“authentic. They are comfortable with intimacy and with engaging in behaviors that promote it, such as giving and receiving support and being vulnerable. Terry Real, a therapist and author, was right when he wrote in his book How to Get Through to You, “Sustaining relationships with others requires a good relationship to ourselves. Healthy self-esteem is an internal sense of worth that pulls one neither into ‘better than’ grandiosity nor ‘less than’ shame.”