Shame: I'm Kind Of Wrong

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

American researcher S. Tomkins investigated human emotions and, in particular, shame. He viewed shame as an arousal regulator. He drew a line from interest to excitement, between weak and strong intensity, and shame was a regulator on that axis. The role of shame is to stop the arousal process as soon as it gets too strong. There is a theory about excitement and anxiety - two sides of the same coin. Every time we are faced with anxiety, we block arousal, and in this theoretical context, in the development of arousal and anxiety, shame is an important element. Arousal indicates that there is a very strong desire. It is the motor of the human essence.

What is the role of shame, how does it appear?If there is a strong desire, need, then it must be recognized, recognized, accepted, thanks to the environment, and, having received support, turned into action. If it is not, desire is blocked, it can become shame. Especially if we receive a message from the outside: " We must not be the way we are, we must be different".

The main message a person in shame receives is: " I'm wrong the way I am, I can't be accepted, loved".

Shame is strongly associated with social connections, relationships: " As I am, I am not worthy of belonging to human society".

In the time of Z. Freud, shame was not well differentiated from guilt, and the two themes were mixed.

Most practitioners agree that guilt is more related to action: " I did something wrong", but shame affects the identity of who I am: " I'm kind of wrong". In this sense, guilt is easier to deal with. In matters of guilt, society offers a large number of different ways of working out. Shame is not so simple, because it is not about what I have done, but about who I am. And one of the solutions that there is to become different is to be "like", and this is the topic of narcissistic disorders. The themes of guilt and shame are really mixed. Sometimes I can do some wrong action, cause some harm, and then I will feel guilty. However, the process can be like this: if I did something wrong, perhaps it is because I myself am wrong, and then the wrong action is associated with shame. Another important aspect of shame is that when someone feels ashamed, they feel lonely. People always talk about shame as some kind of inner experience. But we know that there is always someone who shames. And it is always. No one can feel shame alone. When we are grown up, we are already adults, then we experience shame alone. but there is always someone who is inside, he is presented as a "superego", as a "conscience". And very often in the therapy process, one of our first actions with shame is to help the client identify the person who is ashamed. Very often the client forgets that the shameful person exists. Parents, sometimes, when talking to children, say: " You should be ashamed"Pay attention to these details. Parents tell the child how he should feel. But, at the same time, the parent, when ordering the child to feel, falls into the shadows:" I tell you what you should feel, but it doesn’t concern me, I have nothing to do with it ". For me, this is exactly why, in the process of shame, the one who shames, more often than not, finds himself in the" shadow. "For example, I am a boy, and I play with my genitals. father and says: “Shame on you.” This is not my feeling of shame, I felt good. Perhaps it is his shame, and I swallowed it. One of the main tasks of psychotherapists is to identify the shame and help the client return back to this person:

"This is your shame, not mine", - to partially get rid of this unpleasant feeling. from a lecture by Jean-Marie Robin (in February 2001 at the anniversary gestalt conference in Moscow) Photo from the film "Shame" by Ingmar Bergman, 1968 Psychologist Irina Toktarova