Shame: Free Yourself, Find Joy, and Build True Self-Esteem

Only when our efforts to evade shame become so pervasive that they stop us from forming intimate relationships and achieving our goals do they create problems in their own right.

They vigorously defend their superior self when threatened, making use of a characteristic trio of defenses to defeat anyone who challenges them: blame, contempt, and righteous indignation.

Hidden feelings of defect, ugliness, and inferiority may drive you into the arms of someone willing to agree that you are perfect.

It is not a condition that can be permanently attained but one that requires ongoing effort to nurture and sustain.

She felt shame for one or more of several reasons: that she (1) had disappointed herself, (2) felt exposed in an unwanted way, (3) found her interest in other people to be unreciprocated, or (4) felt disconnected from her social environment.

experience, but the pain of shame uniquely draws attention to who one is and how one appears, to oneself and to others.

Defending against shame often takes the form of denial, rationalization, and blaming other people while insisting on your own innocence.

of the emotional needs of her family, and so on.

Tact, which Léon Wurmser describes as the ability to understand the other person’s nearness to shame,