"Literature and theater offer more insight into human psychology any professional publication ever has. Had Freud not had Oedipus Rex and Lear to draw on, would he ever have gotten anywhere? I doubt it. The best most of us can hope for is the ability to interpret greater minds, in this case, that of the playwright Steven Levenson."
This is actually a life changing paragraph for me. It expresses a thought that has been trying to work its way out of my psyche for some months. I celebrate the idea that the humanities, among which I include my discipline of history, can reveal more about human nature than any randomized control trial.
When I come forth with an idea based on history and my lived experience, I feel I deserve to be taken seriously. If someone wants to subject my ideas to scientific Investigation and possible confirmation or disconfirmation, that is absolutely fine with me. It is frustrating to be dismissed simply because what you said isn't “scientific.”
No one thinks giving an impassioned speech is going to work, but this idea that choosing “the hardest way” will fix us is no solution either. If it’s not true that we don’t need a therapist’s presence, support, acceptance, etc. then why hire an incredibly expensive therapist? Why not do it on your own or read a self-help book? Sure, some people can, but these are not the people who end up with a therapist. Suggestions that shame can be overcome by actions or an attitude shift—these are shaming to those of us who are embedded in shame.
I’ve heard many times that when therapy works, it works because the patient is seen/understood and accepted for who they are. That is, they react in exactly the opposite way that the patient’s family and previous therapists reacted, and it is this surprise that makes change possible. I believe this is true. Unfortunately, most therapists don’t really see and understand their patients (especially if the patient has C-PTSD and dissociation) and when they get glimpses of the worst within, they recoil, often even dumping their patients (I’ve heard about this many times) or, more often, just putting up defenses. This can be even worse because the patient doesn’t understand what is going on, and blames herself for not making progress. More shame!
Is it really true that “indulging in insecurity and self-preoccupation” is wrong? The very word “indulging” says that it is, but insecurity is what we need help with and self-preoccupation is necessary for insight. Ignoring your issues/trauma and going on with life means that your issues are still there.
I really agree that having a different experience with a therapist, one of mutual respect, etc, can be helpful, and I also agree that when therapists end up blaming patients, this results in more shame! It's just my experience that seeing and understanding does not, in some cases, result in a true shedding of shame. I think this is partly why some therapists then get frustrated and blame the patient.
I agree with self-reflection, and at times this takes a very long time. I know it sounds facile to suggest one just stop "indulging" in self-preoccupation and insecurity. But that's why in a sense Evan is heroic. It's incredibly hard, but I do think it's the way out- in addition to having someone who sees you as a whole person.
Good points. I think other people - whether they're a therapist or loved ones - often expect a shamed or traumatized person to feel markedly better after the therapist/loved one TELLS THEM that they should, and that expectation can easily turn to resentment and blame if the shamed or traumatized person doesn't respond as they "should".
Thanks for your reply. I wonder if you’re mistaking cause and effect. If someone can—through some kind of psychological effort, whether in therapy or out, whether conscious or not—get to the point where they can stop “Indulging” and start acting as a responsible and caring adult, it may look like it’s their decision to stop indulging and to act better that is the cause. But it’s actually a shift caused by the work they’ve done or maybe some influence. The decisions we make don’t come out of nowhere; our decisions have causes. And we might decide to be better over and over, uselessly, until something shifts in us and then our decisions have results. We change! But it wasn’t the deciding that changed us.
This from a person who has tried all her life to look honestly at myself, to be a good responsible person, and could never get anywhere until I understood that I had amnesia for childhood trauma. And even that was only the beginning point. If only one of my therapists had understood me and had the skill to guide me. But therapists are mostly blind to structural dissociation and amnesia.
