This is an article in my Catholic Healing Series, where I talk about the most prevalent mental health issues of our time, who the best thinkers are, what the theory is, and how to heal the issue. If you enjoy this, feel free to check out other articles or videos!
The Issue
Shame abounds in modern day America. Why is that? Ironically, I believe it is because of the weakening of the family and all the terrible things that have happened to people growing up. The irony is that the initial cause of shame is something that is beyond people’s control.
What is shame? Shame is embarrassment or guilt felt in response to doing something foolish or wrong. But shame is so much more than that, and not only will we get into that in this article, but we will get into how understanding shame at its core can unlock the secret to unburdening it.
The Thinkers
Dr. Richard Schwartz, PhD is the creator of Internal Family Systems therapy, which often is used to heal trauma. He began as a systematic family therapist and discovered that many of his techniques were effective with a person’s “internal family,” when a client is seen as having a series of parts or members. Richard Schwartz is calm, subdued, and thoughtful. Much of his approach has to do with creating a sense of safety and relaxation where parts of a client’s self are able to unburden and reintegrate. It is possible to see his sessions online, and the results are eye-popping. Internal Family Systems represents the greatest breakthrough that I have seen in therapy in the course of my life.
Dr. Stephen Porges, PhD is the developer of Polyvagal Theory. He is warm, intelligent, and engaging. Polyvagal Theory has revolutionized the world of trauma, because it identifies three states of the brain that are particularly relevant to trauma. The first is the ventral vagal, or socially engaged state. The second state is the dorsal vagal, or withdrawn state. Many people feel numb after repeated trauma and experience a sense of void. This is because they are living in the dorsal vagal state. The third state of the brain is hyperarousal. This is the state of fight or flight where people who have experienced trauma perceive people and situations as threats when triggered. Polyvagal Theory provides a language to describe living with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, as well as a framework for healing or managing the condition. There will be more on that to come!
Dr. Janina Fisher, PhD is a former Harvard Professor who likely has done more to help people understand and to heal from shame than any other figure in the field. In the world of psychology that is full of surprising and eccentric figures, Fisher could be the most surprising and most eccentric. A good friend of Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, MD, who also is known for his personality, Janina Fisher is soft and gentle in affect. Very importantly, she giggles a lot. At the same time, she makes jokes of all kinds of situations that can be darkly humorous. Then, she giggles more. What she is doing is, in fact, extremely therapeutic. Fisher has discovered how to help people laugh at themselves and situations so that they can confront them with courage and a healthy sense of experiment. She specializes in working with people who struggle with perspective, and laughter is the medicine that provides a healthy sense of objectivity.
There is something more to the Fisher approach, though. She is not just giving people a sense of perspective when it comes to themselves and relationships. She is giving people a sense of perspective when it comes to shame. She explains that shame is not best seen as an emotion. It is best seen as a process. When people are young and in difficult circumstances, they are stuck. So, they take on the burden of the wrongs that are done to them. It helps them to submit to terrible circumstances. Shame is a process, and at the beginning of the story, shame is the hero. Shame provides a process that enables survival and hope. This explains the irony as to why a world in which people are not responsible for their terrible childhoods is a world of shame. They are not responsible for their terrible childhoods, but it feels like they are. And it feels like they are because a process is in place. How can a person discontinue the process and unburden themselves from the shame? All you have to do is keep reading to find out!
Healing Shame
Disclaimer: these are just some of the tools that can be used to heal Shame Also, I cannot guarantee healing or benefit. This entire article represents my opinions and applications of the tools, nothing more and nothing less. This does not constitute medical, psychological, or any advice.
Practice Self-Compassion
An existentialist approach that focuses on life story is very helpful when it comes to confronting shame. Where does the story begin? Usually in childhood, but if not, identify where it does begin. It almost always begins with someone stuck in difficult circumstances beyond her or his control, and that someone is often a defenseless child. Take a look at that child. The first question to ask is, “How do I feel toward that child?” Sometimes, the answer is surprising. While most of us would feel compassion toward that child, when someone has been through intense trauma sometimes there is disgust or hatred that is in place toward that child version of the self. A person needs to understand that this child is worthy of all the love and respect in the world. That is a key component of human dignity. A person also needs to understand the story of that child. That poor child was stuck in a situation where she or he was defenseless and needed to submit to things that no human should endure. If that child does not deserve compassion, then no one does!
Mindfulness
Mindfulness, a healthy sense of awareness, helps to bridge the gap between the child world and the world right now. One thing that needs to be identified is what the childhood pattern and experience says about the perpetrator—who usually is a family member. The terrible events of a person’s childhood say a lot about the perpetrator and nothing about the child who endures them. However, identifying this explicitly can be challenging. A child is not given permission to be critical in a situation like this. So, it can be a difficult, painful, and important process to identify that the childhood events say that the perpetrator is abusive and that the child self is just an innocent, loving child. The child is forming identity during childhood, and so the child has incorporated lies into her or his identity. “I am not worthy.” “I am rejected.” “I am alone.” “I exist only to meet the needs of another.” “I am bad, filthy, and disgusting.” “I am sinful and doomed to hell.” These all are common lies that child selves interiorize that need to be renounced.
Mindfulness also can be used to identify an initial process that often continues into adulthood. Blame and shame go hand in hand. If a child needs to submit to something terrible, she or he needs to engage in self blame. This voice of an internal critic, or even an internal condemner, produces results. The child stays in check, takes abuse, and endures. The problem is that when the threatening childhood environment fades away in later years, the voice of condemnation and the process of shame endure. How does this process look in a person’s internal dialogue? How does this process look in a person’s current relationships, especially romantic ones? These are important questions indeed. Identify the process and identify how it can be broken.
