The present volume is intended to show the utility of self-esteem the-
ory to therapy, from the empirical (quantitative research on drug abuse)
to the theoretical (self-esteem theory of deviance), to its practical appli-
cation as a therapeutic modality.

The book, although it focuses on therapy, will be of interest to social
and psychological theoreticians as well. It is the third in a series of
books on self-esteem, the first being Hypnotic Techniques for Increasing
Self-Esteem, edited by the author; the second, The Social Dynamics of Self-
Esteem: Theory to Therapy, by the author and Jeff D. Burns; and now the
present volume, Self-Esteem Therapy. The first in the series was primar-
ily a book dealing with the development of the self-esteem theory of
deviance. This work is the result of the author's interest in drug use
and abuse, especially among middle- and upper middle-class college
youth. Most structural theories of deviance are concerned with lower-
class deviants, whereas this not only deals with the middle- and upper-
middle class but adds a strong psychological dynamic to such theories.
This work is a synthesis of the author's philosophical background. The
theory draws largely from the dialectic of Karl Marx and Hegel, as seen
in Chapter 5, from the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, the Social
Conflict Theory of Georg Simmel, and the Individual Psychology of
Alfred Adler.

The author's work on self-esteem is the result of his association with
the noted Adlerian Dr. Heinz Ansbacher. It was Heinz who suggested
that I write a paper explaining drug abuse (among college youth) in
the framework of Adlerian theory instead of other traditional theories
and it was his dynamic personality that sparked my interest in the

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