Showing results for "Shame" in Counseling & Psychotherapy

A masterful synthesis of relational and attachment theory, neurobiology, and contemporary psychoanalysis, Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame: Healing Right Brain Relational Trauma has been internationally recognized as an essential text on shame. Integrating new theory about trauma, shame resilience, and self-compassion, this second edition further clarifies the relational, right-brain essence of being in and with the suffering of shame. New chapters carry theory further into praxis.

Childhood sexual abuse (or child sexual abuse/CSA) is not only an assault on the body—it is an assault on the mind and on the spirit. It is an insult to the victim’s integrity, her self-esteem, his very being. Besides imposing a significantly higher risk of conditions like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), sexual exploitation, intimate partner violence, suicidality, substance abuse, and learning & educational difficulties, the most devastating consequence of childhood sexual abuse is shame.

As a self-conscious emotion, shame informs us of an internal state of inadequacy, unworthiness, dishonor, regret, or disconnection. Shame is a clear signal that our positive feelings have been interrupted. Through a depth psychological analysis of the author’s personal experience, which includes developing and living with a shame complex, the path toward healing shame is realized as the ability to find the courage to uncover and disclose a personal narrative in the presence of an empathetic analyst, who had the competence to contain and bear witness to his client’s story.