Three basic ways

(…) we have to remember that self-esteem is not at first a symbolic problem but an active, organismic one. It takes root in the elemental physical experience of the infant, when his experience gives him a confident narcissism, a sense of invulnerability. High self-esteem means such a sense of invulnerability, and one gets it in three basic ways. It derives first from the power of the other – from the mother when she is a dependable support and does not interfere too much with the child’s own activity and from a strong father with whom the child can identify. The second source of power to overcome vulnerability is one we have mentioned, the secure possession of one’s own body as a safe locus under one’s control. We see that this security can be weakened by traumas, as well as by the quality of the early family environment.  A third way one obtains power is of course from the cultural causa-sui project, the symbols and dramatizations of our transcendence of animal vulnerability.   

E. Becker, p. 229