I am not a psychiatrist but have been studying shame for quite some time. I am curious about consensus regarding shame, if there is consensus at all. One definition states that shame is "intense guilt." I saw one of your articles that showed a somewhat different definition though you define guilt and shame not exactly the way I would. In my view, guilt and shame come from different sources, guilt from causing harm to a cared-about being (like hitting a dog with a car) while shame comes from a loss of status. Status itself is a complex subject but (in my view) is basically how a person views him or herself based on feedback from others. This post by Susan Mahler seems to re-enforce my view though she never uses the word "status." I see the main character as having uplifted status due to his supposed friendship of the suicide victim, but this temporary status crashing down (loss of status) when the lie is caught. So I see the primary psychological problems as more than just shame, rather it stems from the human desire (need) for status. Shame is just the negative side of the quest for status (along with embarrassment and humiliation) that results from losing status. My biggest problem with this whole line of thinking is, what exactly is status?
Thanks for this comment. All sources I've consulted differentiate shame from guilt, but they can be related. For example, your child gets chocolate on a new sweater, you scold her, she feels guilty. She's not used to you being so upset with her. But if these episodes continue, and she comes to feel dirty and defective in your eyes, this is shame.
I think status is an important element of shame, but I would tweak that to mean, the importance of meeting societal norms. I didn't write about what is likely the real origin of Evan's shame - the fact that his father left him and his mother, and doesn't want a real relationship with his son. So the norms depend on the stage of life, it's not just social status. Shame reverberates throughout life.
There's some debate about whether shame is a two-person problem- can there be the shame without the other?
But the other can be internalized. David Carr, a New York Times reporter, wrote "The Night of the Gun," a memoir of his struggle with substance abuse. He is profoundly ashamed of one particular night, when he left his twin infant girls locked in a car on a freezing cold night, while he is out getting drugs. There are no repercussions in his life- the kids are ok, and no one at work knows, etc. But he is so ashamed he can't come to terms with it. He knows he has utterly failed to put his kids first.
I know I've seen some researchers question whether shame and guilt really are two neatly distinct emotions. The idea that they are seems really embedded in the psych literature, but I know I've read some texts suggesting that there is no corresponding PRE-THEORETICAL clean distinction - lots of laypeople distinguish between them, sure, but it's because lots of laypeople have learnt from pop psychology that these are two different emotions. If you haven't been told about the distinction (from pop psych stuff you've read yourself, or from other people who know their pop psych stuff) there might not be a clear distinction at all.
I'm sorry I don't remember any actual citation for this! :-) But it seemed spontaneously plausible to me. I think lots of psych stuff works like this. Researchers think they have FOUND OUT something about the human condition, something that was there already, but actually, they CREATED it.
Also, random language trivia: In Swedish, we do have separate guilt words (skuld, skuldkänslor), but we don't use them much in casual language. It's more common to use the verb "skämmas" over some bad thing you did and want to apologize for. That's the same verb we also use for feeling ashamed of yourself, AND for feeling embarrassed (skämmas). That's not to say we can't distinguish between feeling like a totally worthless person or feeling embarrassed that you walked out of the bathrooms with toilet paper stuck to your shoe, obviously these are very different things, but there aren't different WORDS for marking the difference.
Thank you for this comment! As to your first point, I'm not claiming that there are two a priori categories, and nor (in my own defense) have I relied on pop psychology for reference. From an etymological view and otherwise, of course there's a relationship between shame and guilt. But from my clinical experience (as well as some personal experience) shame (as in a feeling that washes over a person, Darwin makes reference to blushing being innate) is much more consequential and devastating.
I really appreciate learning that in Swedish the same word is generally used for guilt and shame. I think the same was true in Ancient Greek. I would imagine that emotional experiences might vary across cultures, and maybe having the same word would bring guilt and shame into closer approximation. Most of my research has been from a Western European/American perspective, and I'd love to learn more about this.
Sorry for being unclear - I completely understood that you relied on actual scientific literature and clinical experience.
What I meant was - when non-experts, who haven't read the science literature on the topic, still think of shame and guilt as two different things, it might be from exposure to all this pop psychology that surrounds us everywhere rather than from how we're wired, or even something that goes really deep in our culture.
