Dalrymple writes at his Psychology Today blog on the problems of a pernicious modern concept:

When I told patients who complained of lack of self-esteem (admittedly on a selected basis) that at least they had got one thing right, they did not grow angry or upset, but laughed instead as if they had known all along that their complaint was a charade. Of course they had things to complain of – we all do, and they had more than most – but the notion of lack of self-esteem actually discouraged them from examining those things honestly.