the recursive loop of shame - an alternate gestalt therapy

Gestalt Rm'ew, 1(3):256-269,1997

The "Recursive LOOP" of Shame: An Alternate Gestalt Therapy Viewpoint

R O B E R T W. R E S N I C K , Ph.D.

Shame has become the issue "de jour" of psychotherapy-the alleged cause of almost all psychological difficulties. Too much of the Gestalt therapy shame literature appears to have abandoned our integrative worldview-self regulation, field theory, phenomenology, and dialogue. Eclipsed with superimposed "expert" theory and practice, the client's phenomenological experience is frequently overruled in favor of interpretation, for example, of "hidden shame." Many clinical applications are themselves accused of being a source of further shaming. Clinical work

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that goes beyond the therapist's nonshaming acceptance and/or the expression of unfinished business is discussed. In the waters of shame, these are the views of a Gestalt salmon.

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail (Abraham Maslow, Pearls of Wisdom).

D URING THE PAST 15 YEARS OR SO, there has been an ever-increasing rush of activity and interest in shame, first in the popular psychology literature (e.g., Bradshaw), and then in the psycho-

analytic professional literature (e.g., Lewis, 1992; Kaufman, 1989; Nathanson, 1987) and in the Gestalt therapy professional literature (e.g., Lee and Wheeler, 1996; Jacobs, 1995; Wheeler, 1995; Lee, 1995; Greenberg and Safran, 1986, 1989). For some, shame appears to have become the clinical phenomenon "de jour" used as an explanatory concept for just about everything from rage and anxiety to depression and mania, to embarrassment and shyness, to issues of self-esteem and grief, and so on (Wheeler, 1997). I take a somewhat jaundiced view of any phenomenon or concept that begins to approach a universal explanatory schema. Additionally, I have difficulty with treatment modalities that report

Robert W. Resnick, Ph.D., is the senior trainer of the Gestalt Therapy Institute of Los Angeles and an associate editor of Gestalt M m . Internationally, he has been a training therapist in both individual and couples therapy for 30 years.

256 O 1997 The Analytic Press

THE "RECURSIVE LOOP OF SHAME 257

"truths" that are not congruent with my personal experience or my clinical practice.

The two articles on shame in this volume of Gestalt Review, Gordon Wheeler's "Self and Shame: A Gestalt Approach" and Les Greenberg and Sandra Paivio's "Varieties of Shame Experience in Psychotherapy," reflect more of this current interest in shame. Wheeler's article, more closely related to Gestalt therapy theory, systematically and clearly describes a field/support model of understanding shame where shame is seen as a rupture of support in the field and a disorganization of self process. Wheeler's discussion references the larger field of psychotherapy with respect to the importance of support of the field, interdepen- dence, and other paradigmatic differences with the more traditional (psychoanalytic) individualistic models. Greenberg and Paivio's article describes both an interesting taxonomy of various types of shame, along with differential clinical treatment considerations. Both papers are erudite and, in places, compelling, although 1 both agree and disagree with aspects of both articles. Rather than attempt a point by point discussion of areas of agreement and disagreement, I have chosen to identify a few fundamental issues that are, for me, crucial to the understanding and treatment of shame. Concurrently, I am also questioning and/or disagreeing with some of the meta theoretical issues that form the background for this discussion.

It is important to note that my fundamental concern with much of the current Gestalt therapy literature discussing the theoretical and clinical aspects of shame (inclusive of some of both Wheeler and Greenberg and Paivio) is that some of this literature seems to be reverting back to nine- teenth-century positivist (including psychoanalytic) models and appears to violate some basic tenets of Gestalt therapy as I understand them (Jacobs, 1995; Lee, and Wheeler, 1996; Wheeler, this volume). This is not to imply that there are not other areas within this same literature that creatively expand the boundary of Gestalt Therapy especially in terms of self process (Wheeler, this volume).

