Worthlessness: Definition & How To Deal With It​

By Charlie Huntington, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.

Worthlessness is the state of mind in which you believe you are no good, useless, or utterly unimportant. How does a person reach this point, and how should they deal with it?

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I am fortunate to have experienced only fleeting periods of depression, but I know many people for whom it is a frequent or daily reality. One of the hardest things to hear – and I am sure it is even harder to be having these thoughts about oneself – is the way that people who are depressed talk about themselves. Perhaps you have heard a friend or family member who is really feeling down say something like, “I just mess ​

everything up. There’s no point to trying.” People who are depressed engage in what psychologists call “negative self-talk” more than non-depressed people do. They see themselves as different from other people, and frequently, that means seeing themselves as worse than others.

We likely have all had moments where we thought of ourselves as worthless. Perhaps it was when we forgot a friend’s birthday, accidentally divulged somebody’s secret, or made a big mistake in some kind of competition. For most of us, thoughts of worthlessness and the feelings that accompany that thought will pass relatively quickly, while for others, they become permanent residents in one’s brain. Let’s look at how that happens and how you can deal with seeing yourself as worthless.​

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What Is Worthlessness? (A Definition)​

Worthlessness is the state of believing oneself to be useless, inconsequential, a failure; it is having a very negative interpretation of oneself (APA, 2013). For some people, this is something that they can and do vocalize, while for others it is harder to put into words, more like a sense of who they are that they carry around with them.
 
We can think of worthlessness as one extreme on the continuum of self-esteem. Self-esteem is our judgment of how good or bad we are, based on our understandings of what we can and can’t do (Vickery et al., 2008). This understanding is influenced both by our own thinking and feelings and by the feedback we get from other people (Strandmark, 2004).
 
In fact, these factors interact with each other. If starting tomorrow, people began repeatedly telling you that you were no good, you might start to internalize that thought: “I’m no good.” Somebody who thinks that thought a lot will likely start to feel bad about themselves, and over time they may begin to act in ways that encourage other people to continue telling them they are worthless. For example, a common and discouraging pattern that I saw as a clinician is that children with ADHD often develop a sense of worthlessness as they age because they struggle to complete chores and homework. This makes it hard for them to want to work on chores and homework, and when the people around them see them disengaging, they may be tempted to further blame the children for not succeeding.

Is Worthlessness Reversible?

Thankfully, this pattern is reversible, too (Strandmark, 2004). When children are given support and resources to meet their goals, as well as acceptance and patience with their ADHD symptoms, they can start to lose their negative self-image and sense of worthlessness.
 
It is important to state here that while we may commonly say, in a distressed mood, “I feel worthless,” ‘worthless’ is a judgment – a thought – and not a feeling. I will discuss this more in a moment, but for now, suffice it to say that thinking of oneself as worthless is typically associated with feelings of sadness and with the overall experience of depression (Vickery et al., 2008).​

What Is Worthlessness in Psychology?​

To psychologists, thoughts of worthlessness are not a separate mental health diagnosis; instead, they are one symptom or component of several different mental health disorders (Fennell & Jenkins, 2005). For example, thoughts of worthlessness are considered one of the primary symptoms of depressive disorders (APA, 2013). In fact, as many as 70 to 80 percent of currently depressed people have relatively frequent to very frequent thoughts that they are worthless (Buchwald & Rudick-Davis, 1993).
 
Feelings of worthlessness are also related to other mental health challenges, such as traumatic experiences, addiction, being suicidal, and generally feeling distressed (APA, 2013). Very importantly, when people are experiencing mental health challenges, the intensity of their thoughts of worthlessness may be a factor in predicting how likely they are to try to kill themselves (Park & Kim, 2020). This suggests that people’s thoughts about themselves are an important part of the puzzle in understanding just how serious their mental health challenges may be at a given moment. In other words, if you or somebody you know is consistently having thoughts of worthlessness, it may be a good idea to make sure that good help is found, such as from a counselor, faith leader, or trusted friend or family member.

Opposite of Worthlessness

The opposite of worthlessness is having high self-esteem, or seeing oneself as good, capable, and worthy. People with high self-esteem tend to fare a bit better than folks with lower self-esteem across many different measures of well-being and personal success (Orth & Robins, 2022). Where people who see themselves as worthless may struggle to connect with others and invest time and energy in their work or schooling, people with high self-esteem have a relatively easier time putting themselves into their jobs and relationships.

Examples of Worthlessness

Examples of worthlessness revolve around different thoughts people may have about themselves. One way psychologists measure worthlessness is through seeing how much people agree or disagree with statements about how they seem themselves (Rosenberg, 1979). Specifically, when people agree with statements such as, “I feel I do not have much to be proud of” or “I certainly feel useless at times”, this may reflect an underlying sense of worthlessness. By contrast, agreeing more with statements such as “I take a positive attitude toward myself” may indicate that a person is higher in self-esteem and less likely to see themselves as worthless (Rosenberg, 1979).

