Shame is an innate human emotion.

Shame, like all of our innate human emotions, is difficult, if not nearly impossible, to define. The current definitions of shame demonstrate this because they are all different in some way. However, we can define and articulate how shame feels, and we can understand its function and purpose. 

Shames’ purpose is to help us to feel safe and secure by keeping us attached, connected, bonded and/or aligned with our primary caregivers, our wider family, our society and culture; and with ourselves. 

Shame achieves its purpose by producing shame-based feelings that motivate us to modify our attitude and behaviour when our relationship attachments or alignments are threatened or broken. These threats can be either perceived or real. 

When our attachments are threatened or broken, shame warns and motivates us to change by producing painful feelings and narratives. These feelings and narratives can include excruciating vulnerability, a felt sense of wrongness, impending doom, annihilation, stupidity, weirdness, fear or that we are flawed or broken in some way.  The list is long and complex.  The intensity and frequency of our shame-based feelings are always directly proportionate to the threat we are facing.  For example, if the attachment, connection or bond between a small child and its mother is threatened or broken, shame will produce feelings in the child of impending death and annihilation. This is because the child knows that if the connection or bond is not re-established and the mother abandons it, then it will not survive.  On the other hand, if a male teenager decides to wear a bright pink school blazer, instead of the traditional grey-blue, shame will produce milder feelings, such as awkwardness or vulnerability, because he is at risk of being ridiculed by his friends or chastised by the school leaders.  In both cases, shames’ intention is to motivate us into action to help us re-establish our attachments or connections and therefore feel safe. 

To stay connected, bonded or aligned with our people, our groups and our society and culture, we need to mirror their standards; their attitudes and behaviours, their belief systems, their identity structures and their familial, societal and cultural norms. 

When our connections, bonds or alignments are threatened or broken (ruptured), shame warns and motivates us to change by producing painful feelings and narratives.  These feelings and narratives can include: excruciating vulnerability, a felt sense of wrongness, impending doom, annihilation, stupidity, weirdness, fear or that we are flawed or broken in some way.  The list is long and complex.  The intensity and frequency of our shame-based feelings are always directly proportionate to threat we are facing.  For example, if the connection or bond between a small child and its mother is threatened or broken (ruptured), shame will produce feelings in the child of impending death and annihilation.  This is because the child knows that if the connection or bond is not re-established and the mother abandons it, then it will not survive.  On the other hand, if a male teenager decides to wear a bright pink school blazer, instead of the traditional grey-blue, shame will produce milder feelings, such as awkwardness or vulnerably, because he is at risk of being ridiculed by his friends or chastised by the school leaders.  In both cases, shames’ intention is to motivate us into action to help us re-establish our connections and therefore feel safe.

Shame is not always problematic.  Shame is only problematic when we don’t fully understand how it functions and what its purpose is, and if we don’t understand its function and purpose, then we are unable to work with it. 

Shame feels like it is an elusive emotion because it acts as a deterrent.  Shame encourages us to move away from it, and we learn this at an early age. It is similar to a hot stove.  Instinctively, we avoid touching it without question. 

The term “toxic shame” was developed and first used by the psychologist Silvan Tomkins in the 1960’s.  The book by John Bradshaw, “Healing the Shame That Binds You (1998),” further cemented the concept.  Both theories maintain that shame can be toxic and therefore poisonous. Whereas healthy shame is commonly cited as an emotion that helps us to align ourselves with our societies and cultures so that they (and we) remain intact.

At The Shame Training Company, we believe that the concept of “toxic shame” is counterproductive, because shame, in all its forms, is a natural and innate emotional function that aims to help us.  When we are able to understand and process our shame-based feelings effectively, the concept of “toxic shame” becomes redundant.   

This question indicates that our shame is our wounds. Shame is not our wounds. Shame is our emotional response to our wounds, and our wounds stem from attachment injuries that we experienced in childhood.

Yes.  The inner critic, as it is currently known, is the voice or the narrative of our shame-based feelings.  Its messages usually include ideas such as: “we are not good enough” or “we always get things wrong” or “we are a burden to others.”

Shame intends to move us to a place of safety by motivating us to modify our behaviour so that we can stay attached or re-attach to our people and/or our groups (or ourselves). The voice of shame (inner critic) has the same intention.  For example, if our shame-based feelings and their narratives are telling us that we are “not good enough”, it is because they are responding to a potential threat or actual break in our relationships (attachments).  The underlying dynamic in the break will signal to us that we need to be “better” if we want to repair or maintain the relationship.  For example, if a small child is reprimanded and called “bad”, it experiences an attachment injury (threat of abandonment) and shame will attempt to motivate the child to be “good”.  If the attachment is injury not repaired appropriately, then the shame-based feelings (potential death and annihilation) will remain unexpressed, and the child will then internalise these feelings.

The voice of shame is attempting to help us. It may be more beneficial if this voice was known as our “inner helper”, rather than our “inner critic.” 

Shame feelings arise in us if our attachments to other people or our groups are threatened or broken.  Whereas, embarrassment feelings are normally felt from an event that takes place in the present moment, and that event does not threaten our relationships, connections or bonds.

Guilt and shame share a common purpose.   That is, they both make us see and feel something about ourselves that we find disagreeable.  When we feel either of these emotions, we look for a way to bring ourselves back into emotional balance (to heal or repair ourselves).  Generally speaking, when we feel guilty, we can usually make sense of our situation and take steps to repair ourselves.  For example, we can admit that we made mistake.  However, making sense of our shame-based feelings and taking steps to emotionally repair ourselves is far more difficult.