The "Recursive Loop" of Shame: An Alternate Gestalt Therapy Viewpoint

Abstract

AbstractShame has become the issue "de jour" of psychotherapy—the alleged cause of almost all psychological difficulties. Too much of the Gestalt therapy shame literature appears to have abandoned our integrative worldview—self regulation, field theory, phenomenology, and dialogue. Eclipsed with superimposed "expert" theory and practice, the client's phenomenological experience is frequently overruled in favor of interpretation, for example, of "hidden shame." Many clinical applications are themselves accused of being a source of further shaming. Clinical work that goes beyond the therapist's nonshaming acceptance and/or the expression of unfinished business is discussed. In the waters of shame, these are the views of a Gestalt salmon.