Any theory of psychotherapy, to stay vital and useful, must be a constantly dialectic process between the deductive reasoning of a meta psychology and the inductive noticing of actual clinical phenomena- experience-near data. While deductive operations are wider and add effi- ciency, they are also vulnerable to being unrelated to the reality of others. Inductive operations, on the other hand, while experientially verifiable, do not always form useful, sequential and meaningful wholes. Hence, the dialectic and dialogic engagement between the two allow for the best possible modes of theory building-ongoing, constantly adding new data, always receptive to change-each of the two domains continually influencing the other. My concern is that most of the Gestalt therapy literature about shame, inclusive of both Wheeler and Greenberg and

258 ROBERT W. RESNICK

Paivio, has emphasized the dedudive (more conceptual/abstract) at the expense of the inductive (more cliical/phenomenological). While shame theory can usefully inform clinical practice, we must stay vigilant that it does not rigidify and stultify clinical practice.

What Is Shame?

There appears to be a cluster of observations, speculations, and predictions regarding the nature of shame, which most writers actively advocate or seem to agree with implicitly. There are other dimensions or viewpoints about what shame is and how to work with shame clinically that are more controversial. The following are samples of both consensual and controversial points of view regarding shame theory and clinical work. A very brief review of this author's position about what constitutes Gestalt therapy's worldview is followed by a critique of much of the Gestalt therapy shame literature today.

Some Consensual Issues About Shame

Shame is the affective experience of believing oneself to be totally useless, "bad," basically lacking in value, and so on. Guilt is the affective experience of believing oneself to have done something "bad." Guilt is about a particular behavior; shame is about a total person. Some shame is "healthy," and other forms of shame may be maladaptive. Shame is manifest physically by a dropping of the head and a contraction and withdrawal of the body. Phenomenologically, people experiencing shame want to with- draw, hide and disappear. Shame is on a continuum with shyness and embarrassment. Feeling shame is in itself shameful. Shame is so painful that much behavior is organized around avoiding shame, including covering shame with other emotions (e.g., rage, depression, denial, etc.). Shame, in some form, is an innate part of human beings. It is wired into our genetic blueprints and DNA. Shame is either a basic, primary emotion (along with the usually described primary emotions of anger, sadness, joy, and fear), or it is a closely allied secondary and self-conscious emotion. The latter is seen as more cognitively mediated, for example, shame, jealousy, envy, guilt, and so on. Shame, in most cultures, is used in child rearing in an attempt to build in a regulator/modulator of behavior that will insure

THE "RECURSIVE LOOP" OF SHAME 259

that the child's behavior stays within the norms and mores of the family and the culture.

11. Many writers puzzle whether or not there are universal triggers for shame, for example, exposure of buttocks, incest fantasies, excretion activities, and so forth.

Some Controversial Issues About Shame

Theoretical 1. Shame is at the root of most, if not all, psychological

disturbances. 2. When the client is not aware of experiencing shame within a

context where shame would be expected and/or suspected, then the shame may be just too painful for the client to identify with and therefore resides within the client as "hidden shame."

3. Shaming by the therapist (albeit inadvertent) always occurs during the course of therapy.

4. Shame is essentially the emotion experienced when there is a rupture and disconnection of support (of the field).

5. Shame is essentially an irreducible emotional experience that therefore can only be worked with in very limited ways.

6. Attempting to work with shame in other ways may very well lead to further shaming of the client.

Clinical 1. Therapists bear a "responsibility" for seeking out shame issues

in the client. 2. Shame, when denied by the client, may very well be indicative

of "hidden shame." Anger and depression, for example, may also be indices of "hidden shame."

3. Clients frequently do not know how to properly articulate their experience. Given the proper "languaging" and support, many clients will quickly identify with shame issaes.

4. The manifestation of #3 in the preceding section (shaming by the therapist [albeit inadvertent] always occurs during the course of therapy) requires the therapist to be vigilant and aware of his/her contribution to shaming the client.

5. Therapists need to receive the client's shame in a nonsharning environment either individually or in a group, thereby provid- ing a corrective emotional experience.

6. It is frequently helpful for the therapist to share hidher own personal shame and shame issues, thereby demonstrating the humanness of such experiences and perhaps "normalizing" them.