Moreover, I do agree that there's a vast difference between an intense feeling that really washes over you, that devastates you, and some minor guilt over something you forgot even though you should have remembered. Like, there are tons of different experiences people can have, they can have different qualities, be different in strength etc.
What I wanted to question - in a REALLY clumsy way, citing stuff I just vaguely remember having read somewhere! - is whether you can sort all these experiences in the TWO BOXES of "shame" on the one hand and "guilt" on the other. Maybe there are loads of differences but no sharp borders anywhere. Just like a big sea of guilt/shame/embarressment and you can say look, this part of the sea right here is VERY different from that part of the sea at the other end - the Baltic Sea is really different from the Gulf of Mexico, we'd never confuse these two - but nowhere in this vast sea do you find a BORDER.
I would not disagree. I guess I have such vivid examples of shame in mind that it is hard for me to let go of shame as a definable entity. There's all the physiological arousal that goes with shame, blushing, sweating, the tendency to want to look down or away, the need to disappear. There are studies which differentiate the different effects of guilt and shame vis-a-vis depression (shame was associated but guilt wasn't)- but I don't know how they defined guilt and shame in those studies. And the examples I think of are of course at the extremes of what you're suggesting is a continuum. So, yes, I agree. I guess one question is: if someone is more shame-prone , are they also more prone to guilt? If we can accept there is some way to measure those.
Thanks for your comment! This is where I struggle with the meaning of status, that I don't think it is just about meeting societal norms, it is also about self-image that comes about regardless of input from others. Typically, compliments and victories in contests are a reflection of social status and improve self-image. Complaints and losses reflect lower status, degrade self-image, and can cause feelings of shame. But accomplishments and "doing something good" builds self-image regardless of someone knowing about it. In this same way David Carr, even if only in his own head, degraded his self-image by leaving his kids in the car on a freezing night. His perception of himself as "a good father" was degraded to "I am a reckless, lousy father", and feelings a shame were the result.
Maybe I am making a mistake in lumping societal status with self-image, but to me the two are helplessly entwined. Self-talk statements like "I am attractive" or "I am intelligent" imply self-image but are usually (though not always) the result of feedback from others and a reflection a person's social status. I believe all self-talk statements, and there may be thousands of them, are a reflection of both self-image and social status.
And I don't see poor self-image as shame in and of itself. I believe shame is necessarily the result of a specific event or stimulus, such as leaving your kids in a freezing car. Low status, on the other hand, can result in poor self-image without a specific stimulus. Suppose a child is not particularly good at physical education activities. No shame in that, just low status when it comes to PE classes, and possibly poor self-image overall. But suppose a child brags about himself as a great athlete, then loses badly in a contest of athletic skill. The shame from such a loss can be quite intense and painful.
With regard to guilt and shame, I wrote something awhile ago that may be of interest...
One popular song from several decades ago contains the line “only to hide my guilt and shame”. The song is about infidelity, where a committed couple is separated from each other for a period of time and each cheats on the other. In this case guilt AND shame are both involved. The guilt arises from the feeling that one person had harmed the other by being unfaithful. Shame comes from another source. Like most of us, these people probably like to think of themselves as trustworthy. Each has to accept the shame of not being worthy of the other's trust.
On a personal note, I will be away from my computer for about 2 weeks. Lack of any timely responses from me will be for that reason rather than any loss of interest in the topic.
For what it's worth, I've always thought of the difference between shame and guilt along two different dimensions: falling short of one's ideal self (and more generally that the entire self is implicated) as opposed to ideal behavior; and transgression of norms being marked by social exposure, as opposed to privately wrestling with a norm. So in some cases shame could be entirely private like David Carr above, but still more about your ideal self (the failure) than the act itself. In other cases the social exposure is the big catalyst.
Yes, I agree, and I like the dual definition. Shame is always about the whole self, which differentiates if from guilt. It seems like you are saying one can get there by a failure which is not public but the person experiences acutely, or by a transgression which is evident to everyone. I guess this is sort of what I was saying with the one vs two-person idea, but I like how you said it.
