Words don't really do the feeling of shame justice, but I think that Gershen Kaufman has done a particularly good job at attempting it in Shame: the Power of Caring (1980, Shenkman Publishing Company). Kaufman defines shame as being seen in a painfully diminished sense, which is a simple and understandable definition. Like many things, however, there is a ton of nuance hidden within the simplicity. The rest of this article will be a summary of Kaufman's work. The article sometimes seems fragmentary because a lot of material has been cut, so if you are looking for a smoother reading experience, consider buying the book and reading it fully.
Shame is affect, and is a large group of emotions, considered to be one of the core types of affect by many psychologists. Under the shame umbrella are:
- Shyness: shame in the presence of a stranger
- Embarrassment: shame involving something socially inappropriate
- Guilt: the violation of one's ethical values
- and others not explained at much length
Shame feels as though there's no single action to be taken or changed, as though "it's just me," which makes things feel irreparable. We feel vulnerable and exposed. Lasting shame leaves a person feeling defeated and never quite enough.
Shame starts interpersonally. Each relationship can be seen as an "interpersonal bridge" between two people. As long as the bridge stays intact, shame is nowhere to be found. When damage to the bridge occurs, however, shame can often follow. We feel as though we are to blame for the bridge being broken, as irrational as that may be. Whenever someone becomes significant to us, we start forming this bridge, and this inevitably opens us up to the vulnerability of shame.
Having needs is an unavoidable source of the giving over of power to others, particularly when young. Failure to acknowledge needs or validate them can damage the interpersonal bridge. Trust and security can be powerfully interrupted by the presence of shame. Someone acknowledging their own part in our shame, however, can help to carry us beyond it and is a powerful source of growth. This is not the only way to address shame, though.
Young children will experience shame in response to others, but have not yet learned to generate it without an external stimulus. To children, adults close to them are infallible and the children unconsciously model those adults. This modeling process is called "identification". When one feels weak, this intensifies the need to identify, but identification does not only appear in times of weakness and can be seen as a way of dealing with lack of direction.
Identification is balanced with differentiation, whereby a person figures out the ways in which they are unique from others. These alternating processes build a child's sense of identity. The entirety of childhood is filled with this identification and differentiation, though they are particularly prevalent in adolescence, where a child learns not only to identify with individuals, but also with groups. We never outgrow the need to identify, though, and it is present with us for our entire lives.
Identification leads to identity through the process of internalization. We internalize at least three distinct things:
- Attitudes about ourselves, or "affect-beliefs"
- Ways of treating ourselves learned from those significant to us
- Identifications in the form of "images" which serve to guide us (think of "bringing the parent inside")
Young children will experience shame in response to others, but have not yet learned to generate it without an external stimulus. However, when shame occurs often enough in our relationships, they identify with it, and the shame is internalized and becomes able to be autonomously created without needing anyone else to generate the shame. We are able to perpetuate it by imagery or voices we generate in our own minds. This internalized shame tends to stick with us, even for our entire lives if not addressed, and is often unconscious.
Times of significant distress or pain make a person more susceptible to internalizing shame because their defenses are lowered. Things said or done can be easily internalized as statements of identity at these times, and can become core beliefs/attitudes.
Once internalized, shame simply feels like a part of who one is. Other actions and beliefs start to organize themselves around these internalized beliefs and feelings. Exposure or being seen can itself be much more devastating once shame is internalized because it's indicating that people can see one's defectiveness as a person.
Shame is not so much to be avoided as coped with. Given that we all lack absolute control, we are guaranteed perpetual vulnerability to shame to some degree.
Shame becomes "bound to", or linked with, at least three different types of experiences:
- Affect: having certain feelings can spark the experience of shame
- Drives: instinctive human motivations can bring about shame (most commonly sex or eating)
- Needs: even simply having a need can be shameful for someone
Feelings can become silenced by the unconscious mind if they are bound to shame, as if they are not even present, in a process called "experiential erasure." Repression may have its origins in this type of ashamed erasure. If many feelings have been bound to shame, a person may learn to unconsciously control their emotionality in general, so as to repress most or all of their emotions altogether.