Please note that these lists of consensual and controversial issues regarding shame theory and clinical work are not meant to be exhaustive nor are they necessarily representative of the positions advocated by either Wheeler or Greenberg and Paivio. In order to comment on some of these controversial issues, it may be useful to outline very briefly this author's perspective regarding Gestalt therapy's basic worldview because this is germane to the differences and criticisms of much of the Gestalt therapy shame literature today, which follows.

Gestalt Therapy 's WorZdview

As Gestalt therapists I believe we hold a worldview that allows us to discriminate what theoretical and clinical perspectives can be integrated with Gestalt therapy and which cannot. It is not that our worldview is the reality, nor is our worldview exempt from modification. It is also not to say that other worldviews are not equally valid for those that hold such views. Rather, our worldview provides us with the aware phenomenological organizing gestalten (meta lenses) to do the actual discriminating and integrating. If, however, new data that is so compelling does not fit within our worldview, we must consider altering our worldview. Once again, healthy boundaries need to be defined and strong while remaining permeable and flexible. Briefly, the above describes a worldview that supports an integrative approach as compared to an eclectic approach, which has no real organizing/integrating gestalten (worldview) but is more fragmented and Machiavellian in nature, for example, "I do a little of everything including some Gestalt-whatever works!"

Basically, Gestalt therapy's worldview sees human beings as self- regulating organisms of the organismic/environmental field, who create meaning via their phenomenological organizations inclusive of "inner" and "outer" domains, me and non-me, "at the boundary." Wheeler has a truly excellent description of this organizing matrix of processes and functions "at the boundaryn-what Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman (1951) defined as the "self." It is crucial (and hopefully humbling) for us to remain aware that our worldview too is only one way of organizing I1reality."

If experimental gestalt perceptual psychology's task was to identify any patterns that were common to how people organize their world- shared perceptual patterns of organization-then Gestalt therapy is a method of exploring and identifying people's idiosyncratic ways of organizing their world. This is the constructivist, meaning-making backbone of Gestalt therapy. The role of personal meaning-making (phenomenology) is crucial to both the understanding of and the clinical working with shame.


Meaning is the relationship between figure and ground; meaning is not in the figure and not in the ground, it is in the relationship between the two. How people choose, organize, and contribute to the construction of what becomes figural for them and what background(~) they bring to bear, are critical. This is what creates their phenomenological reality in the moment and contributes to how they create their life over time.

Patterns of background influences which are recurring and invariant (in other words they are acontextual), are what we call the "fixed gestalten, the matrices which make up character. Character then influences the creation of what becomes figural and what the relationship is between figure and ground, and thus profoundly affects meaning. Character is a freeze-framing of what was once an adaptive and usually healthy response and is now acontextual, anachronistic and obsolete. The crystallized patterns of organization which make up "character" are based on the history of that field, and they strongly influence the phenomenological realities created.

It is crucial and perhaps even revolutionary, to note that psychotherapeutic and developmental theories are not exempt from this process. Theory can be seen as the equivalent of "charactd"' Ideas, concepts and organizations can become crystallized too [Resnick, 1995, p. 41.

Therefore, in discussing theories of shame (or any other theories), it is fundamental to remember that these idiosyncratic ideas, now raised to the level of "theories," are someone's phenomenological organization, which, regardless of their complexity and elegance, were essentially "made up" and written down-lest we forget our meta theoretical roots while looking at our theories. And yes of course, even our meta theories are within the same noble academic and intellectual traditions; we made them up.

Some Major Critiques of the "Gestalt Therapy" Shame Literature

Shame Is at the Root of Most, IfNotAll, Psychological Dzficulties

Kaufrnan (1980), as quoted in Wheeler:

Shame is the affect which is the source of many complex and disturbing inner states: depression, alienation, self-doubt, isolating


loneliness, paranoid and schizoid phenomena, compulsive disorders, splitting of the self, perfectionism, a deep sense of inferiority, inadequacy of failure, the so-called borderline conditions and disorders of narcissism. These are the phenomena which are rooted in shame. . . . Each is rooted in significant interpersonal failure [italics added in Wheeler].

Importantly, Wheeler italicizes the importance of the locus (of the field) as depicted by Kaufrnan as "rooted in significant interpersonal failure." Realistically, therapists would be hard pressed to come up with many issues dealt with in psychotherapy that are not organized around difficulties in interpersonal relationships-"rooted in significant interpersonal failure."