Yes, exactly. I think there is also a difference between shame experienced in real time (as when publicly shamed or ashamed about something that just occurred), and shame internalized over time from past experiences. And sometimes private shame can included imagined or simulated public shame even where there has been no exposure.
Yes- in my previous post I had hoped to talk about "shame scripts," but ran out of room. Script theory stems from Sylvan Tomkins' work- the idea is that physiologically our experiences of shame get reproduced and this becomes the lens through which we see things. See Carlson and Carlson on script theory if you are interested.
I would call "how a person views him or herself" their self-image and, yes, a poor self-image is shame. I think status is how you're viewed by people you're not close to. Or your place in various hierarchies in the groups we belong to. I agree that guilt is from causing harm; it's therefore something we can (sometimes) apologize and atone for. Shame is often so wrapped up in how we were treated by our family growing up and so deeply embedded because of that, that undoing it requires someone seeing you (beneath any personas) and still liking/loving/accepting you.
This was a really interesting take on shame. I am a huge fan of drawing upon literature and film for psychological insights so I appreciated your use of this film (which I had not heard of). But your characterization of Evan's shame and how he got past it feels inconsistent. You suggest early on that shame implies a "fall from a great height." Yet Evan's baseline depression and self-loathing at the story's beginning, *before* rising in social status, is also alluded to as shame while being lumped in with the very different public shame he faces after having his lie exposed, based on actual actions and transgression of norms.
I think this lack of differentiation undermines your main takeaway (which I otherwise agree with) about overcoming shame as a personal journey involving difficult choices rather than simple catharsis through affirmation or love. I haven't seen the film, but what you describe in Evan's case sounds like an arc of moral development, more than psychological healing per se. And what triggers this moral development enabling him to let go of longstanding shame and despair is, ironically, the public shaming that serves as a wakeup call to reexamine his values. You might even say the shock of this fall from grace "put his earlier shame to shame."
"Literature and theater offer more insight into human psychology any professional publication ever has. Had Freud not had Oedipus Rex and Lear to draw on, would he ever have gotten anywhere? I doubt it. The best most of us can hope for is the ability to interpret greater minds, in this case, that of the playwright Steven Levenson."
This is actually a life changing paragraph for me. It expresses a thought that has been trying to work its way out of my psyche for some months. I celebrate the idea that the humanities, among which I include my discipline of history, can reveal more about human nature than any randomized control trial.
When I come forth with an idea based on history and my lived experience, I feel I deserve to be taken seriously. If someone wants to subject my ideas to scientific Investigation and possible confirmation or disconfirmation, that is absolutely fine with me. It is frustrating to be dismissed simply because what you said isn't “scientific.”
No one thinks giving an impassioned speech is going to work, but this idea that choosing “the hardest way” will fix us is no solution either. If it’s not true that we don’t need a therapist’s presence, support, acceptance, etc. then why hire an incredibly expensive therapist? Why not do it on your own or read a self-help book? Sure, some people can, but these are not the people who end up with a therapist. Suggestions that shame can be overcome by actions or an attitude shift—these are shaming to those of us who are embedded in shame.
I’ve heard many times that when therapy works, it works because the patient is seen/understood and accepted for who they are. That is, they react in exactly the opposite way that the patient’s family and previous therapists reacted, and it is this surprise that makes change possible. I believe this is true. Unfortunately, most therapists don’t really see and understand their patients (especially if the patient has C-PTSD and dissociation) and when they get glimpses of the worst within, they recoil, often even dumping their patients (I’ve heard about this many times) or, more often, just putting up defenses. This can be even worse because the patient doesn’t understand what is going on, and blames herself for not making progress. More shame!
Is it really true that “indulging in insecurity and self-preoccupation” is wrong? The very word “indulging” says that it is, but insecurity is what we need help with and self-preoccupation is necessary for insight. Ignoring your issues/trauma and going on with life means that your issues are still there.
