"How can I avoid writing nonsense?", "What if I make a mistake?", "Is this enough? Is it too much?", "And if I express my opinion this way, what will people think?", "How can I write so as not to disgrace myself and all generations of psychologists, including Freud himself?" Yes, it's all about shame. Because writing about shame, as it turns out, can also be... shameful.
I've had a long-standing relationship with my own shame. For a long time, shame was my emotionally abusive partner, causing pain in my relationships and controlling my life. These are the "relationships" that have undergone significant changes and transformations. Therefore, I will describe what has worked and continues to work in my experience—both as a client and as a therapist.
Is there a "shame gene": where does it come from and what forms does it take?
Evolutionarily, shame acted as a regulator of relationships within communities and contributed to maintaining social hierarchies. The tendency towards shame in this context can be seen as an adaptation to life in society and the preservation of belonging. Feelings of shame and being shamed signaled the need to conceal one's "shortcomings" from others and avoid expulsion, which evolutionarily would have meant death. In this context, a close connection between shame and power and control is also evident.
You can read more about the evolutionary origins of shame in the work of the American anthropologist Christopher Boehm, "Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame." This topic is also partially covered in the work of the Dutch anthropologist and historian Rutger Bregman, "Humankind: A Hopeful History."
What forms does shame take?
Shame remains a guide in social norms, ensuring continued belonging and preventing isolation. Shame can amplify loneliness and separation. Therefore, it often signals our need for belonging, acceptance, understanding, and reassurance.
Since shame is also associated with power and control, the shame of survivors of violence can be highlighted separately (this refers to all types of violence). In addition to shame, a negative self-perception is formed, and there is an "internal abuser" who can belittle, devalue, and despise.
"Spanish shame" is also related to belonging to society and arises when others commit a certain action, and we experience the feeling of shame. This can happen when the actions or words of others differ from our values and/or internal morality. For example, when it turned out that a famous surgeon did not have the appropriate education and qualifications, and his actions caused many preventable deaths, other surgeons may feel Spanish shame because they also belong to the social group "surgeons" while performing their work responsibly. And one case can undermine trust in their profession.
In addition to Spanish shame, among the "national" ones, there is also the concept of "Swedish shame." Its homeland is Sweden, where the concept of "flight shame" (Swedish: flygskam) arose as a result of the awareness of the destructive impact of air travel on the environment. Traveling by plane should be shameful, Swedish eco-activists believe.
Quite often, shame arises simultaneously with guilt, and they are sometimes difficult to separate.
Working with Shame
Here, it is probably worth saying immediately that a significant part of the work will involve addressing the attitude towards shame itself as a feeling and towards oneself as someone experiencing shame. We learn not to avoid but to be "in contact" with our shame, to reduce its intensity and lessen its impact on your life.
It sounds simple enough, but sometimes shame can be experienced as numbness, making it difficult to describe anything in words. This state can physically resemble the experience of fear or the so-called state of "cognitive" shock. And then the task will be somewhat more complicated, as you will have to learn to talk about what is very difficult to notice or articulate.
In therapy, we also learn to consider our own contexts. For example, you are a person with a certain history in which you had to experience something and adapt to certain conditions and environments. And you may be more sensitive to fear, shame, and guilt than other people with different experiences. Therefore, it is important to ask yourself: "Given my history and what I know about myself, does it make sense to feel the way I do now? What will be useful for me now?"
In addition to considering contexts, we learn self-compassion. That is, we gradually develop sensitivity to our own suffering: we notice our own shame and the pain it can cause, and we look for constructive methods of self-soothing. For example, tell a story in a safe place where you will be accepted and cared for (to a friend or to a psychologist who will listen to you without judgment).
It is worth noting that when feeling shame, a person can go beyond evaluating their individual actions and negatively evaluate themselves as a whole. They may have an impulse to hide, blame, or humiliate others. If attacking another is dangerous for some reason, a person may fight shame by despising or humiliating themselves (and probably, in this way, also maintain connections with others, because an attack threatens a break in relationships).
Therefore, another goal of psychotherapy may be to help a person feel less all-powerful and good enough, to accept different aspects of their personality.
I like one technique that I read a few years ago in an article by a contemporary transactional analyst (unfortunately, I don't remember the exact title anymore and cannot provide a direct link to the original source, but I want to share it because I myself use this method in certain situations). The essence is to turn shame... into guilt. (Don't rush to say "can't it be something more pleasant?" and pass by.)
For example, I forget to congratulate a friend on their birthday, remember it a week or two later, and think, "What kind of bad person am I, and I even call myself a friend" (shame). I ask myself – am I bad, or is it my particular action bad? This is a bridge from shame ("I am bad") to guilt ("my action could have caused harm, offended"). And here, you can already acknowledge, apologize, compensate, and correct.
In some cases, this method will not be suitable. For example, in the case of sexual violence, a person is not responsible for the experience that generates feelings of shame. Only the perpetrator(s) bears responsibility for what happened. In case of such shame, our task will be to return to the victims a sense of power and control over their own lives, their own choices in life, and to reduce the influence of the "internal abuser" on the person's life. In this case, among the goals of psychotherapy is also helping the person to feel more whole, adequate, and, in essence, worthy of existence.
Summarizing, you can work with shame using mindfulness practices, other self-help techniques, and pay attention to your experiences alongside others. And since shame is a contact feeling, deeper work will take place in psychotherapy (individual and/or group), all these methods are complementary.
