Lately, what keeps coming up in my practice is self-doubt. It usually starts with something seemingly simple, like making a decision, such as “Should I take this job? Text them back? Say no?”, but later, it expands into deeper reflections: “What’s the best way to heal? How do I build a fulfilling life?” Then somewhere down the line, I hear clients trying to justify to themselves why their choice to act a certain way was valid, which tells me that doubt is still hanging around in the background.
I’ve said before that good mental health isn’t about whether life affects us; it will affect us, but about how we manage our feelings and respond to those events. That still holds true here. Having self-doubt is okay. What’s not okay is not trusting that you can figure it out.
Self-trust is what allows you to stumble and still feel steady.
It’s the belief that even when you don’t know what to do, you’ll find your way. And interestingly, some of the foundations of self-trust are laid very early in life—often unintentionally by parents or caregivers.
I remember mopping the floor when my son was about five (forgive-me if I have already shared this with some of you in our sessions). He was darting around, and I warned him, “The floor is wet and slippery, you’ll fall and hurt yourself.” Now, I wasn’t thinking, “Ah yes, let me build his self-trust here,” I just didn’t want him to crack his head open. But of course, he slipped. He got up, rubbed his elbow, and said, “I didn’t get hurt!”
In that moment, something powerful was built: Epistemic Trust. Fonagy and Allison (2014) describe this as the belief that information from others, and from ourselves, is trustworthy and relevant. My son learned that I was half-right: yes, he slipped, but no, he didn’t get hurt. He could then start forming his own sense of judgment. He learned he can listen, evaluate, and decide for himself.
But what if no one helped you build that trust?
Now contrast that with the stories I often hear in therapy: a child only gets attention when they’ve done something wrong. Praise is rare, if not non-existent. The focus is on correction, not curiosity. These kids learn very quickly that they are only noticed when they mess up. And when there’s no opportunity to be seen doing something right, or even just trying, the child internalises a belief: “I must always be doing it wrong.”
This dynamic is often rooted in the parent’s own overwhelm. Parenting is exhausting, and sometimes there’s a fear that your child’s mistakes reflect your worth as a parent. But when kids don’t have the space to explore, to test, to fail safely, they don’t develop the ability to evaluate their own experiences. They become dependent on external validation. And with that, self-trust never quite takes root.
Now enter adulthood, and welcome to the sea of advice.
Fast-forward to adulthood, and we’ve got people swimming in a sea of information. Social media tells you to heal your inner child, balance your nervous system, be soft, be assertive, feel your feelings, stop overthinking, set boundaries, be open, love yourself, challenge yourself, rest more, hustle hard—sometimes all in the same video!
Now, the issue isn’t the variety of advice. Life isn’t one-size-fits-all, and what works for one person may not work for another. Science is like that, too. Different theories explain the same phenomenon in different ways. The issue is that if you don’t trust yourself, you don’t know how to sift through all that noise.
If I tell you that your social anxiety is rooted in your parents never celebrating your childhood drawings, and your response is, “Wait, they did celebrate them. They even framed one!”, then amazing! That theory probably doesn’t apply to you. So we dig somewhere else. The point is: if you have epistemic trust, you can assess what’s real for you without dismissing yourself or blindly accepting every explanation.
As Dr. Gabor Maté puts it, we heal by understanding our formative experiences, not to dwell, but to inform how we live and grow in the present.
So how do we build self-trust now?
We start by acknowledging the things we’ve done right. Not perfectly, but right for us, with the information and capacity we had at the time. We remember the moments when we made good decisions, trusted the wrong people (and survived), doubted ourselves and still took action.
We build self-trust by validating our own competence and capabilities, not because we never make mistakes, but because we can learn from them.
Someone once told me that they were accused of not knowing how to be happy, and now they wonder if it’s true.
How can they decide if they can’t be happy? Only they can decide if that’s true. But here’s a better question: Do you want to find out what happiness means to you, and trust yourself enough to pursue it?
They get to ask themselves: what does happiness look like to me? What feels true in my body and what makes sense in my mind? They get to say, “That’s not my truth.” And if they’re not sure yet, that’s okay. They can take time to reflect, to try, to learn. They can figure out what happiness means for them, and how to build it in a way that fits.
That’s where it begins.
References
Fonagy, P., & Allison, E. (2014). The role of epistemic trust in child development: Implications for intervention.
Maté, G. (2008). In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction.
Merton, R. K. (1948). The self-fulfilling prophecy. Antioch Review, 8(2), 193-210.
Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2007). Attachment in Adulthood: Structure, Dynamics, and Change.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being.