Wheeler (1997) further states

The felt experience of this kind of disconnect is the affective cluster we call shame, ranging from mild discomfiture and embarrassment through deep humiliation, all the way to states of blind rage and decompensation."

Less extremely, we look at criticism, denial, hyperautonomy, chronic anger and blame--as well as grief, depression, self-doubt, "codependent" patterns, and less drastic behavioral addictions- with an eye to surfacing the hidden ground of felt support and felt rupture/shame, under the figure of these uppermost feelings and actions.

It would seem from quoting Kaufrnan's assertion and Wheeler's own point of view, that little psychological disturbance has escaped or eluded shame as its inevitable wellspring of origin.

There is little evidence for this assertion that cannot be parsimo- niously attributed to the manner of observing or the manner of framing the questions and intervening. The lens you use limits and determines the kind of data you will find (Resnick, 1996). The pandemic application of the shame lens probably contributes to creating much of the shame seen by the clinicians who believe shame is the root of most psychological disturbance. For example, imagine the different kind of data you would "find" (thereby confirming your new bias) from clients if you framed your therapeutic assumptive lens such that lack of love is at the root of most psychological difficulties. Consider postulating fear as that omnipresent etiological factor. What about various theorists' theories/projections of life force, for example, Adler's power Freud's sexuality,


Perl's aggression? For women, what about penis envy as the invariant source? Unresolved Oedipal issues for men? primal pool of pain?

In a phenomenologically based therapy such as Gestalt therapy, the therapist would need to follow the phenomenological method of listening, by bracketing off as much of his/her values, beliefs, theories, interpretations, biases, and so forth as possible, in order to be impressed afresh and anew by the client. Universal explanatory constructions that appear to explain almost everythmg therefore inform us of very little other than the projections/biases of the theorist or therapist. It is fresh- ness and difference that are crucial, and it is the differences that make a difference, which are truly important and informing.

The assumption of omnipresent shame violates both our phenomenological way of listening, as well as our respect for the client's phenomenology. It also clearly violates our meta worldview, which would suggest that our meaning-making about where, how much, and what constitutes shame no more reflects "reality" then any other person's, especially the particular client when his/her personal experience is the referent. This point of view clearly appears to be at odds with most of the Gestalt therapy shame literature today. In the waters of shame, I may be a Gestalt therapy salmon.

If we all shared the same phenomenology and therefore the same meanings, then Shalom Alechim's character Golde (in Fiddler on the Roof based on Te y e and His Five Daughters) would be absolutely right when she tells her husband Tevye "You tell me what you dreamed and I'll tell you what it means!"

"Hidden Shame"

The assumption of "hidden shame," when the client neither initiates nor confirms the therapist's suggestion or interpretation of shame, is clearly a return to the psychoanalytic assumption of therapist as expert on the other's experience-described classically as "manifest content and latent content": what you think you mean and "I know" what you really mean. The danger of so-called "hidden shame" goes even farther by having yet another layer of explanation (theory) as to how it is that the client does not identify with the alleged shame (e.g., it's too painful, it's too fright- ening, he/she needs to deny it for now, etc.). Such a position returns the therapist as "expert" and also to an insulated closed system where "we know what we know" and any data that disconfirm what we "know" can be explained by yet another thing we "know." Either I'm right or I'm right. Either you experience shame, or you deny it and then that becomes evidence for "hidden shame." Either way, the therapists'/shame theorists' phenomenology prevails. Monumental psychoanalytic "chutzpah"!


Therapist Bears a "ResponsibiZity " for Seeking out Shame Issues in the Client

To follow a phenomenological/dialogic method would suggest that tracking and respecting the client's phenomenology would be of great concern and value. However, the therapists' phenomenology must also, with discrimination, be honored if the encounter is to be truly dialogic. It is here that the subtle dance of the therapist identifying his/her beliefs and interpretations about shame needs to be presented to the client and "held lightly" as the therapist's speculation or theory (locus in the therapist) rather than as a definition of the client's experience (locus in the client). It is crucial for the therapist to discriminate between organizations that are created in phenomenologically bracketed dialogue with a client and organizations that the therapist brings into the consulting room as procrustean stencils regardless of who the client is. How and when the therapist introduces the idea of shame to the client is pivotal.

