SHAME,
And Our Selves in Relationship

by Anita Frankel, M.F.T.

Shame can haunt me like a burglar with a gun. It lurks, awaiting my every misstep.
It stands behind me breathing down my neck, fanning my fear of it.
It pulls a handkerchief across my mouth and squeezes my throat, reminding me
of its annihilating power.
If I’m tempted to complain, Shame can zero in like a guided missile, pushing me to act in ways that can even increase my shame.

WHAT IS SHAME?
Shame is the emotional consequence of feeling marginalized, devalued, disempowered, or disgraced. It follows from the perception that we are unlovable, unacceptable, and disturbing to others. It is the well-learned warning bell that we are stepping beyond our allotted place in the order of things – that we are about to violate a powerful taboo against “too much” self-assurance, “too much” trust in our own experience, “too much” disturbance for those with power or influence over us.

Let’s note that shaming may be legitimate as a tool of last resort, when there is literally no other way to stop an injustice. But in the normal course of our lives we have alternatives to shaming, and being shamed, in assigning or accepting responsibility for the harm we may do to each other.
In the literature of analytic psychology, shame has been described as one of the “self-conscious emotions,” along with “guilt, embarrassment, and pride.” It is “an experience of self” in which there is “a failure of being, a global sense of deficiency or a failure to achieve one’s ideas.” (Lewis, 1998, as quoted in Hartling and Rosen et al, 2000.)

In recent years many in our profession have begun to question the emphasis on the “separate self” when talking about mental distress, in favor of the “self-in-relation” – the connections, disconnections and reconnections that mark the experience of relationships between people. From this perspective, shame can be defined as “a felt sense of unworthiness to be in connection, as deep sense of unlovability, with the ongoing awareness of how very much one wants to connect with others. “ (Judith Jordan, 1989, as quoted in Hartling, Rosen et al, 2000).

Humiliation occurs when a person who commands respect or authority denigrates, discounts, or deliberately ignores the humanity, intellect, or feelings of another person. Humiliation is the generator of shame. Repeated humiliations are held in our minds as powerful “relational images.” They predispose us to be hyper-vigilant for signs of new humiliations, and to preempt them.


STRATEGIES OF DISCONNECTION
To avoid shame or humiliation, we often opt for a “strategy of disconnection.” Psychologist Linda Hartling (2000) identifies three such “strategies,” based up the typology of personality types first proposed by the eminent psychologist Karen Horney sixty years ago (as referenced in Hartling, Rosen et al., 2000).

They are:

Moving Away - withdrawing, silencing oneself, making oneself invisible. Hartling says, “Many children shamed through neglect and abuse adopt this strategy of survival.”

Moving Toward – pleasing or appeasing “by keeping important parts of their experience out of relationship in an attempt to earn or keep connection…” -- a strategy often employed by adults in abusive relationships.

Moving Against – “directing anger, resentment and rage against those whom they believe to be the source of their shame or humiliation.”

RESISTANCE AND ENGAGEMENT
Some of us in the therapy community call ourselves relational-cultural therapists. We pay special attention to the ways in which each of our relational worlds is stratified. The folks who traditionally dominate are variously parents, bosses, European-Americans, Christians, rich people, slim people, professionals, males, therapists! Dominant are often well served by, if not oblivious to, the shame that less favored people may carry. Many of us are dominant in one context, and subordinate in another. Even when overt coercion is absent, shame itself can keep us from challenging the hierarchies in which we live.

As relational therapists, we want to collaborate with our clients to build a measure of resistance to these “power-over” arrangements. At the same time, we work to move both our clients and ourselves to engage more assertively with partners at home, at work, with friends and with the wider community, regardless of the existing arrangements of power. And, we strive to reduce the distance between the client and ourselves as experts, by being vulnerable and emotionally responsive to our clients – and by learning from and with them what works, and what doesn’t, in finding a path to mutual respect and reciprocity in their relationships.

The conversation in therapy might begin by learning about those old relational images that have kept a client stuck in shame, and then explore the ways that one partner in a current relationship – even a therapist in the therapy session – might unwittingly be reproducing the dynamic which shamed the person in the past. Ideally, the conversation allows for new kinds of responsiveness, as ideas and feelings and stories are shared between therapist and client. The aim is to create a space that is alive with humor and with humility. If we’re lucky, we’re moving together toward designing a strategy of re-connection with others that can move beyond the legacy of humiliation and feelings of shame.

POSTSCRIPT
As I began outlining this article for our website, the excitement around the election of a new President was capturing me. As I finish the piece one week later, I feel moved to add a postcript:

An outpouring of relief and joy seemed to spread across the U.S.A. on election night. It began with a diverse crowd of young people cheering and weeping and embracing in Chicago. As the live images from around the country (and around the world) began to appear on TV, they hinted at the possibilities beyond the divisions of class or race or gender, a momentary repudiation of the ethos of hyper-individualism that has fostered a retreat from participation in the larger community. I’d like to think that the movement that produced a change in our leadership has opened up the possibility for more mutual empathy and common purpose among us as a people, a hope that the President-elect himself repeated throughout his campaign. And perhaps, just perhaps, we once again have the chance, in spite of all the crises that beset us, to reduce the sum of shame and humiliation at home, and around the world.

Anita Frankel practices in the Silverlake district of Los Angeles, California. You can contact her at 323-661-0297, or at afrankel@earthlink.net


Sources:

Hartling, L.M., Rosen, W., Walker, M., & Jordan, J. (2000) Shame and Humiliation: From Isolation to Relational Transformation. Work in Progress, No. 88. Wellesley MA: Stone Center Working Paper Series.

Jordan, J. (1989) Relational Development: Therapeutic implications of empathy and shame. Work in Progress, No. 39. Wellesley MA: Stone Center Working Paper Series.

Miller, J.B. (1988) Connections, disconnections, and violations. Work in Progress, No. 33. Wellesley MA: Stone Center Working Paper Series.

Miller, J.B., & Stiver, I. (1994) Movement in Therapy: Honoring the “strategies of disconnection.” Work in Progress, No. 65. Wellesley MA: Stone Center Working Paper Series.

Tangney, J.P., & Fischer, K.W. (Eds.). (1995) Self-conscious emotions: The psychology of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride. New York: Guilford