I really agree that having a different experience with a therapist, one of mutual respect, etc, can be helpful, and I also agree that when therapists end up blaming patients, this results in more shame! It's just my experience that seeing and understanding does not, in some cases, result in a true shedding of shame. I think this is partly why some therapists then get frustrated and blame the patient.
I agree with self-reflection, and at times this takes a very long time. I know it sounds facile to suggest one just stop "indulging" in self-preoccupation and insecurity. But that's why in a sense Evan is heroic. It's incredibly hard, but I do think it's the way out- in addition to having someone who sees you as a whole person.
Good points. I think other people - whether they're a therapist or loved ones - often expect a shamed or traumatized person to feel markedly better after the therapist/loved one TELLS THEM that they should, and that expectation can easily turn to resentment and blame if the shamed or traumatized person doesn't respond as they "should".
Thanks for your reply. I wonder if you’re mistaking cause and effect. If someone can—through some kind of psychological effort, whether in therapy or out, whether conscious or not—get to the point where they can stop “Indulging” and start acting as a responsible and caring adult, it may look like it’s their decision to stop indulging and to act better that is the cause. But it’s actually a shift caused by the work they’ve done or maybe some influence. The decisions we make don’t come out of nowhere; our decisions have causes. And we might decide to be better over and over, uselessly, until something shifts in us and then our decisions have results. We change! But it wasn’t the deciding that changed us.
This from a person who has tried all her life to look honestly at myself, to be a good responsible person, and could never get anywhere until I understood that I had amnesia for childhood trauma. And even that was only the beginning point. If only one of my therapists had understood me and had the skill to guide me. But therapists are mostly blind to structural dissociation and amnesia.
William Ian Miller writes eloquently on this among other topics in “Humiliation”. Thanks for your excellent essay.
Thanks for that reference! I will check it out!
I am not a psychiatrist but have been studying shame for quite some time. I am curious about consensus regarding shame, if there is consensus at all. One definition states that shame is "intense guilt." I saw one of your articles that showed a somewhat different definition though you define guilt and shame not exactly the way I would. In my view, guilt and shame come from different sources, guilt from causing harm to a cared-about being (like hitting a dog with a car) while shame comes from a loss of status. Status itself is a complex subject but (in my view) is basically how a person views him or herself based on feedback from others. This post by Susan Mahler seems to re-enforce my view though she never uses the word "status." I see the main character as having uplifted status due to his supposed friendship of the suicide victim, but this temporary status crashing down (loss of status) when the lie is caught. So I see the primary psychological problems as more than just shame, rather it stems from the human desire (need) for status. Shame is just the negative side of the quest for status (along with embarrassment and humiliation) that results from losing status. My biggest problem with this whole line of thinking is, what exactly is status?
Thanks for this comment. All sources I've consulted differentiate shame from guilt, but they can be related. For example, your child gets chocolate on a new sweater, you scold her, she feels guilty. She's not used to you being so upset with her. But if these episodes continue, and she comes to feel dirty and defective in your eyes, this is shame.
I think status is an important element of shame, but I would tweak that to mean, the importance of meeting societal norms. I didn't write about what is likely the real origin of Evan's shame - the fact that his father left him and his mother, and doesn't want a real relationship with his son. So the norms depend on the stage of life, it's not just social status. Shame reverberates throughout life.
There's some debate about whether shame is a two-person problem- can there be the shame without the other?
But the other can be internalized. David Carr, a New York Times reporter, wrote "The Night of the Gun," a memoir of his struggle with substance abuse. He is profoundly ashamed of one particular night, when he left his twin infant girls locked in a car on a freezing cold night, while he is out getting drugs. There are no repercussions in his life- the kids are ok, and no one at work knows, etc. But he is so ashamed he can't come to terms with it. He knows he has utterly failed to put his kids first.