Worthlessness & Powerlessness

A closely related thought to worthlessness, which may serve as a useful sign that somebody may see themselves as worthless, is when people think they are powerless – at the mercy of negative forces beyond their control (Strandmark, 2004). One situation in which this has been studied is the circumstances of people with chronic illnesses. People with chronic illnesses may experience a lack of ability to change their situations, emotional suffering and pain because of their illness, and a sense that they cannot do what most other people can do because of their illness. All of this can help create a sense of powerlessness and worthlessness, leading to a sense of stigmatization and being separate from others (Strandmark, 2004).
 
People with identities that are negatively evaluated in our society may also be more likely to experience worthlessness. For example, the painful experiences of racism and discrimination endured by young people of color in America, along with the systemic barriers to success and well-being that they face, may create a sense of worthlessness (Goodwill, 2021). And as I noted above, people with ADHD, because of how their symptoms can interfere with their abilities to perform as expected in our society, may become to see themselves as worthless, too (Katzenmajor-Pump et al., 2022).

What Causes a Sense of Worthlessness?

Psychologists see a sense of worthlessness as a cognitive symptom – a pattern of thinking – and so they believe that it develops through many experiences over time of thinking, as well as feeling (Fennell & Jenkins, 2005). Think about your own sense of self and all the factors in how you have come to understand who you are. You probably see yourself as being good or great at some things, decent at others, and struggling with a few things. 

Psychologists believe that if a person has an abundance of experiences throughout their lives, but especially in childhood, that clearly send the message, “You’re no good”, they are more likely to develop a core negative belief about themselves, such as “I’m no good” (Beck, 1982). From this broad belief, they develop more specific assumptions over time, such as when a child with ADHD thinks, “I can’t learn this, it will be too hard.” When they are not able to complete the task, or disengage from the task because they do not see themselves succeeding, their worst fear – “I’m no good” – seems to be confirmed.
 
The early experiences that lead to a sense of worthlessness vary widely. It is not that people who think they are worthless are the only ones that have these moments – rather, they have had many more of them than other people, or had more extreme ones, such as being emotionally or physically abused or neglected. And the consequences of these experiences are severe: people who see themselves as worthless experience worse mental and physical health outcomes and are even more likely to die than people who do not feel worthless (Wong et al., 2011).​

Is Worthlessness an Emotion?​

One of my favorite clinical supervisors taught me and her other students to distinguish very carefully between thoughts and feelings. Feelings are very simple, typically one-word statements: “I feel sad”, for example. This is different from the thoughts that accompany a feeling, which give it more color and specificity. 

This distinction is important because we can challenge thoughts, but we cannot challenge feelings. I cannot say to you, “Stop feeling sad,” and expect you to do anything about it; that’s not realistic or fair. But I can say, “How can you prove that nobody loves you and you have absolutely no impact on the world whatsoever? Show me the hard evidence that you are worthless.” After we have found some evidence to the contrary, you might be able to challenge the thought, “I am worthless”, when it comes up.

So worthlessness is a specific cognitive flavor of sadness. I could feel sad for a different reason and in a different flavor, such as when learning about a loved one’s cancer diagnosis. Worthlessness is a specific thought pattern that is usually accompanied by a specific emotion. When I see myself as worthless, I feel sad.

Is Worthlessness a Mental Illness?

Worthlessness can be a symptom of mental illness, but it is not a mental illness on its own. Some psychologists have even pointed out that some degree of worthless thoughts may be helpful (Durisko et al., 2015). For example, they may help us identify when we need to stop trying at an impossible task, ask for help or emotional support instead of trying to just endure life on our own, or even avoid conflict with somebody who holds way more power than we do.

Worthlessness and Depression

As we noted above, people with depression very commonly experience a sense of worthlessness – it is one of the most commonly experienced and core features of depression (APA, 2013; Beck, 1982; Jeon et al., 2014). Among people with depression, the strength of their sense of worthlessness seems to be related to their risk of attempting suicide (Jeon et al., 2014). Simply put, people with depression blame themselves for things and see themselves as inadequate more than people without depression. Often, but not always, this can take the form of feeling guilty for not doing things as well as one wished (Zahn et al., 2015), and it seems to exist independently of feeling sad, another core aspect of depression (Harrison et al., 2022).

Worthlessness and Trauma

People who experience traumas are also at risk of developing a negative sense of self, or low self-worth (Djelantik et al., 2020). This may be because traumatic events often drastically change our sense of self and sense of the world, making it hard to connect with others, with our old way of being, and with a sense of purpose.​

How to Deal With Worthlessness

The best way to deal with a strong sense of worthlessness is through psychotherapy and/or taking antidepressant medication – it is clear that both of these tools can help reduce depression symptoms, including worthlessness (Hieronymus et al., 2016; Kolubinski et al., 2018). The most studied psychotherapeutic interventions for depression are based in cognitive-behavioral therapy (Kolubinski et al., 2018), which seeks to challenge and undo the negative core beliefs about oneself that people have developed.
 
If you’re not sure about therapy, here is a recommendation I can make from personal experience: try to be of service to others. It is difficult to maintain a negative self-image when I have recently been helpful to other people. It is often hard, when feeling sad about oneself, to transition into doing things for others, but it can certainly help to lift one’s mood. For further motivation, you’ll see a couple quotes below about this method of dealing with worthlessness.
 
