Shame In Psychotherapy Research Articles

Keeping Sexuality in Therapeutic Contact

The article discusses the significance of sexuality in psychotherapy and its insufficient coverage within Transactional Analysis (TA). The ideas from Bill Cornell’s seminar “Keeping Sexuality in Therapeutic Contact” (January 2024) and Carole Shadbolt’s article “Sexuality and Shame” (Shadbolt, 2009) are used in the article. Historical factors influencing TA’s approach to sexuality and Wilhelm Reich’s ideas are also considered. Special attention is given to the interplay between sexuality and shame, as well as ways to address shame in psychotherapy, particularly within transactional analysis. A new approach is proposed, suggesting a reexamination of classical concepts of transactional analysis. The article emphasizes the importance of openly discussing sexuality with clients at the initial stages of therapy and provides a series of questions that would be beneficial for practitioners to begin this exploration. It views sexuality as a foundational force influencing the formation of life scripts and life positions. The article also examines sexuality (erotism) in infancy and how this experience shapes personality and interpersonal relationships.

Dinamika srama u psihoterapiji osoba ovisnih o alkoholu

Dinamika srama u psihoterapiji osoba ovisnih o alkoholu

Do patients with different mental disorders show specific aspects of shame?

Shame is related to several mental disorders. We assume that facets of shame, namely bodily, cognitive and existential shame, may occur in typical patterns in mental and personality disorders. An excessive level of shame may lead to psychopathological symptoms. However, a lack of shame may also lead to distress, for instance as it may facilitate violation of social norms and thus may promote interpersonal problems. In this study we investigated facets of shame in females suffering from various mental disorders and personality disorders presumably associated with specific aspects of shame. Women suffering from borderline personality disorder (BPD, n=92), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, n=86), major depressive disorder (MDD, n=17), social anxiety disorder (SAD, n=33), and a community sample (COM, n=290) completed the SHAME questionnaire, which is a newly developed instrument to assess adaptive and maladaptive aspects of shame. BPD patients reported the highest level of existential shame compared to all other groups. Compared to the controls, SAD patients displayed stronger bodily and cognitive shame, and ADHD showed lower bodily shame. As assumed, specific aspects of shame were found in different patient groups. It may be important to specifically address these specific aspects of shame in psychotherapy.

Shame in the Therapy Hour

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewFull AccessShame in the Therapy HourMartha Sweezy, PHDMartha SweezyNorthampton, MASearch for more papers by this author, PHDPublished Online:30 Apr 2018https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.2011.65.4.393AboutSectionsView articleView PDFView EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail View articleRhonda L. Dearing And June Price Tangney, Eds.: Shame in the Therapy Hour. American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C., 2011, 428 pp., U.S. $69.95, ISBN: 1433809672Psychotherapists routinely navigate a host of problems involving avoidance and aggression associated with shame. The urge to hide, the action tendency of shame, is often realized in avoidant behavior such as substance abuse, depression, general or social anxiety, psychic numbing, cognitive efforts to undo reality, insensitivity to emotional and physical pain (both one’s own and the pain of others) and dissociation. Aggression—a costly strategy to regulate shame—may involve attacks on the self or on others. Self-attack can include behaviors like starving, cutting, burning, and suicide; attacking others can involve a threatening tone and attitude (being contemptuous, dismissive, entitled, disgusted, or enraged) or it can involve actual assault up to the level of homicide.June Tangney and Rhonda Dearing have devoted their careers to researching and writing about shame. Now, seeking to raise awareness among mental health clinicians about the strikingly pathogenic effects of shame and offering tools across the board for regulating shame in psychotherapy, they give us this edited volume in which a group of clinicians provide guidance on how to recognize and regulate shame.The book is divided into five sections. The first offers the perspectives of clinicians with expertise in psychodynamic, object relations, functional analytic and emotion-focused therapies as well as in the modalities of group, family, and couple therapy. The second section of the book examines shame-based clinical disorders that involve addictions, trauma, body image and eating disorders, refugees and immigrants, and patients who meet criteria for borderline personality disorder. The authors comment throughout on the importance of therapists learning to regulate their own shame and the third section, titled “Shame in the Other Chair” consists of one chapter specifically on the implications of therapist shame for therapy and supervision. The fourth section offers two chapters on therapeutic strategies that target shame specifically, Compassion Focused Therapy and the 12-session Psychoeducational Shame Resilience Curriculum. And, finally, Tangney and Dearing weigh in with a summary and thoughts about future directions for research on shame. The result is a rich and varied volume that should prove useful to many.I will add that the variety in this volume is purposeful. The editors were interested in turning master clinicians loose on the topic of shame. Although it is clear that these particular authors were familiar with and influenced by their editors’ research, Dearing and Tangney did not dictate any particular interpretation of shame, nor did they look for agreement on how to treat shame. Nevertheless the authors agree on much that is important. All subscribe to the view of Helen Block Lewis (to whom this volume is dedicated) that the salient feature of shame is a global negative self-attribution: I am worthless, and that this contrasts with the specific, behavioral assessment of guilt: I did wrong. They agree that shame can be effectively regulated by safe (nonshaming) self-disclosure, by acceptance, and by self-compassion. They believe that attending to underlying shame is both more productive and safer than attempting to control behavior that is geared to ward off shame. And none would argue with the idea that many psychiatric symptoms are attempts to ward off or regulate shame.My one wish is that the editors had included a chapter on the role of psychic multiplicity in shame, a topic several authors touch upon but none explore in depth. I predict that clinical work with psychic multiplicity as a nonpathologic norm will offer much to our growing understanding of traumatic shame, a venture nonetheless well launched by this volume.Northampton, MA FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByNone Volume 65Issue 4 2011, pp. 281–404Pages 393-394 Metrics History Published online 30 April 2018 Published in print 1 October 2011

Shame in psychotherapy with adolescents

Shame has been an insufficiently studied emotion in psycho-analytic literature until recently, mainly because it tended to be ‘absorbed’ under the concept of guilt. Now it is recognized as a powerful affect of pregenital origin, linked with narcissism and the ego ideal. Shame can be a motivation for achievements and social adaptation, it can protect an individual's integrity and can be a modulator of interpersonal relatedness; it can also function as a defence or initiate psychopathological states, such as depression, self-alienation, identity confusion or acting out. In adolescence shame is a ubiquitous phenomenon, as this developmental stage consists of all the parameters that can trigger feelings of shame. The emotional regression connected with the emergence of primitive impulses, conflicts and defences; the grandiose phantasies and the increased narcissism; the preoccupation with bodily functions and body image; the tendency to idealization and the need for social acceptance constitute the matrix within which shame and shame-derived feelings can develop. Shame is discussed as it is experienced by young patients and often by the therapist. Shame in the countertransference and during supervision is also considered. Stress is put on the importance of taking shame into account as a fundamental factor in psychotherapy with adolescents, particularly in relation to the establishment of the therapeutic relationship, understanding and interpretations. The thesis is illustrated with clinical vignettes.

Shame in pastoral psychotherapy

This essay contends that pastoral psychotherapy is an arena of shame for clients and therapists. If unacknowledged, shame can undermine therapy and injure all participants. The approach is to provide a succinct typology of shame, to describe how shame is woven into the structure and process of psychotherapy, and to offer seven ways therapists can work creatively with shame in psychotherapy and turn it into a healing resource.

Aspects of Guilt and Shame in Psychotherapy

Aspects of Guilt and Shame in Psychotherapy