Overcoming the Shackles of Shame – Dr. Matweychuk
In Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, we liberate people from the shackles of shame. Shame reduces your pleasure and freedom in life and is therefore considered a self-defeating, unhealthy negative emotion. REBT regards feelings as important signals which come in healthy and unhealthy pairs. The healthy alternative to shame is disappointment. The difference between the healthy and unhealthy pairs of emotion is not merely one of intensity. The primary difference is in how people are motivated to think and act when under the influence of healthy and unhealthy negative emotion. The thematic content of shame involves a behavior or a characteristic that falls short of a standard one has adopted and then a global evaluation of oneself for that poor behavior or personality characteristic. One might also feel shame if a member of a group with which they identify displays behavior or possesses a trait that falls short of a standard the shame bearer has adopted for their reference group. Shame is often present in PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, where the holder of shame has not responded to the traumatic incident in a particular idealized sort of way as they “absolutely should have.” Shame rests on rigid and extreme irrational attitudes. Although there may be others, here are some simple examples of attitudes that create shame:
1. I absolutely should have not done that stupid deed in front of others to witness. I am an idiot.
2. I must be able to perform well at this task and for others to see this excellent performance. Therefore, I am not as capable of this task and others can witness my deficiency. Because I am not as proficient at this task as I absolutely must be this shows I am lesser as a person.
3. I should have prevented that tragedy from occurring or responded better when it was happening. I am bad, weak and lesser as a person for having not responded well to that challenge.
4. If others became aware of my flaws, they would look down on me. I need them to think well of me.
5. I must not have this negative characteristic or personality flaw. I have to hide it from public view. It proves I am an inadequate person.
6. My son or daughter should not have done that. Their deficient behavior reflects on me. That makes us lesser in human worth as people.
7. My son or daughter should not possess that negative characteristic. It makes us lesser in human value.
There are two distinctive features of REBT that I would like to draw your attention to which are relevant to the topic of shame. First REBT helps people see the distinction between healthy and unhealthy negative emotions. Shame is considered an unhealthy, that is to say, self-defeating negative emotion. Secondly, REBT hypothesizes that at the heart of the unhealthy emotion of shame is the destructive human thinking tendency of a negative global evaluation of oneself.
Perhaps due to its roots in the philosophy of Stoicism, REBT teaches that in life we cannot avoid negative emotion when adverse events occur. As pointed out earlier this may occur when a member of our reference group or we fall short in our behavior, or when a member of our group or we possess a particular negative characteristic. REBT teaches that disappointment is a healthy alternative emotion to shame. Our healthy disappointment comes from the recognition that we have not performed up to some standard, and it healthily motivates us to attempt to improve our behavior in the future. Without disappointment, we would not acknowledge our poor behavior and not have the motivation to try to do better next time. Unhealthy shame and healthy disappointment both acknowledge that the individual has fallen short of a goal in some way. However, unlike unhealthy shame that includes the pernicious element of a global self-rating and self- downing, disappointment only includes the element of rating the behavior that falls short of an ideal standard without the self-downing component. Disappointment is also a healthy emotion in response to a characteristic one acknowledges as negative in some way but does not rate their personhood and down themselves. We teach in REBT that rating what you do helps you learn to do better but rating your self as a person and downing yourself is at the core of the problem of shame.
REBT is unique as a cognitive behavior therapy in that it teaches that humans cannot be validly rated as humans. In REBT we do not attempt to build one’s self-esteem. REBT teaches that self-esteem is at the heart of the problem of shame. When we esteem ourselves, we set the stage for shame when our behavior or characteristics fall short in some way.
As a healthy alternative to the conditional self-esteem taught by other psychotherapies, REBT teaches unconditional self-acceptance. REBT shows you that you can choose to accept yourself even when your behavior is substandard, or you possess a trait or characteristic that you acknowledge as negative. When you only rate what you do, you will feel disappointed, sometimes quite disappointed, with your behavior but if you do not rate your total self as lesser, define yourself as lesser or worthless you will not feel shame. REBT encourages you to see that despite your flaws, despite your substandard performance you can choose self-acceptance. You choose to unconditionally accept yourself with or without your desired behavior and characteristics.
When I succeed in showing my patients how lousy behavior does not magically transform them into a lesser person, they are able to choose unconditional self-acceptance. I see self-acceptance as a choice, a wise and practical choice for all humans to make. It is practical because it liberates us from the painful emotion of shame but allows us still to signal ourselves about a negative behavior or characteristic, so we can work on changing these things. This choice also works because all humans are flawed in some way. REBT emphasizes the fallibility of all humans and therefore choosing self-acceptance makes sense. Self-acceptance is practical, is an option available to everyone, and it liberates you from self-defeating unhealthy shame.
Bottom line: Choose to feel healthy and self-helping disappointment over your deficient behavior and character flaws while simultaneously unconditionally accepting yourself. Self-acceptance works!