I know I've seen some researchers question whether shame and guilt really are two neatly distinct emotions. The idea that they are seems really embedded in the psych literature, but I know I've read some texts suggesting that there is no corresponding PRE-THEORETICAL clean distinction - lots of laypeople distinguish between them, sure, but it's because lots of laypeople have learnt from pop psychology that these are two different emotions. If you haven't been told about the distinction (from pop psych stuff you've read yourself, or from other people who know their pop psych stuff) there might not be a clear distinction at all.
I'm sorry I don't remember any actual citation for this! :-) But it seemed spontaneously plausible to me. I think lots of psych stuff works like this. Researchers think they have FOUND OUT something about the human condition, something that was there already, but actually, they CREATED it.
Also, random language trivia: In Swedish, we do have separate guilt words (skuld, skuldkänslor), but we don't use them much in casual language. It's more common to use the verb "skämmas" over some bad thing you did and want to apologize for. That's the same verb we also use for feeling ashamed of yourself, AND for feeling embarrassed (skämmas). That's not to say we can't distinguish between feeling like a totally worthless person or feeling embarrassed that you walked out of the bathrooms with toilet paper stuck to your shoe, obviously these are very different things, but there aren't different WORDS for marking the difference.
Thank you for this comment! As to your first point, I'm not claiming that there are two a priori categories, and nor (in my own defense) have I relied on pop psychology for reference. From an etymological view and otherwise, of course there's a relationship between shame and guilt. But from my clinical experience (as well as some personal experience) shame (as in a feeling that washes over a person, Darwin makes reference to blushing being innate) is much more consequential and devastating.
I really appreciate learning that in Swedish the same word is generally used for guilt and shame. I think the same was true in Ancient Greek. I would imagine that emotional experiences might vary across cultures, and maybe having the same word would bring guilt and shame into closer approximation. Most of my research has been from a Western European/American perspective, and I'd love to learn more about this.
Sorry for being unclear - I completely understood that you relied on actual scientific literature and clinical experience.
What I meant was - when non-experts, who haven't read the science literature on the topic, still think of shame and guilt as two different things, it might be from exposure to all this pop psychology that surrounds us everywhere rather than from how we're wired, or even something that goes really deep in our culture.
Moreover, I do agree that there's a vast difference between an intense feeling that really washes over you, that devastates you, and some minor guilt over something you forgot even though you should have remembered. Like, there are tons of different experiences people can have, they can have different qualities, be different in strength etc.
What I wanted to question - in a REALLY clumsy way, citing stuff I just vaguely remember having read somewhere! - is whether you can sort all these experiences in the TWO BOXES of "shame" on the one hand and "guilt" on the other. Maybe there are loads of differences but no sharp borders anywhere. Just like a big sea of guilt/shame/embarressment and you can say look, this part of the sea right here is VERY different from that part of the sea at the other end - the Baltic Sea is really different from the Gulf of Mexico, we'd never confuse these two - but nowhere in this vast sea do you find a BORDER.
I would not disagree. I guess I have such vivid examples of shame in mind that it is hard for me to let go of shame as a definable entity. There's all the physiological arousal that goes with shame, blushing, sweating, the tendency to want to look down or away, the need to disappear. There are studies which differentiate the different effects of guilt and shame vis-a-vis depression (shame was associated but guilt wasn't)- but I don't know how they defined guilt and shame in those studies. And the examples I think of are of course at the extremes of what you're suggesting is a continuum. So, yes, I agree. I guess one question is: if someone is more shame-prone , are they also more prone to guilt? If we can accept there is some way to measure those.
Thanks for your comment! This is where I struggle with the meaning of status, that I don't think it is just about meeting societal norms, it is also about self-image that comes about regardless of input from others. Typically, compliments and victories in contests are a reflection of social status and improve self-image. Complaints and losses reflect lower status, degrade self-image, and can cause feelings of shame. But accomplishments and "doing something good" builds self-image regardless of someone knowing about it. In this same way David Carr, even if only in his own head, degraded his self-image by leaving his kids in the car on a freezing night. His perception of himself as "a good father" was degraded to "I am a reckless, lousy father", and feelings a shame were the result.
