Shame and Guilt

A Psychoanalytic and a Cultural Study

Gerhart Piers, Milton B. Singer

• Publisher: Barakaldo Books
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781839744457
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book, whose influence and renown have steadily grown since its first publication, is a psychoanalytic and cultural study of shame and guilt. In Part I, Dr. Gerhart Piers, a psychoanalyst, gives concise definitions of these two previously inadequately define terms, and clearly distinguishes between them. He discusses the experiences that can cause guilt or shame in an individual; why some persons develop into guilt-ridden individuals, and others become shame-driven; and the special and sharply different therapeutic considerations that must be given to the person afflicted with guilt or shame. In Part II, Dr. Milton Singer, an anthropologist, applies Dr. Piers' analysis of guilt and shame within the individual to his own study of cultures.—Print ed.

SHAME AND GUILT

Part I — SHAME AND GUILT

A Psychoanalytic Study

By

GERHART PIERS

1 — Guilt and Shame

OF ALL THE more organized forms of intrapsychic tension, those manifested in the feelings of guilt and shame are possibly the most important ones, not only in emotional pathology, but quite generally in ego development, character formation and socialization. Although they have been recognized in their importance by the great majority of modern psychologists, it is quite surprising to find that they are usually neither clearly differentiated nor adequately defined. This is particularly true for the feeling of shame, its phenomenology, genetics and dynamics.

In order to delineate both concepts, it seems advisable to start with the more largely accepted views held in regard to guilt feelings. Briefly restated, they are: the dynamically important sense of guilt remains as such unconscious, although the concomitant anxiety becomes conscious. The sense of guilt is generated by the Super-Ego. Without the formation of such an internal authority, psychological “guilt” does not occur. (For brevity’s sake, we shall in the following frequently say “guilt” instead of “guilt feelings” or “sense of guilt,” a semantic inaccuracy for which common psychoanalytic usage pleads legitimacy.) Guilt must not be confounded with apprehension, which in the context of our particular interest is the proper designation of the “fear of being caught”; nor is the feeling of guilt the same as a conscious and realistic fear of impending punishment.

Guilt, then, is the painful internal tension generated whenever the emotionally highly charged barrier erected by the Super-Ego is being touched or transgressed. The transgressors against which this barrier has been erected are Id impulses that range from aggressiveness to destructiveness. Most authors also include here sexual impulses, particularly those related to incestuous drives. The irrational punishment, the unconscious threat of which is held forth to the transgressor, is governed by the Law of Talion and consequently spells either complete annihilation or mutilation of the offending organ as carrier of the tabooed impulse. The psychologically most important anxiety contingent to the feeling of guilt is, therefore, the widely studied castration anxiety after which the entire punishment complex is usually named.

Accordingly we use here the term “Super-Ego” exclusively as stemming from internalization (introjection) of the punishing, restrictive aspects of the parental images—regardless of whether the original images corresponded to reality or were largely projections of the individual’s own magical destructiveness. It may be stated here in an oversimplified fashion that no one develops a sense of guilt without a punitive parent image, the latter being based either on historical reality or projective imagination. For it has been shown that the projection of primitive destructive impulses and possibly fantasies into the parental images plays a large part in the formation of the Super-Ego. Since at an early developmental stage the primary narcissistic “belief” in the omnipotence of thought and wish prevail, the Super-Ego is automatically endowed with similar power.

From this brief summary, it will be clear that we do not hold the formation of the Super-Ego contingent upon the “passing of the Oedipus complex.” The development of an internalized conscience with its executive arm of guilt feeling occurs prior to and in large portions independent of the Oedipal situation. E.g., the importance of oral aggressiveness and the role of the mother as punitive agent have been amply demonstrated in this connection.

Whereas there seems to be a larger body of agreement regarding the sense of guilt, much less clarity obtains about the phenomena connected with shame. This confusion may be partly a semantic one since the word connotes different things to different people, and the shades of meaning vary in different languages.

In the following discussion, I plan to deal with the phenomenon of shame in only one meaning, viz., that of a distinctly differentiated form of inner tension which as such is a normal concomitant of Ego development and Super-Ego formation, at least in our culture. One can deal with Shame also by regarding it as one of the many affects, in one category with rage, fear, hatred, love, hope, etc. Although I refer to Shame occasionally as an “emotion,” I wish to have it understood that the problems of affect-psychology do not concern me here. Finally, shame is treated by many authors as a neurotic symptom, and used synonymously with bashfulness, shyness, self-effacingness, or as a character trait, like modesty. Although shame tension in the way I am using this term here underlies many of these symptoms or character defenses, this is not always the case, as I shall try to show.