The need for a relationship is crucial for a child, and when it is sensed that that relationship is unwanted, shame often results.
Humans have a need for identification with others, and eye contact can lead to this identification, but prolonged eye contact past a critical point can lead to feeling exposed, which can easily become shame. This shame in response to eye contact can frustrate the need for identification with others.
As mentioned above, the need for identification fluctuates with the need for differentiation, or separation. When separation is associated with shame, a child may renounce the need for identification in the first place to avoid the subsequent shame.
One of the recurring failings in development which I have widely observed is a lack of preparation for adulthood. The kind of preparation so many young people have seemingly missed stems from not being able to know how another human being, particularly one older and presumably wiser, actually behaves and lives on the inside. Many individuals have been deprived of seeing how one or both parents literally functioned as people. This is a failure of identification. They have seen the final product, for instance, the decisions made, but so rarely have they known what went on inside of a parent, how a parent responds internally to threat and copes with it. Nor have they seen how the parent copes with challenges and success, for these too can be frightening to us, as well as sources of pride.
There are several common defense strategies where shame is concerned, which fall into to distinct types:
- Defenses against the experiencing of shame
- Strategies for transferring shame currently being experienced
Defense strategies are intriguingly affected by temperament. Extraverted individuals may tend more toward rage and introverts may tend more toward withdrawal. More often than not, however, multiple strategies are used at the same time. Rigid defense strategies will produce distorted relationships, creating new pressures to contend with, contributing to a downward spiral. Not all defense strategies are maladaptive, though, and defenses that remain conscious and flexible can be seen as adaptive.
Rage is common following shame, and serves to protect against further shaming and keep others away. Introverts may be more likely to hold their rage internally or orient it toward themselves. Rage may also secondarily serve to transfer shame to others at the same time.
Contempt is another common reaction to shame, though not thought to be a naturally-occurring one like rage. Contempt is most often learned from a parent already skilled in employing it. In contempt, one rejects the object of the contempt. There is a notable attempt to assign the object of contempt a lower status. Learning contempt in childhood can form the basis for later tendency toward being judgmental, fault-finding, or condescending.
Striving for power is a direct attempt at compensating for one's sense of defectiveness. We can give power over to another when we care about what they think of us, openly admire them and surrender to their influence, or permit ourselves to need something from them, thereby making ourselves vulnerable. This power can either be respected or abused. Power seekers prefer to gain control and keep it, unable to share it with anyone.
Like striving for power, striving for perfection is an attempt to compensate for a sense of defectiveness. "If I can become perfect, ,I am no longer vulnerable to shame." The request for perfection, though, is doomed to land the seeker back into the shame of defectiveness they are avoiding, because since the seeker already knows they are defective, nothing they do will be good enough to relieve their sense of being broken. It could always be better. Since they are defective then nothing they do will be perfect in their assessment. A perfectionist has never developed an internal sense of how much is good enough, and judges against a non-existent and unattainable external standard.
Perfectionism leaves one feeling as though they are lesser themself, whereas contempt leaves one feeling that the other is lesser.
When a child is consistently met with blame for things that go wrong, the stage is set for their learning to transfer their shame onto others, often called "scapegoating." Those who focus on transferring shame are often concerned with who is to blame or at fault. Transfer of blame need only occur when shame is involved, for there is no need to blame if there is no shame to be had. Even shame about one's shame can be transferred to others by blaming them for it.
The transferring individual not only transfers the blame, but they also relinquish their own power to affect change at the same time, for if they are not responsible then they cannot address the issue. One may learn to be quick enough at blaming oneself that they revoke others' chances at doing it for them, in an attempt to regain some semblance of control or power.
When blaming or contempt (or both) become internalized along with shame, the seeds are sown for an over-burdened, guilt-ridden conscience and for the splitting of the self into two parts: one offender and one judge.
