{"id":1421,"date":"2013-01-25T20:35:06","date_gmt":"2013-01-25T20:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/counsellingtu.onpressidium.com\/?p=1421"},"modified":"2018-09-25T13:34:21","modified_gmt":"2018-09-25T12:34:21","slug":"shame-in-psychotherapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/counsellingtutor.com\/shame-in-psychotherapy\/","title":{"rendered":"Shame in Psychotherapy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Shame\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Shame in psychotherapy<\/em> is one of the most powerful emotions clients can experience, and perhaps the most contradictory and difficult to work with as a therapist.<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the most powerful reflections on shame was quoted by\u00a0AdamAppleton a writer of personal development books who had suffered an abusive childhood;<\/p>\n

\u201cShare whatever it is you’re ashamed about. You may think you can hide your shame by not talking about it, but in reality, it’s your shame that’s hiding you\u201d.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Many clients come to therapy feeling shame which has been \u2018pre-programmed\u2019 from other people such as lovers, parents, teachers or abusers.Shame is like an internal voice which criticises, judges and repeats what may have been said to you by others such as you are ugly , stupid , bad , or \u2018if it wasn\u2019t for you \u2019.<\/p>\n

The reason shame can be hard to work with is that it is surrounded by a set of very able \u2018bodyguards\u2019 such as anger, fear, embarrassment, denial and love.<\/p>\n

All of which provide a very effective mechanism to deny the client access to their real self and as importantly their ability to self heal.<\/p>\n

Shame can take many forms, physically a person may not make eye contact with you, or avoid you gaze. blushing, being defensive, anger, denials as well as affecting the individual\u2019s ability to think or see the world rationally are all the products of feeling this strong and self esteem corroding emotion.<\/p>\n

Exaggeration or a desire to overly please can trace their roots back \u00a0to a shamed psyche, which impacts on our ability to form intimate relationships or know our self worth.<\/p>\n

As a therapist I have become a lot more aware of how shame can manifest itself in the therapy room,a\u00a0few years ago I was working with a *client whose father had regularly hit her since she was a child, now a woman in her middle age she looked stunned when I reflected back to her that\u00a0he had been abusive.<\/p>\n

She said that she had been a \u2018difficult child\u2019 if she had behaved better this would not have happened before adding \u201chow else do you discipline your children?\u201d<\/p>\n

It took 10 more sessions before she reflected that her father\u2019s abuse had a massive impact on her life, I reflected that she had used the \u2018A\u2019 word, for the first time and we both acknowledged that she was being herself, no longer the \u2018shamed\u2019 child thinking she deserved to be hit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The psychologist Carl Rogers, wrote a lot about the non judgmental attitude of the therapist and how it helped defeat \u2018Conditions of worth and Introjected values\u2019 others attitudes which we take on as our own and use to emotionally beat ourselves up.<\/p>\n

Rogers who as a child was brought up on a farm and by all accounts was shamed on a regular basis , reflected in his later years that a therapist must provide \u201cthe \u00a0soil of a different kind \u2018 \u00a0which is experienced by the client as a non judgmental approach by the therapist .<\/p>\n

In his elegant theory Rogers hypothesises that along with empathy and a genuine\u00a0approach by the therapist, being non Judgmental, provides the emotional nutrition for the client to grow and flourish.<\/p>\n

When this is experienced by the client, in my experience the \u2018bodyguards of shame\u2019 fade in to the shadows of the past, and shame itself slips out of the back door , leaving only the client and their newly acquired self worth behind.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s lovely to see……….but you have to dodge the bodyguards !<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/strong> Some details have been changed to protect the identitiy of the client\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shame in psychotherapy is one of the most powerful emotions clients can experience, and perhaps the most contradictory and difficult to work with as a therapist. One of the most powerful reflections on shame was quoted by\u00a0AdamAppleton a writer of personal development books who had suffered an abusive childhood; \u201cShare whatever it is you’re ashamed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,240],"tags":[333,332,334,330,331],"yoast_head":"\nShame in Psychotherapy • Counselling Tutor<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/counsellingtutor.com\/shame-in-psychotherapy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shame in Psychotherapy • Counselling Tutor\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Shame in psychotherapy is one of the most powerful emotions clients can experience, and perhaps the most contradictory and difficult to work with as a therapist. 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