Negative self-esteem is frequently associated with a pessimistic style of explaining events. People experiencing events may see themselves as the cause, moreover they see the situation as unchangeable, and affecting all aspects of life. After experiencing some inability to avoid an adverse situation individual learns to act or behave helplessly.

Working with a depressive patient can lead to the therapist's negative emotions such as frustration caused by the slow improvement, lack of the patient's engagement or escalation of suicidal tendencies. In such situation supervision seems to be essential.

The aims of this case report is analysis of relation between therapist's low self-esteem and patient's learned helplessness.

The studies includes analysis of supervision case report. The supervisee has completed the CBT education and he was a psychiatrist with five years of clinical experience.

This supervision showed the therapist's poor self-esteem as a factor escalating the patient's learned helplessness. The therapist needed to prove himself and his excessive activity unmotivated the patient and decreased his sense of competence. The work on these dysfunctional cognitions was very important and reduced the therapist's anxiety. The increase of the therapist's self-consciousness improved the progress of therapy.

This analysis showed the impact of the therapist's cognitions on the course of therapy. The work on therapist's negative cognitions about himself is very important and can reduce the problems in therapy, e.g. learned helplessness of patient with depression.