Question

READ AND ANSWER COMPLETELY

Many of my students initially think that shame and guilt are the same emotion. However, psychologists draw a clear distinction between them: with guilt, the focus is on the action you did that was wrong – you feel terrible and want to fix it somehow. You did a bad THING and want to do better. With shame, you also feel terrible but the focus is more on you as a person. You are a bad PERSON and want to give up. Shame tends to shut you down and make you want to go away.

When people feel intense shame they tend to withdraw from others and begin a cycle of ever more negative thinking. Ironically, the situation that initially caused the shame may not even be addressed.People who are ashamed look as if they are trying to disappear – their shoulders come in and down and they seem to shrink, trying to creep away. Shame leads toward depression, but guilt likely spurs a person to action and better behavior that in the end brings a sense of satisfaction.

Does this distinction between shame and guilt fit with what you know?

Can you see how this perspective can inform the process of raising a child, dealing with employees or even how you conduct yourself as a friend?

Answer 1

• .Guilt and shame sometimes go hand in hand; the same action may give rise to feelings of both shame and guilt, where the former reflects how we feel about ourselves and the latter involves an awareness that our actions have injured someone else. In other words, shame relates to self, guilt to others.
• For example, I felt guilty because I could see that I had hurt my friend. More painfully, I also felt ashamed that I was the sort of person who would behave that way. Guilt arose as a result of inflicting pain on somebody else; I felt shame in relation to myself.
• Many people who display narcissistic behavior often suffer from profound feelings of shame but have little authentic concern for other people; they don't tend to feel genuinely guilty. The lack of empathy to be found in narcissistic personality disorder makes real guilt unlikely since guilt depends upon the ability to intuit how someone else might feel.
• Shame and guilt, which require the ability to reflect on behavior and evaluate the self, are first evident in toddlerhood and continue to develop over time as children form a more stable sense of self.
• It is thought that self-conscious emotions develop in conjunction with feedback from others about whether the child is accepted and lovable. In young children, feedback is provided primarily by caregivers, suggesting that factors like negative parenting, parental psychopathology, and parental marital dissatisfaction may interfere with healthy development of these processes.
• Such factors may increase the likelihood of children feeling unaccepted, ignored and/or falling short of parenting expectations and more prone to shame and guilt. Parents should adopt styles that are able to distinguish between shame an guilt.
• For example,some signs that reflect guilt in a child could be child taking up responsibility for their mistakes,shows empathy towards others who they may have hurt through their mistake or misbehaviour. And signs of of shame could be, child tries to hide the fact that they have done something wrong, and may lie about it;blames others when they have made a mistake;becomes angry and aggressive when they have done something wrong.
• This distinction can help the parents deal with the situation accordingly. Important is to say no to the behaviour and yes to the child.