- About shame in the relationship and couples therapy
- Shame, attachment, trauma and the path to healing, self-esteem and love
- New book about shame by Lars J. Sørensen
In connection with the publication of the book Skam, I attended a lecture by the author. Lars J. Sørensen, my former supervisor and chief psychologist at Amtshospitalet Nykøbing Sjælland. He talked about shame, attachment, trauma and the path to healing, self-esteem and love. Below article with summary with supplement from my experiential worldview as a couples therapist.
Shame in general
Skam is a loanword from German. Scham originally means a feeling of shame, but also disgrace and disgrace. The emotional reaction can arise both as a reaction to the concern for or the experience of being seen, exposed, falling short and being ridiculed or even rejected. Shame is typically a complex feeling that i.a. can include embarrassment, humiliation, insult, dishonor and loss of self-esteem. In this way, shame is linked to its opposite – honor, where honor is about our perceived value and defamation is about violation of our personal value and values or more physical values incl. property, status, position, and holdings.
It is therefore typically about values – personal, family and societal – that you fear not being able to live up to and/or being mocked for. As these values are often intimate, vulnerable, honorable and taboo, we cherish them and protect ourselves from being seen and thus being violated. The fear is typically that we are not right and good enough and that we may even be wrong, not worth loving and not allowed to be here. Therefore, great anger and irrational rage (the concept of honor killing, for example), as well as deep sadness, can also be attached to the shame. And the fact that we try to protect ourselves can further contribute to taburisation. But the opposite is often also true. So if a political spin doctor would advise to present the matter in the best light without ‘dirty laundry’, a couple therapy spin doctor would probably say: “Tell it like it is. It’s not what you say that kills you, it’s what you don’t say.”
In terms of development, the feeling of shame arises around the age of two, when the child separates from the mother and develops a greater independence and sense of self. In this phase, the child becomes aware of himself as an individual who must perform something (cleanliness, walking, talking, eating, etc.) and live up to expectations of being something and being in a certain way. When things go well, the child then feels the feeling of pride and when things go badly, the feeling of shame is activated.
Shame in the relationship
According to Eric Fromm, loneliness (difference, separateness, isolation…) is the main cause of the feeling of shame. In this way, Adam and Eve should not have been ashamed of their nakedness, but because they were separated from each other through their sex. At the same time, they also experienced each other as strangers because they had not yet learned to love each other as different. Or as in The Art of Loving (p. 25): “Awareness of human loneliness without union through love is the source of shame.”. So, shame as a result of not being seen as who you are and being loved and connected despite your differences.
The shame thus often manifests itself in connection with people who are important and for whom we have compassion. As a couples therapist, I experience clients every day where the relationship constitutes a field of both old shame in connection with early attachment (e.g. the pain from not having been seen by or not having seen the love in the eyes of the parents) and interaction (e.g. from having been exposed to wrongdoing or by having been scolded) with the parents as well as new shame in the form of not being seen as who one is or of being violated – later in life as well as in the relationship.
That and the subsequent shame can create feelings of wrongness, helplessness, powerlessness and victim roles, as well as challenges with identifying/understanding oneself and the outside world. Relationships that can ultimately strike deeper chords and lead to self-hatred/anger/depression, separate living, infidelity, abuse/violence/self-harm, divorce and soul-murder/suicide/murder.
Or put another way, it can feel like losing yourself and the pain of losing yourself can be experienced as greater than losing life. It reverses the priorities so that trying not to lose oneself becomes primary and what and how to do it becomes secondary. It can open up behavior that is neither desirable nor predictable. In addition, you can reach a point where it can almost feel infinitely difficult (or impossible) to receive the good you have longed for when it finally arrives. It can lead to self-rejection, rejection and new shame.
Shame thus touches our sensitivity, vulnerability, shyness, soul and relationships incl. the spiritual bond to ourselves and our fellow human beings. It can trigger anxiety about being exposed, exposed, humiliated, condemned and rejected. The shame can also include inappropriate behaviour/communication as well as a lack of care and compassion – whether in everyday life or sexually.
On the one hand, shame is the alarm bell of the soul, guarding our sensitivity and vulnerability. On the other hand, shame can also become like a prison wall that prevents us from being human, among other people.
Shame in couples therapy
In couples therapy, the shame that may already exist in the relationship and between the partners emerges. Next, showing your problems and inadequacies to the couples therapist can be shameful in itself. But it is through this contact and mirroring that blind spots and resources are discovered and that wounds are healed.
For some, seeking help can almost be experienced as a narcissistic affront. But it is completely natural. We all need a service check and a little help once in a while – even the dentist goes to the dentist. For others, the next thing can even feel like a fear of dying just thinking about showing off. The magic of shame, however, is that it disappears almost like dew before the sun, once we have shown ourselves, been seen and see ourselves. However, it is not intended that the ‘shirt’ should just be peeled off. In couples therapy, you are supported in doing it in a friendly and loving way and at your own pace.
In couple therapy, we thus start from respectful and appreciative presence, creating fertile ground for permission to see and to be seen, as well as mentalization, mirroring and affective (emotional) attunement. Just the feeling of seeing and being seen brings love into the common space of the relationship.
It builds bridges, creates contact and closeness, and develops feelings such as touching, significance, pride, gratitude, generosity, flexibility and love. On the individual level, it develops self-understanding and self-feeling – a sense of feeling oneself, of being, of being who one is and of being. In this way, the parties become more themselves and support themselves and each other in their respective journeys in coming home to themselves. As this foundation is built, we can build on intimacy, communication, problem solving and negotiation.
Practical advice in couples therapy
In purely practical terms, it can have a great positive effect just to look the partner in the eyes (a little longer at a time than just a fleeting glance) and/or to say simple sentences like ‘I see you’, ‘I hear you’, ‘I acknowledge you’, ‘I respect you’ and ‘I’m proud of you’.
The book Shame by Lars J. Sørensen
I have with great pleasure read Lars’s previous books, which are predominantly ‘textbooks’, and I am looking forward even more to reading the new one on shame, which is probably more ‘poetic’. Below excerpt from the back of the book:
Shame is linked to the self and concerns the individual’s self-understanding, which has arisen as one’s own, highly personal version of a subtle neuroaffective interaction, created by the love of life and the interaction with the parents.
We have an innate shame in the form of sensitive perceptions of the world that protect our innermost vulnerability and register any kind of wrongness. Shame thus belongs just as much to the preparedness of the nervous system and the body as it does to the person’s social understanding. If this sensitivity is properly cared for, it helps to create our humanity.
Shame arises when you are not seen as who you are and when you are treated incorrectly and reflected back incorrectly. Feeling seen and feeling met in one’s self-understanding is an affirmation of love. The mere touch of feeling seen brings love into the shared space, and for many it will also feel like a confirmation of love’s existence. If our self-understanding is crippled, according to the book’s author, it is a murder of the soul that can all too easily lead to violence and abuse – and in the worst case to murder or suicide.
What now
You can also read more about love, relationships and couple therapy at www.parterapi-parterapeut.dk. If you want couples counseling or a consultation in couples therapy, call 6166 1900.
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Kasper Larsen
Family and couple therapist
© Kasper Larsen, 2014. All rights reserved.