Compassion and Self-Hate, Part I

You'd be surprised how many ways that self-hate, both conscious and unconscious, can manifest itself. According to Dr. Theodore Rubin, author of Compassion and Self-Hate: An Alternative to Despair, the ways are plentiful. Self-derision; self-vindictive criticism; self-diminution; depression; suicide; psychosomatic illness; accident proneness; addictions to alcohol, drugs, tobacco, food, gambling, sex, and so forth; excessive guilt and/or worrying; perfectionism; procrastination; avoiding pleasure, and the list goes on...

Essentially, we humans are pretty adept at self-loathing. Simply put, "hating any aspect of ourselves, healthy or sick, is self-hate."(p. 81) For some of us, that self-hate is overt and clearly recognizable. But for many more of us, that inward-directed hatred is unconscious, hidden from awareness, but present nonetheless.

The most insidious form of self-hate is "hating oneself for hating oneself." Now that's a vicious cycle! As Dr. Rubin puts it:

Probably the most malignant form of direct self-hating is hating oneself for hating oneself. It is the mechanism that guarantees perpetuation of the self-hating process. The victim hates himself each time he discovers he hates himself or uncovers a self-hating mechanism. He must make every effort to conceal his self-hate and indeed to delude himself into believing that he is not self-hating at all. (p. 79)

So, how does one counter these multiple manifestations of self-loathing? The antidote, as suggested by the title of the book, is compassion for oneself. I'll explore that in Part II...coming soon.