There is an assumed relationship between a person's self-esteem, speech anxiety, and low cognitive complexity, but further research is needed for support of this premise. An important question to explore is how a child with speech anxiety (lack of confidence in communication situations) perceives others. Based on balance theory, the answer is that he sees others as a reliable source of information and, therefore, as a threat to his cognitive structure. A counselor for children with such anxieties will be better able to assist them if he has some insight into how others and the counselor himself are perceived by the clients. The difficulty for the counselor is that those with low self-esteem will tend to disbelieve any positive reinforcement they are given. The logical extension for the original premise would be to seek methods whereby an individual could learn to use a larger number of constructs in his interpersonal relationships in order to develop more ability to recognize resources in others. (RN)