If you want more ideas for dealing with worthlessness, I recommend watching this video:

Video: How Can I Stop Feeling Worthless?

Worthlessness Quotes

• “The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless. It is a pleasant surprise to ourselves” – Eric Hoffer
  
• “I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it's like to feel absolutely worthless, and they don't want anyone else to feel like that.” – Robin Williams
  
• “Every human being has the same potential. Whatever makes you feel I am worthless is wrong. Absolutely wrong. You are deceiving yourself. We all have the power of thought, so what could you possibly be lacking? If you have the willpower, then you can do anything.” – Dalai Lama
  
• “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for anyone else.” – Charles Dickens
  

Articles Related to Worthlessness

​Want to learn more? Check out these articles:

• Inadequacy: Definition & Overcoming These Feelings
• Hopelessness: Definition, Examples, & Theory
• Self-Loathing: Definition, Signs, & How to Stop​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Books Related to Worthlessness

If you’d like to keep learning more, here are a few books that you might be interested in.

• Self-Love Workbook for Women: Release Self-Doubt, Build Self-Compassion, and Embrace Who You Are
• Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself
• Unworthy: How to Stop Hating Yourself

Final Thoughts on Worthlessness​

We all have our moments of seeing ourselves as worthless. When those thoughts pile up or stick around, they can really affect our well-being. I hope this article helps you see how these patterns might develop in your life and how you can tackle them when they do.​

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References

• American Psychiatric Association (APA). (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5 (Vol. 5, No. 5). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
• Beck A. T. (1982). Cognitive therapy of depression: New perspectives. In Clayton P., Barrett J. (Eds.), Treatment of depression: Old controversies and new approaches (pp. 265–290). New York, NY: Raven Press.
• Buchwald, A. M., & Rudick-Davis, D. (1993). The symptoms of major depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102(2), 197-205.
• Djelantik, A. M. J., Robinaugh, D. J., Kleber, R. J., Smid, G. E., & Boelen, P. A. (2020). Symptomatology following loss and trauma: Latent class and network analyses of prolonged grief disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and depression in a treatment‐seeking trauma‐exposed sample. Depression and Anxiety, 37(1), 26-34.
• Durisko, Z., Mulsant, B. H., & Andrews, P. W. (2015). An adaptationist perspective on the etiology of depression. Journal of Affective Disorders, 172, 315-323.
• Fennell, M. J., & Jenkins, H. (2005). Low self-esteem. Encyclopedia of cognitive behavior therapy, 236-240.
• Goodwill, J. R. (2021). Black youth’s experiences with feelings of worthlessness, parent relationships, and suicide: Findings from a national probability survey. Journal of Adolescent Health, 69(2), 294-301.
• Harrison, P., Lawrence, A. J., Wang, S., Liu, S., Xie, G., Yang, X., & Zahn, R. (2022). The psychopathology of worthlessness in depression. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13, 818542.
• Hieronymus, F., Emilsson, J. F., Nilsson, S., & Eriksson, E. (2016). Consistent superiority of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors over placebo in reducing depressed mood in patients with major depression. Molecular Psychiatry, 21(4), 523-530.
• Jeon, H. J., Park, J. I., Fava, M., Mischoulon, D., Sohn, J. H., Seong, S., ... & Cho, M. J. (2014). Feelings of worthlessness, traumatic experience, and their comorbidity in relation to lifetime suicide attempt in community adults with major depressive disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders, 166, 206-212.
• Katzenmajer-Pump, L., Komáromy, D., & Balázs, J. (2022). The importance of recognizing worthlessness for suicide prevention in adolescents with Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13, 969164.
• Kolubinski, D. C., Frings, D., Nikčević, A. V., Lawrence, J. A., & Spada, M. M. (2018). A systematic review and meta-analysis of CBT interventions based on the Fennell model of low self-esteem. Psychiatry Research, 267, 296-305.
• Orth, U., & Robins, R. W. (2022). Is high self-esteem beneficial? Revisiting a classic question. American Psychologist, 77(1), 5–17.
• Park, S. C., & Kim, D. (2020). The centrality of depression and anxiety symptoms in major depressive disorder determined using a network analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 271, 19-26.
• Rosenberg, M. (1979). Conceiving the self. New York: Basic Books.
• Strandmark, K. M. (2004). Ill health is powerlessness: a phenomenological study about worthlessness, limitations and suffering. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 18(2), 135-144.
• Vickery, C. D., Sherer, M., Evans, C. C., Gontkovsky, S. T., & Lee, J. E. (2008). The relationship between self-esteem and functional outcome in the acute stroke-rehabilitation setting. Rehabilitation Psychology, 53(1), 101-109.
• Wong, S. Y., Leung, J. C., & Woo, J. (2011). The relationship between worthlessness and mortality in a large cohort of Chinese elderly men. International Psychogeriatrics, 23(4), 609-615.
• Zahn, R., Lythe, K. E., Gethin, J. A., Green, S., Deakin, J. F. W., Young, A. H., & Moll, J. (2015). The role of self-blame and worthlessness in the psychopathology of major depressive disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders, 186, 337-341.

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