In either case it is crucial that the therapist be scrupulous in attending to the client's reception and reaction to such a presentation. Introjecting without discrimination is as damaging as dismissing without discrimination. Obviously, the built-in hierarchy and disproportional power distri- bution inherent in most therapeutic relationships would tend to tilt the client in the direction of embracing the therapist's point of view and pleasing the therapist and therefore cannot be too closely tracked.

Edward Sapir, the linguist from the early part of this century and a teacher of Benjamin Whorf of "Whorfian hypothesis" fame, said: "Language is a mold into which infant minds are poured" (Sapir, 1921). Whorf's hypothesis was that language controls and influences perception and therefore meaning-making (Whorf, 1956). Therapists' languaging with such words as shame is similar to using words such as wound and inju y in psychotherapy when the client had not brought this lexicon into the therapy. The language of the therapist will clearly affect the meaning- making of the client, and as such, I believe Gestalt therapy advocates remaining primarily with the client's language/phenomenology when referencing that client's experience.

Shame Is an Unwanted Rupture and Disconnection of Support (of the Field)

This assertion, eloquently described by Wheeler in his article, is an extremely important concept that is congruent and confirming to Gestalt therapy's worldview. We indeed are of the field and are interdependent within the field while clearly disassociating our worldview from any kind of individualistic model citing or implying independence as a major goal. Laura Perls commented that "Independence without connection is a


masquerade for isolation" (Perls, 1971, personal communication). Wheeler makes a strong case for restoring balance to Gestalt therapy theory by focusing more on the importance of the environment and support issues. Although this idea is not new to Gestalt therapy, the pendulum may have swung too far away from support, eco systems, and field considerations as Gestalt therapy aged and "steeped" in our primarily individualistic culture. Although "Chicken Soup Is Poison" (Resnick, 1968) is still true for many of us much of the time, not eating (taking in nourishment/support from the field) can be equally toxic. Fritz Perls maintained that healthy people are "self-supportive," which includes commerce with and sometimes dependence on and within the larger field, rather than striving to be self-suficient. This distinction has frequently been confused with the resulting distortion that Perls's and Gestalt therapy's goal was for people to be totally self-sufficient. The organismic/environmental field is one.

Personally, I would have preferred Gordon Wheeler to have emphasized that shame is the affect (of the effect) of a rupture and withdrawal of support of the field only when that withdrawal is unwanted. Although Wheeler does explicitly state this at one point in his discussion, "Shame, that is, is the experience of an unwilling (to me) disconnect with my vital social field," for most of the article he does not make that proviso explicit. I am concerned that he could be essentially read to be assuming that all withdrawal of support leads to shame. Clearly, this is not the case. Similarly, having support from the field does not guarantee that a person will not experience shame.

The TherapistNeeds to Receirve the Client3 Shame in a Nonshaming Environment and It Is He&filfor the Therapist to Share HisHer Own Personal Shame

Regarding actual clinical work, these two assertions, while frequently confirming, soothing, and relieving to the client, do not in my view constitute good therapy with shame. Although they frequently provide some ground and foundational support for the work to progress, the shame-creating phenomenological processes are not yet accessed and assimilated. Empathic support in a nonsharning environment may often help the client who is experiencing shame feel better; however, this is not the "end gain" of therapy. Although frequently alleviating the pheno- typical shame, the genotypical shame is rarely effected in an ongoing and sustaining way. It is here that Gestalt therapy, with its emphasis on the importance of the field and its phenomenological/dialogic method of inquiry, is exquisitely suited to do the very fine and delicate work of deconstructing shame when it is not in the service of the person/envi-


ronment and supporting the shame and regret when it is "healthy" shame.

Importantly, Greenberg and Paivio also see much shame as social in origin and needing to be deconstructed. Although much of their fine discussion of this crucial issue focuses on the techniques of two-chair work, they emphatically go further with working with shame than empa- thy, support and connection. They focus on what kind of information emerges and what domains are accessed (affective, cognitive, and senso- rial), boundary disruptions/anomalies, "unfinished business, and so on.