The way in which Freud{1} used the term “Scham” originally makes it clear that he definitely was concerned with shame not as a symptom nor as affect but with a tension originating from what he later termed Super-Ego. However, shame, to him is definitely related to sexuality, or rather to one particular aspect of it, viz., exhibitionism. This may have been, to a certain degree, semantically determined. The German “Scham” and “Schamgefuehl” almost immediately suggest a specific emotion connected with the exposing of the nude body, particularly the genitals. The genital region is called “die Scham,” pubic mound, “Schamberg,” pubic hair, “Schamhaare,” etc.{2}

Thus, in Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, Freud uses the term “Scham” in close connection with “Ekel” (loathing, disgust), at times almost synonymously with it and defines it as “the force which opposes the voyeuristic drive and might be overcome by the latter....”{3} In the same treatise, shame, together with loathing, is described as one of the barriers against the sexual drive, erected during latency as a product of training. Freud follows this definition with a strange afterthought: “Actually this development is organically determined, fixated by heredity and it is established occasionally entirely without the help of training.” He emphasizes this statement for which he gives no further evidence by the hard-to-translate flourish: “Training...merely follows the lines primarily drawn by the organic, making them clearer and deeper.”{4}

It is difficult to conceive of shame, disgust and esthetic and moral judgments as being established without the influence of early educational factors. The story of Adam and Eve reflects the general awareness that “natural man” does not know shame (or guilt). It may be that Freud had in mind either physiological concomitants of the affect of shame, e.g., blushing, or instinctive (inborn) behavior patterns of flight or hiding. This, then, would be along lines that Darwin had pursued in his investigation of emotional expressions.{5} Although shame, to be manifestly expressed, has to draw on such primitive reflexes and patterns as does any psychological phenomenon, it seems to be very questionable to consider the feeling of shame as being determined by them. In any case, the above passage reflects Freud’s awareness of the early developmental roots of shame.

Nunberg{6} merely restates Freud’s position in regarding the feeling of shame as a reaction formation against exhibitionism, and any other not directly sexual form of shame as derived from the former.

Fenichel describes shame in two rather disparate ways. In one place, shame, for him, is “...the specific force directed against urethral-erotic temptation. Ambition, so often described as an outcome of urethral-erotic conflicts, represents the fight against this shame.” Pride in controlling the urethral sphincters is deemed to arise from the fact that in bladder training the child is usually “put to shame,” much more so than in bowel training.{7} It should be noted that Fenichel describes here “urethral ambition” as reaction to humiliating training experiences rather than as derivative from pride in urethral achievement (in boys). In another place Fenichel,{8} evidently closely following Freud’s earlier statement, refers to shame as a defense mainly against exhibitionism and scoptophilia, “not simply (a special form) of castration anxiety...but a more specific feeling...undoubtedly also rooted in a primitive physiological reflex pattern.” “Being ashamed of oneself,” he counts under the heading of guilt.

Norman Reider, in the discussion of a recently presented quite unusual “case of shame,”{9} follows Fenichel in all essentials although he admits that “the nature of the reflex physiological pattern is not at all evident,” and also points out that shame might be utilized by some as a defense against a more intolerable sense of guilt. Erik H. Erikson, in his recent work,{10} gives expression to a similar thought: “Shame is an emotion insufficiently studied because in our civilization it is so early and easily absorbed by guilt.” This author distinguishes between these two tensions very clearly and ascribes their respective onset to different stages of development. However, he prefers to think of the shame-impulse “to bury one’s face, to sink into the ground” as “essentially rage turned against the self” which is an important guilt mechanism.

A clear exposition of the sharp and important difference between shame and guilt has been given by Alexander, first in a paper published in 1938, Remarks about the Relation of Inferiority Feelings to Guilt Feelings,{11} and more recently again in his Fundamentals of Psychoanalysis,{12} As indicated in the title of the first paper, the author at that time used the term “inferiority feelings” and not the more inclusive term “shame.” For both semantic and psychological reasons, we prefer “shame” and regard “inferiority feelings” as concomitants and results of “shame” anxiety.{13}

A good example of both the greatly advanced understanding and the still remaining unclarity is found in this passage: “...in spite of the fact that in structural terms inferiority feelings and guilt feelings can be described with the same formula as a tension between ego and ego-ideal they are fundamentally different psychological phenomena, and as a rule their dynamic effect upon behavior is opposite.”{14} It would seem almost imperative that emotions phenomenologically and dynamically so different would also differ structurally.

2 — Structure of Shame

WE REALIZE then that most previous authors consider shame a comparatively insignificant emotion or anxiety, more or less a result of conflicts over sexual strivings, usually in the particular form of exhibitionism. Only Erikson and Alexander ascribe to shame an importance equal to “guilt” in human pathology.

In the following I shall attempt to describe the differences between the two even sharper, both phenomenologically and dynamically.

To start with, I suggest, by way of definition, a structural description of shame which will then be discussed in more detail in the following chapters.

The following seem to me properties of Shame which clearly differentiate it from Guilt:

1) Shame arises out of a tension between the Ego and the Ego-Ideal, not between Ego and Super-Ego as in guilt.

2) Whereas guilt is generated whenever a boundary (set by the Super-Ego) is touched or transgressed, shame occurs when a goal (presented by the Ego-Ideal) is not being reached. It thus indicates a real “shortcoming.” Guilt anxiety accompanies transgression; shame, failure.

3) The unconscious, irrational threat implied in shame anxiety is abandonment, and not mutilation (castration) as in guilt.

4) The Law of Talion does not obtain in the development of shame, as it generally does in guilt.

Several of the terms used here require further elaboration. An attempt will then be made to validate the entire thesis through observations of both normal and clinical phenomena.

3 — Ego-Ideal and Super-Ego

I HAVE SUGGESTED that Shame represents a tension between Ego and Ego-Ideal, rather than between Ego and Super-Ego. It seems immaterial whether one wishes to regard the Ego-Ideal merely as one particular aspect of the Super-Ego, or as a psychological formation entirely separate and independent from the latter. In The Ego and the Id, (1923) Freud uses both terms interchangeably throughout. As is well known, he clearly describes them there as a “precipitate in the...