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

she believed that, by virtue of her many years in therapy, she possessed greater insight and self-awareness than Eric, who supposedly knew nothing about himself or the destructive ways he behaved. She was superior and enlightened

Shame makes you want to hide, for example, while guilt might lead you to make amends;

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

In Nicole’s view only two scenarios were possible: either she was entirely right and Eric was to blame for everything; or she was such a messed-up nutcase that we might as well give up and flush her down the toilet.

For years she had taken quiet refuge in superiority and contempt for the average person—attitudes she had absorbed from her family. Through our work she eventually recognized those attitudes as defenses against unbearable shame.

While this type of compulsive disclosure does afford a kind of relief, it’s only temporary and must be repeated once psychological pain and pressure build up again.

shame in all its varieties “is the hidden power behind much of what occupies us in everyday life.”

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.

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