Greenberg and Paivio (1997) state:

Two chair dialogue . . . is most helpful in accessing and restructur- ing shame producing beliefs.. . . Resolution occurs when clients become aware of their responsibility in producing the shame feelings and when they challenge the contempt and shame messages. When these adaptive responses are supported by the therapist clients are able to more clearly articulate the,shaming introjects and core maladaptive beliefs about the self, and begin to challenge them from an internal sense of worth.

Greenberg and Paivio, however, do not describe a dialogic model (or example) of therapy, but rather pursue a narrower band of access to the introjects, affects, cognitions, and so on via an "empty chair dialogue" through a sequenced model of inquiry designed to elicit the (1) "bad feeling" (2) "primary emotion," (3) "unexpressed adaptive feelings," (4) "maladaptive beliefs," (5) "adaptive feelings," and (6) "self-affirmation" in that order (Greenberg and Paivio, 1997).

Wheeler, conversely, implies, if not suggests, that meeting a person's shame in a warm, nonshaming and confirming environment and perhaps sharing personal shame experiences may be as far as a therapy can go.

Wheeler states:

We would view this need to talk as the attempt to repair the shame, by seeking an empathic connection that restores the wholeness of the self. The simpler and more empathic response, whether from friend or therapist, might be something more like, "You must just feel terrible about yourself, to be treated like that," or even, if it fits, "When I'm rejected like that, I feel humiliation and shame." If shame is the afect of unwanted disconnect, then is to that place of felt rupture itself that we need to go, to make a healing intervention.

Wheeler (1995) states, "The goal of therapy, we may say, is the transfor- mation of the experience of shame into the experience of connection in thefield


and the development of the skills and processes to support that trans- formation ongoingly in the patient's life" (p. 84).

Others sometimes even maintain that, when a person is experiencing and dealing with their shame, attempts to continue clinically are insensi- tive and probably induce additional shame for the client by the very process of further exploration.

In working with shame, it is imperative to attend to first-order learning (the shame "feelings" and content at hand), second-order learning (the particular "software" of the shame), and finally attending to the third-order learning (how and when connection and support were withdrawn to shape the requisite introjects, the disapproval and contempt that may also have been introjected and the affects, sensations and other cognitions surrounding the interactions-all of which make up the generic maladaptive shame). This is probably some of the most vulnerable and fragile clinical work in therapy and is not done quickly if it is to be assimilated.

Shame Theory and Working with Shame: An Alternate Gestalt Therapy View

"Healthy" shame is the (usually) inadvertent violation of an assimilated value, for example, privacy, not hurting others, and so on. F. S. Perls maintained that shame and disgust were the "quislings of the organism," meaning that these experiences act as corrective ballast when a person has violated his/her own integrity. Healthy shame then, according to Perls, is the modulator of assimilated values. It is here that the phrase "He/she has no shame.. . or is shameless" has important meaning. Such a person has no way of self-correcting, nor any sense that self-correction is ever even due the situation-a healthy sense of "duty" (Perls, 1975, personal communication).

Maladaptive (characterological/neurotic) shame is essentially a social artifact and not an irreducible primary feeling. Shame is primarily a method of social control and child rearing where the child's fundamental organismic/environmental/field "lifeline" and support (love?) is rup- tured and withdrawn when the child does not embrace (introject) the primary caretaker's values, beliefs, and behaviors. This occurs at a time developmentally when the child needs loving confirmation and support for emotional survival. The child "of the field," in trying to make meaning of these events, can only surmise that there is something fundamen- tally wrong with what, who, and how he/she is. Frequently, shaming adults are all too clear about their disapproval, criticism, contempt, and even disgust for the child. The experience of shame (no value, withdrawal, wanting to disappear) leaves the child desperate to please the


caretaker, to avoid further ruptures, and to avoid the noxious experience of shame itself as much as possible. In maladaptive shame, the child not only introjects the values and norms of the other, he/she also introjects the other's disapproval and perhaps contempt and disgust for him. Later on, the child (and later as an adult) may project the introjected disapproval onto generic others and then respond to that alleged disapproval. Thus, a destructive and recursive shame loop is established that continues to recapitulate and replenish itself. Intellectually rejecting the introjected parental/societal values without dealing with the introjected contempt and disgust is of little therapeutic value.

