sources of validation. Are you getting enough to feel ok about yourself?

Where are you getting it from? Are your sources temporary or permanent? Are they conditional or unconditional? Which ones could you lose and still be ok? Which could you not live without?

People who don’t have strong attachments to their immediate family tend to feel insecure until they are “adopted,” or given strong validation by someone else. Getting adopted by stable individuals or groups can help a person move through life securely: Extended family members, loyal friends, mentors, spiritual/religious groups, or a healthy romantic partner can potentially serve as stable sources of validation.

Unfortunately, if someone doesn’t feel they have access to these things, they may get adopted by people who can only give counterfeit validation: gangs, elitist clubs, sex traffickers, needy friends, or abusive partners. These adopters give validation conditional on doing drugs, having money, selling your body, being helpful all the time, or showing love the “right” way. Sources of counterfeit validation give counterfeit security, which feels way better than loneliness and worthlessness, so insecure people will maintain these destructive adoptive relationships.

Some people complain about the need for others’ validation, citing the popular ideal of generating a self-esteem entirely from oneself. We might call such a state self-actualization  or transcendence. I’m not sure if one can achieve such a state completely in this life, such that others’ negative opinions have zero impact on them, but I think people can get close under the right circumstances.

Such a state would need to start with validation from others. Babies are not born with a sense of worth–they need to learn from others how valuable they are. If a person is given stable, consistent, unconditional validation for long enough, that person will internalize their worth, which can sustain them even if the whole world is against them. If this process doesn’t start in infancy, it can happen in adulthood, but still requires input from the outside. 

The unconditional validation often starts with a therapist, who teaches someone to validate themselves, and teaches their family members to give validation. If not a therapist, then a friend, mentor, religious figure, author, Buddhist monk, or anyone who can convey to the person that they are unconditionally worthy. After enough exposure, the need for other sources of validation diminishes, and the person becomes self-actualized.

*I may write a separate piece about validation from God, but I will assert that any religion would need to preach unconditional love while reconciling it with the hard realities of life in order for that religion to provide stable validation. See “Resentment Toward God” for more on this.