Since one feels his true self is defective and flawed, one needs a false self that is not defective and flawed. Once one becomes a false self, one ceases to exist psychologically. To be a false self is to cease being an authentic human being.

We cannot heal what we cannot feel.

Children will invest as much energy as is needed to ensure the preservation of family harmony, even if it means sacrificing themselves to do so by developing psychological disorders. —Joel Covitz Emotional Child Abuse

Toxically shamed people tend to become more and more stagnant as life goes on. They live in a guarded, secretive and defensive way. They try to be more than human (perfect and controlling) or less than human (losing interest in life or stagnated in some addictive behavior).

One of the devastating aspects of toxic shame is that it is multigenerational. The secret and hidden aspects of toxic shame form the wellsprings of its multigenerational life. Since it is kept hidden, it cannot be worked out. Families are as sick as their toxic shame secrets. See my book Family Secrets for a full discussion of the dynamics of toxic

Dynamic homeostasis means that whenever a part of the system is out of balance, the rest of the members of the system will try to bring it back into balance.

The subject of this book is the affect of shame. No affect is more important to our sense of self or our identity, dignity and honor. And no affect is more important for our ethical and spiritual life. The affect shame as toxic is a source of most of the neurotic and character-disordered behaviors that we now understand. It is also the source of

This process is a reversal of the order of nature. Now the child is taking care of the parents’ needs, rather than the parents taking care of the child’s needs. This caregiver role is strangely paradoxical. In an attempt to secure parental love and avoid being abandoned, the child is in fact being abandoned. Since the child is there for the parent,

The problem of toxic shame is ultimately a spiritual problem.