The deconstruction of characterological/neurotic shame requires more than attunement and empathic resonance with the person experiencing shame. Such therapeutic work further requires helping the client focus on and track his/her phenomenological experience while both the therapist and the client hopefully bracket off any current theories or beliefs about shame. This phenomenological exploration and focusing, when accompanied by the therapist's contactful support, allows the client to enter the habitual (characterological) and fixed phenomenological organizing gestalten that result in the shame experience.

Any combination of the four primary emotions of anger, sadness, joy and fear may emerge during this process-any or all of which may need to be experienced and expressed in order to begin to unravel and "unpack" the processes and sequences of this phenomena. Most importantly, the client must discover the matrix of parental/cultural introjects below the retroflections and projections and below the anger, fear, and sadness that are informing his/her cognitions, affects and sensations. The realization and understanding of what shame is, how it is constructed and developed (the software), and how it was used may also be quite helpful to the client in dealing with the cluster of introjects his/her behavior has violated. Of course, this approach, too, relies on the commonly held theory of shame being interpersonally constructed. It allows, however, for both experience-near validation and the predictive validity of tracking, over time, of whether the work is becoming self- generative. If so, the client will have more functional choices than he/she previously had regarding shame, shame avoidance, and other shame issues. It is a process model rather than a content model and therefore makes no predictions as to what specific emotions, cognitions, or sensations will come up during such work or where the work will go. When working well, the therapist makes no assumption that shame is the irreducible endpoint of the work nor that it must go further. The work hopefully follows and focuses the client's phenomenology rather than attempting to reorganize it. Our theory, based in organismic self-regulation, would suggest that when a person is in touch with and fully identi-


fies with all of him/herself, change will occur organismically when and if it is in the best interest of both the person and the field.

Conclusion

Shame is an important clinical issue that is gaining perhaps an inordi- nately high profile within the Gestalt therapy and the psychoanalytic literature. It seems clear that primarily those who are convinced that shame is such a fundamental "cause" of psychological disturbances are writing about this topic, which would tend to skew the appearance of the importance of shame to clinicians in general. "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail" (Maslow, 1975). Those theorists and therapists who do not see shame as the source of most psychological disturbances are not as likely to be writing about shame.

To speak of "hidden shame" and to advocate the therapist's seeking out shame, reframing material into shame, believing shame is at the root of most psychological disturbances is to violate Gestalt therapy's phenomenological, nonexpert, and dialogic relational position.

Importantly, in much of the Gestalt therapy shame literature today (with the exception of Greenberg et al. and perhaps others) the clinical work with shame is frequently limited to the attunement and empathic reception of the person's shame in a nonshaming environment with normalizing and supportive acknowledgment of the therapists' own personal experiences with past and current shame. Other-acceptance and self-acceptance, other-soothing and self-soothing and, the awareness that shame is sometimes part of being a human are often presented as the "sine qua non" of therapy. Theoretical and clinical difficulties with this model were discussed.

A field theoretical, phenomenological, and dialogic methodology of working with shame inclusive of the phenomenological focusing of the client on their affects, cognitions, and sensations was briefly presented, which does not assume shame is irreducible. In actuality, this way of working with shame is not qualitatively different than much of the therapeutic work of Gestalt therapy today--shame or no shame.

Coda

If the system of introjected values and the introjected (and projected) disapproval, contempt, and disgust of important others when not acting in accordance with these values remains intact and undissolved, shame can and will be repeated. Having one's shame (and one's self) accepted in a nonshaming environment by the therapist-as wonderful and


confirming as that is-still leaves the client neverendingly vulnerable and captive to being controlled by the threat of shame, shamed yet again, and having to engage in shame avoidance behaviors and feelings. As long as the "software" remains operational, the client is not free and self- regulating. Assuaging today's manifestations of this shame software may do little more than provide emotional Novocain-feeling better today- but with the basic foundation remaining intact. What a shame. . .

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the recursive loop of shame - an alternate gestalt therapy

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