Maybe I am making a mistake in lumping societal status with self-image, but to me the two are helplessly entwined. Self-talk statements like "I am attractive" or "I am intelligent" imply self-image but are usually (though not always) the result of feedback from others and a reflection a person's social status. I believe all self-talk statements, and there may be thousands of them, are a reflection of both self-image and social status.
And I don't see poor self-image as shame in and of itself. I believe shame is necessarily the result of a specific event or stimulus, such as leaving your kids in a freezing car. Low status, on the other hand, can result in poor self-image without a specific stimulus. Suppose a child is not particularly good at physical education activities. No shame in that, just low status when it comes to PE classes, and possibly poor self-image overall. But suppose a child brags about himself as a great athlete, then loses badly in a contest of athletic skill. The shame from such a loss can be quite intense and painful.
With regard to guilt and shame, I wrote something awhile ago that may be of interest...
One popular song from several decades ago contains the line “only to hide my guilt and shame”. The song is about infidelity, where a committed couple is separated from each other for a period of time and each cheats on the other. In this case guilt AND shame are both involved. The guilt arises from the feeling that one person had harmed the other by being unfaithful. Shame comes from another source. Like most of us, these people probably like to think of themselves as trustworthy. Each has to accept the shame of not being worthy of the other's trust.
On a personal note, I will be away from my computer for about 2 weeks. Lack of any timely responses from me will be for that reason rather than any loss of interest in the topic.
For what it's worth, I've always thought of the difference between shame and guilt along two different dimensions: falling short of one's ideal self (and more generally that the entire self is implicated) as opposed to ideal behavior; and transgression of norms being marked by social exposure, as opposed to privately wrestling with a norm. So in some cases shame could be entirely private like David Carr above, but still more about your ideal self (the failure) than the act itself. In other cases the social exposure is the big catalyst.
Yes, I agree, and I like the dual definition. Shame is always about the whole self, which differentiates if from guilt. It seems like you are saying one can get there by a failure which is not public but the person experiences acutely, or by a transgression which is evident to everyone. I guess this is sort of what I was saying with the one vs two-person idea, but I like how you said it.
Yes, exactly. I think there is also a difference between shame experienced in real time (as when publicly shamed or ashamed about something that just occurred), and shame internalized over time from past experiences. And sometimes private shame can included imagined or simulated public shame even where there has been no exposure.
Yes- in my previous post I had hoped to talk about "shame scripts," but ran out of room. Script theory stems from Sylvan Tomkins' work- the idea is that physiologically our experiences of shame get reproduced and this becomes the lens through which we see things. See Carlson and Carlson on script theory if you are interested.
I would call "how a person views him or herself" their self-image and, yes, a poor self-image is shame. I think status is how you're viewed by people you're not close to. Or your place in various hierarchies in the groups we belong to. I agree that guilt is from causing harm; it's therefore something we can (sometimes) apologize and atone for. Shame is often so wrapped up in how we were treated by our family growing up and so deeply embedded because of that, that undoing it requires someone seeing you (beneath any personas) and still liking/loving/accepting you.
This was a really interesting take on shame. I am a huge fan of drawing upon literature and film for psychological insights so I appreciated your use of this film (which I had not heard of). But your characterization of Evan's shame and how he got past it feels inconsistent. You suggest early on that shame implies a "fall from a great height." Yet Evan's baseline depression and self-loathing at the story's beginning, *before* rising in social status, is also alluded to as shame while being lumped in with the very different public shame he faces after having his lie exposed, based on actual actions and transgression of norms.
I think this lack of differentiation undermines your main takeaway (which I otherwise agree with) about overcoming shame as a personal journey involving difficult choices rather than simple catharsis through affirmation or love. I haven't seen the film, but what you describe in Evan's case sounds like an arc of moral development, more than psychological healing per se. And what triggers this moral development enabling him to let go of longstanding shame and despair is, ironically, the public shaming that serves as a wakeup call to reexamine his values. You might even say the shock of this fall from grace "put his earlier shame to shame."