Withdrawal is another strategy for dealing with shame, and is common among introverts. It can be seen as a way of avoiding exposure to shame by avoiding situations that could cause it or make it worse.
The formation of a shame-based identity arises from a person disowning parts of themselves, creating internal splits. Needs, feelings, and desires are all vulnerable to being disowned. Disowning can be aimed at one particular thing or at an entire category.
A child learns to somehow see what parts of themself bring upon the shame from others. They search for what it is about themself that induces shame. If there is any pattern at all to the parent's behavior, a child will discover it. The parent often models for a child how they ought to disown some parts of themselves by seeing which parts the parents disown in themselves. The internalized identification image often emerges more clearly when a person moves away from the originating person. The vacuum is filled by the internal representative.
Because we learn to treat ourselves precisely the way we either experienced or observed significant others to do, we learn to shame ourselves, hold ourselves in contempt, blame ourselves, hate ourselves, terrorize ourselves, and even to disown a part of ourselves that has been rejected and consistently enough cast away by a parent, whether intentionally or inadvertently. Such internal actions as these can additionally be mediated through the parent's internal representative, the identification image, which serves as the watchdog of inner life, the gatekeeper of the unconscious, the self-appointed guardian scrutinizing all that happens inside the self and dispensing shame, contempt, hatred or fear as warranted. Because the self already feels deficient, what choice has the self but to agree with the pronouncements forthcoming from the parent's internal representative? Hence, we learn to speak to ourselves, to say the very things subvocally to ourselves which our parents originally said to us.
There are always at least faint murmurings of the disowned parts of the self which can be painfully felt as psychic pain. The strife between internal parts of oneself becomes the foundation for later pathological developments. It is possible for someone to experience positive conscious awareness while simultaneously vulnerable to shame due to a disowned part of the self hidden away from consciousness.
When we disown a part of ourselves, growth of our identity is interrupted and a sense of integrity is lost. External defense strategies are employed internally against the parts. Employment of defense strategies against oneself creates inner turmoil and an internalized sense of insecurity. When disowned parts of the self make themselves known, the self can inflict unrelenting suffering upon itself.
The disowning of the self is not inevitable. If the child finds some other individual that is enhancing and can have a consistent relationship to them, disowning can be diminished or even avoided.
Self-discovery is the foundation of growth and of behavioral change. A willingness to look inside and to share that knowledge is essential for self-discovery. One major benefit of a therapist is their ability to see the inner functioning of their client when their client cannot.
Shame is rarely consciously accessible at the outset of therapy. Changing shame can be painful and distressing because of fear of exposure and the defense strategies deployed to protect against it. Distress may not even be evident since defense strategies can so effectively mask shame from view. The goal of therapy is not to eliminate defense strategies, but to learn new, healthier coping strategies for the sources of shame. The rigid defense strategies will organically fade away over time. Progression oscillates with regression, and some amount of regression is inevitable, possibly even essential.
When someone has core beliefs that they are not good enough as a person, a therapist's attempts at ignoring the beliefs, convincing them otherwise, or trying to get rid of the beliefs backfire. The feelings of shame need to be validated and approached, not avoided or denied. Internalized shame cannot remain internalized and autonomous if change is to occur. The shame needs to be brought back out to the interpersonal arena by reversing the process by which it was developed. Discovering the original sources of shame and experiencing the feelings makes it possible to learn new beliefs and feelings about oneself. Learning how it came about makes it possible to make new choices in the future. Accepting that one cannot go back and change the past provides the freedom to live from the present onward.
The self that feels alienated, defeated, lacking in dignity or worth needs to feel whole, worthwhile, and valued from within.
Shame bound to affect or needs can be dissolved by making the bind and its source conscious, along with validating the need or affect itself. When shame feelings are approached in a therapeutic context, exposure fears gradually become reduced as the client learns it is safe, which can open up the client's awareness to their shame further.
