Experiencing Shame In The Therapeutic Process

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

Dealing with shame in the therapeutic process

Feelings, emotions, experiences are often the focus of therapy. It is not easy to meet with them, even when it is safe and there is an opportunity to be accepted by your therapist. One of the most intolerable feelings is shame, it is from it that everyone runs away, they try to hide it from everyone, even from their own awareness. Clients often ask me: "Is it possible to never experience it, get rid of it forever, somehow change so as not to ever come into contact with shame?" It is not possible … Yes, there are ways that people use to avoid the experience of shame, but the very feeling is simply suppressed into the unconscious and does not go anywhere, even in a destructive way poisons us from the inside. In order for the shame to pass, it must be experienced. The interruption of the experience, only temporarily relieves us of pain, the suppressed emotion or the interrupted experience will always strive for completion, and look for opportunities to manifest. This process runs the risk of being endless, poisoning our lives, forcing us to abandon our authentic selves, choosing to be someone, a pseudo-self, sort of without shame, inflating a false personality, which we can become hostage as a result of losing spontaneity and freedom of expression. In order to hold on to any experience, we need a lot of tension and this is very draining. However, shame has its own functions, without which it is sometimes impossible, including for socialization. Everything requires a measure, a good dosage, a certain balance. This is the most difficult part.

People use shame as a regulator of behavior, as a way to stop excitement, energy that seems unnecessary, inappropriate or dangerous. This is why shame is called a social feeling. Shame often hides other needs of a person, which shame covers or stops. By experiencing shame, a person has access to these needs. Awareness of these needs brings us closer to meeting our own authenticity, authenticity.

One of the difficulties of experiencing shame is associated with experiencing vulnerability. Some people interpret their own vulnerability as weakness, something that needs to be avoided and avoided, hidden from others and from oneself. Here a person feels unsafe, as there is isolation, rejection of oneself, as a kind of betrayal and wants to disappear. A person ceases to see and feel support, support, because in his own vulnerability he rejects himself, thereby depriving him of the opportunity to take risks and rely in contact with another on his acceptance. A person loses himself, so as not to meet with the rejection of others. He does the worst thing to himself, before others can do it to him, while maintaining some control. In this rejection and isolation, a person begins to breed his fantasies about his own monstrosity and inferiority, and the fear of being rejected becomes more and more. Shame always has an author, in the context of a person's life there was someone who shamed, scolded, criticized and rejected. It was possible to receive acceptance only by avoiding one's own "wrongness", initially in the opinion of another, and later, as one's own idea of oneself. The process of introjection takes place. A large chunk of introects cause toxic shame and are experienced as values of the person himself. In the course of therapy, a lot of time is devoted to these moments of rethinking. A lot of acceptance by another person is needed in this place.

In modern society, the idea of self-sufficiency is very popular, as a kind of perfection, the ability to deal with everything alone, the ability to cope with everything. From the point of view of gestalt therapy, a person, as an organism, is not considered in isolation from the environment, the world of other people. In order to satisfy his needs, a person needs to contact, interact with the environment, and here the idea of self-support comes to the fore, and it is important to focus on this in therapy. Adequate support experience is required for self-support.

Support is especially important in experiencing shame. Shame is experienced in connection with another, as the inability to connect with the world, the inability to be accepted. The support here will be precisely the acceptance by another person, the ability and ability to be just there, a certain unconditionality. It is this experience that the client experiences in therapy. Initially, such an experience of acceptance was necessary for a child in relations with parents or significant figures, so that they would remain with him regardless of his “correctness”, of his actions, when he is confused or scared. But often, our parents are often unable to cope with their own shame. When a mom or dad becomes ashamed of their own child, they immediately project this shame on him, denying his presence in themselves. This often manifests itself in the expression: "Aren't you ashamed !!!" This reads a certain message, they say, you should be ashamed, you should be ashamed, not me. And the child often swallows it, because he wants to be accepted. And learn to be ashamed of yourself, and gradually transforming, or rather, trying to be the one whom these parents could love, fearing to be abandoned. But, alas, the true "I" remains isolated, abandoned and alone. I often hear from clients about terrible loneliness, despite the fact that these people are not alone, they have families, friends, but their true "I" remain walled up in a dungeon of loneliness out of fear of shame and as a consequence of rejection. It is paradoxical that we, avoiding loneliness, organize it ourselves.

People have learned well to avoid shame by ignoring the very situation of shame, avoiding their own spontaneity, their own desires and needs, striving for perfection, endlessly remaking themselves. A person's whole life can be spent on becoming a better person, ignoring his real self, that is, building a “false self”. There is also such a method as arrogance, which is based on the mechanism of projection, when a person displaces everything that is shameful in himself and assigns it to other people. Everyone has their own arsenal of ways. In therapy, a person realizes and explores these methods, as well as finding ways and possibilities of contact with himself, a substitute, abandoned one. This is not an easy road, the therapist's task is to accompany the client on this journey and not rush, expect nothing, just be there and accept. It certainly does not help to dissuade the client that something for which he is ashamed, there is no need to be ashamed, that it is not ashamed. Thus, you can devalue the feeling of shame and further drive the client into awkwardness, "wrong". It doesn't support. It is also not suitable to distribute advice, since this is a kind of position from above, and for the client it is very important to be close. The same goes for the way to feel sorry for the client, he may feel sorry and it does not help. What then helps? The answer is banally simple.

Acceptance helps, stay close, experience of own shame.