Somatics
Somatics (“soma” meaning of the body) are an essential part of the healing process. The trauma of the past is encoded in the brain and the body of the present. Shame is not only something that we feel, but it is something that we feel in our bodies. Where do we feel it? What does it feel like? A great exercise is to sit with shame when it is felt, to understand why it is felt, to understand if it is calling a person to action, and to give it to Jesus in prayer.
Interoception and Butterfly Tapping
A lot of shame is encoded in implicit memory. That means that it can be triggered rapidly and will also be felt quickly within the body. This is where Stephen Porges and Polyvagal Theory come into play. Porges explains that those who feel shame live day-to-day in a dorsal vagal withdrawn state. This state is a state of numbness or fogginess. However, when shame is triggered, the brain quickly moves to hyper-arousal, fight or flight mode. When hyper-arousal occurs, there are two things that can be done. The first, is to focus on muscular relaxation. Where muscles are relaxed for 30 seconds or longer, it is impossible for the brain to remain in a state of hyper-arousal. Good muscular relaxation techniques involve interoception and butterfly tapping. A good interoceptive practice is the noodle. Sit in a hard backed chair with feet flat on the ground and let everything go limp. Focus on where there used to be tension in the body for about 30 seconds. Another helpful practice is butterfly tapping, which can be searched on YouTube. There are a lot of good videos out there. The other activity that breaks hyper-arousal is social connection. It can be good to build in a pause when shame hits and to talk things over with a supportive friend. Porges explains that both muscular relaxation and social connection can drive the brain into the ventral vagal socially connected state, the best state of the mind.
Internal Family Systems
Through the lens of the Catholic Faith, Internal Family Systems can be viewed through the Trinity, the central mystery of our Faith. The Trinity is the Father and the Son and the Love between Them is the Holy Spirit. So, the Trinity is a Family, and if we are made in the image and likeness of God, then each of us is a family made up of different parts or members. We even speak of ourselves in terms of parts. For example, I might say that part of me really wants to have ice cream but part of me says, “Don’t do it, Tom, you’re on a diet.” That’s an example of two parts of me not just having a conversation but having a disagreement. Indeed, one of the goals of Internal Family Systems is to help the parts of the self communicate better and work toward common goals. We call this goal of Internal Family Systems integration. The second goal of Internal Family Systems is the unburdening of negative emotions.
There are certain parts of the self that are foci. First, the Conscious Self is our best self. It is our logical, virtuous, reasoning self. It is the leader of the Internal Family System and like any good leader, it needs to have a good relationship with the members of the team and it needs to motivate them toward a common goal. The Wounded Self is exiled when someone is hurt, gaining it the title of “Wounded Exile.” It is carrying negative emotions. Originally, it was sent away from the Internal Family System to make difficult circumstances bearable. Finally, the Manager/Guardian moves to an extreme form to protect the Wounded Exile. It will protect the Wounded Exile, but it will do it in extreme ways that are costly.
In the case of shame, the dialogue begins between the Conscious Self and the Manager/Guardian. What are the Concerns of the Manager/Guardian? Often, they are fear of abandonment, loneliness, and worthlessness in relationships. What are the Strategies that the Manager/Guardian uses to keep the Wounded Exile safe? This can go in one of two directions. If the person tends to be the passive partner in relationships, then they tend to be focusing on meeting the other person’s needs over the needs of the self, doing the other person’s job in the relationship (codependence), people pleasing, and clinging to relationships. If the person tends to be the dominant partner in relationships, then they tend to exercise blame shifting, forcing the other person to do relationship work, and leveraging power in relationships. In either case, the solution is for Alternative Strategies to be identified for the Manager/Guardian that are more moderate. A person needs to have a balanced sense of needs meeting, asserting needs, and empowering the Conscious Self to make healthy judgments in relationships. Transparent Communication in relationships also is an effective Alternative Strategy.
Once the Manager/Guardian has moderated, it needs to give its permission for there to be a dialogue between the Conscious Self and Wounded Exile. What does the Wounded Exile look like? How old is she or he? What is her or his story? What emotions does she or he feel? Where does a person feel them in her or his body? Once there is empathy with the Wounded Exile, once her or his story is understood, and once the negative emotions (including shame) are identified in the body, then the person is ready to unburden. As an Internal Family Systems Informed Therapist, I have special visualizations for all of this. One thing that people can try individually is at Mass. A person can visualize her or his past life experiences getting carried up with the gifts, transubstantiated with the host, and received with the Eucharist in unburdened, integrated form.
Conclusion
It is the prophet Isaiah who assures us that God will not allow us to be put to shame but who promises us double honor and lasting joy. When I think of shame in the Bible, I think of the pardoning of the adulteress. Only Christ understands her human dignity. Where others see all the bad that she has done and know her reputation, Christ sees her story and He sees her heart. He finds someone who is worthy of redemption. Can we pardon ourselves? Can we be compassionate with ourselves and understand our story? Can we see our own human dignity? He is calling. Through Mary, He is calling. He is calling all of us to a life that is free from shame. Let us unburden ourselves, and answer His Call.
Janina Fisher, PhD has excellent resources for shame: https://janinafisher.com
Are you looking to unburden from shame? Feel free to reach out to The Catholic Healing Institute and Tom Weishaar for assistance from a specially trained therapist.
Https://www.catholichealinginstitute.com
Tom Weishaar, MA LPCC CCTP-II is the President and CEO of The Catholic Healing Institute. He lives in Steubenville, OH with his wife and three children.