When shame feelings arise, it's important to focus both on the feelings and the source of the feelings. The goal is to learn to recognize the source and feelings so that one can consciously intervene and interrupt a downward shame spiral. Focusing attention outside oneself can also break the shame spiral and allow the feelings to subside without snowballing, interrupting the internalized image.
...events which seemingly seek to call ourselves into question, these ever-recurring crises for the self, really pose only challenges to be faced, for good or for ill. It is in the honest facing of those tests of self that we most especially find out of what stuff we are made. For it is in how we face those inevitable defeats, those necessary failures, those painful rejections — not whether they were deserved — which matters most in my way of thinking. An individual may emerge from such crises, such confrontations with self as shame hands us, either more solid and secure in his personhood or more uncertain, self-doubting, and confirmed in defectiveness. Always, there remains the possibility, if not the potential, for growth if one but takes the risk. And growth is at best a risky prospect. No one can ever claim with anything even approaching certainty to know what the outcome might be. Thus, the uncertainties of life are what provide us with the possibilities for restoring and for growth.
We frequently learn to feel ashamed of those things which make us different from others, and work should be done to accept—or even value—those things. Learning to affirm oneself gradually builds an identity with a new core and allows one to become the primary source of their own caring, respect, and valuing. One learns to recognize and value those things which they have in common with others as well as those things which make them different. When one can affirm themself, shame can simply be a feeling which arises and then passes away naturally.
We will always be vulnerable to shame, but it can remain only a feeling which does not become internalized.
- Maintaining the integrity of the self allows one to live with a sense of being whole.
- Internal security needs to be developed, which requires that one look at and deal with defense strategies that have been internalized and lead to disowning parts of the self.
- One must learn to nurture and care for oneself, providing the necessary actions to comfort oneself.
- Developing the capacity to affirm oneself and recognize one's value restores a sense of worth. This is particularly important in times of defeat.
- Differentiation of what one feels and needs as well as owning those feelings and needs bring self-knowledge crucial to one's sense of identity and integrity.
- Consciously attaining a sense of identity is the bridge that links inner life to outer life. Determining who one is brings dignity and worth.
To begin to address the development tasks, disowned parts of the self must be identified and labeled, and therefore made conscious. Putting words together with feelings, needs, and drives promotes the conscious reintegration of the self. The disowned parts must be owned once more in order to begin becoming whole again. The internal strife between the self and the disowned parts must be brought into awareness, making the defense strategies conscious in order to break their hold.
Acceptance is an inherent part of re-owning the disowned parts of the self. In learning to accept and no longer fight against being mortal, human, and imperfect, a new way of talking to oneself which heals is how this acceptance works to nurture and move beyond failure, honestly forgiving ourselves for it and learning to internalize self-affirmation instead of shame.
Actively engaging in visualization is one way of aiding the unconscious to become conscious. Consciously fantasizing will allow one to see needs, drives, and feelings come forward that were previously hidden. Visualization can also be a helpful tool in practicing how one will cope with a particular situation in a healthy way. By imagining how we would act in a particular encounter, we can both see how we feel about the situation and "try out" different ways of dealing with it.
It is paramount to free the self from the hold which the past has upon it. Letting go of those troublesome, forever-to-be-unmet needs tied to those significant others who have failed us is one of the hardest of all things. For it means closing a door on the past and accepting what may be a painful reality: I cannot go back and get it the way I needed it then. Some holes will inevitably remain inside. That painful separation from an unfulfilled childhood must come about in order to set the self moving again. Otherwise, one would be forever chasing after past needs and so miss the present moment, the needs of our current lives.
When we choose a way of defending ourselves from shame, we are originally consciously aware of that selection, at least in part. As we continue to choose that strategy, however, the use of it becomes less and less conscious, similar to any habit. Eventually the defense mechanism is deployed automatically and outside of conscious awareness. It is this choice over defenses which one should regain. The consciousness of how one defends, what they defend against, and when they defend against it is what developing conscious awareness is all about.