Psychological Origins Of Shame

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

Psychological origins of shame

The classic of psychotherapy R. Potter-Efron wrote: “Shame, less studied and perhaps less understood than guilt, also pervades our society, appearing whenever people feel deeply embarrassed, humiliated or worthless. While it also has positive functions, most therapists deal with clients who experience completely excessive amounts of shame. Such "shame-bound" people often grow up in families that use it unnecessarily in their daily life. Shame is "a painful state of awareness of one's basic defectiveness as a human being" *.

Shame itself is neither good nor bad. Moderate feelings of shame are beneficial, while lack of or excess of it creates a lot of difficulties. Words associated with moderate shame and pride such as “humble,” “humble," and “autonomous,” contrast strongly with words for excessive or insufficient shame. Such as: "defective", "incompetent" or "arrogant".

In the works of modern psychoanalysts, shame is assigned one of the main roles in the formation of the narcissistic character. Tomkins, Erickson, Lewis, Winnicott, Spitz describe the first manifestations of shame in a child as early as infancy. When a child with all his being expresses the desire for reciprocity and does not meet it, he closes his eyes, turns his face away, freezes. Demonstrates fear and frustration. In the experience of shame, one's whole being presented to another is recognized as wrong.

Clients who are often ashamed lacked the experience of warm, empathic acceptance as children without judgment, judgment, or rejection. As well as deciphering, "mirroring" their emotional states, which scare them, and not being accepted, plunge into shame throughout their lives

“Not finding an echo or a mirror, we don't feel understood or respected. As a result, we may hesitate to admit the need for reciprocity, and decide not to express it in the future. The anxiety caused by this shyness increases over time and contributes to 'narcissistic vulnerability'."

Because shame stops interest and excitement, which are designed to serve the satisfaction of any need, "ashamed" people often live in a state of chronic frustration.

In the healthy version: I recognize my need for arousal and interest and look for a way to satisfy it. Shame appears where it was impossible to show interest or want something strongly at some point. And this is often imprinted in experience in such a way that I cease to understand what exactly I want. Shame stops everything. Therefore, there is no way to get what I want.

At any age: when the expression or the desire for reciprocity is faced with a lack of feedback from the other, the consequence is a collapse. As a result, the person falls into internal paralysis. Its intensity depends on individual sensitivity. Even someone with a lot of parenting experience feels ashamed when rejected. When a narcissistically traumatized person is rejected, he can internally experience it on the scale of Armageddon. Such people often felt emotionally detached during childhood. It does not matter whether the lack of reciprocity of the other is the result of indifference, misunderstanding, underestimation, punishment or tactlessness. Or perhaps this is just a wrong assessment of the person himself of the degree of reciprocity achieved. So to speak out of habit.

The phenomenology of shame also includes the temptation to give up identity.

(of your own self) to deserve acceptance of yourself by others. Shame relates to the whole person. Unlike guilt, in which a person feels that they have done a wrong thing in shame, this feeling of “wrong” extends to the entire person. Ashamed, we experience all of ourselves as unworthy, insufficiently inappropriate.

Winnicott writes: “A false self, a false ego, develops when the mother is not sufficiently capable of feeling and responding to the needs of the child. Then the infant is forced to adjust to the mother and adapts to her too early. Using the false self, the child builds false attitudes in the relationship and maintains the appearance that he really is the one to grow into exactly the same person as his significant adult."

Shame is accompanied by a temporary inability to think logically and effectively, and often a feeling of failure, defeat. A person who is ashamed cannot express their feelings in words. Later, he will surely find the right words and will again and again imagine what he could say at the moment when shame left him speechless. As a rule, the experience of shame is accompanied by a keen sense of failure, failure, complete fiasco. An adult feels like a child whose weakness is on display. There is a feeling that a person can no longer perceive, think, or act. The boundaries of the ego become transparent.

The classic of Gestal therapy J. M. Robin in his lecture on shame emphasizes: “There is another important aspect in shame: when someone feels shame, he feels lonely. People always talk about shame as some kind of inner experience. But there is always someone else who shames. No one can feel shame alone. There is always someone who is, if not outside, then inside us, he is presented as a “superego””.

In therapy, it can be difficult for the client to recognize their shame. Recall the parental message that triggered it. Note that it is not the therapist who judges or rejects him, but he himself does it, identifying with the inner parent figure. Recall who and with what words said what is now causing an internal repetition of this experience.

The energy of shame, or rather those desires that it stops, often manifests itself bodily - in psychosomatic symptoms. Such as fever, burning, itching, skin problems, allergies, muscle blocks, up to various psychosomatosis. The dominant feeling in all spheres that you are "not loved" arouses a latent suspicion that you are completely rejected. This situation is accompanied by a very pronounced bashfulness and creates the basis for severe pathologies of any type: from asocial behavior to destructive addictions.

The feeling of shame has a twofold function that has determined its role in human evolution. Shame means a tendency to consider the opinions and feelings of those around you. Thus, shame contributes to the formation of group norms and the maintenance of general agreement in relation to them. The ability to shame can be viewed as one of the social abilities of a person, it curbs the egocentric and selfish urges of the individual, increases responsibility to society. In addition, shame encourages the individual to acquire skills, including social interaction skills.

There is also a counter-dependence - the individual feels more protected, more self-confident, and therefore less vulnerable to shame if he feels belonging to a group, if he accepts group norms.

Famous researcher of shame S. Tomkins: "As a social feeling, shame is a reaction to the lack of approving interaction." It serves as a stop for other "shameful" (disapproved) experiences. At the same time, “shameful” in each specific case means a variety of manifestations and emotions - depending on the social environment and upbringing of a person

“The feeling of shame can be observed even in the area of the“awakening sense of selfhood.”You can talk, for example, about people who have difficulties in their studies, who do not have the patience to complete each step of the process. They are embarrassed to be beginners, do not know everything. intolerance and exaggerated claims of significant others in early childhood."

The experience of any crisis, from family to intrapersonal, is also accompanied by shame. Because in a crisis we discover that our old ways of adapting to life are no longer effective, and we have not yet worked out the new ones. This means that, such as we are - we do not meet the requirements of the environment. And until adaptation occurs, until the crisis is successfully resolved for us, we may feel ashamed.

Avoiding shame prevents us from thinking and perceiving reality adequately; it triggers a denial of reality that is more pervasive than normal regression and results in a lack of thinking.

* The article is a compilation of primary sources together with my therapeutic interpretations.