The critical dream incident in pastoral psychotherapy

Pastoral psychotherapy needs to re-cover one of the most authentic tools of its trade ... the healing dream encounter. A brief outline of operational prejudices and theory prepares discussion of the use of such dream work within a marital system. It is stressed that the dream came aspart of a careful and multi-focused therapy which used the best of psychotherapeutic methodologies. The dream incident reported came as part of the climactic end-stage environment of this counseling experience. A few concluding comments are made about the ongoing schools of thought on dream function and their relationship to pastoral psychotherapy.Dr. Gibson is Counseling/Education Minister at the Christian Counseling Service, 424 South K Street, Tacoma, Washington, 98405. His clinical interest focuses on the dream and similar modes of altered states of consciousness as a direct form of religious experiencing and healing.     

Theological and religious dimensions in pastoral psychotherapy

This article seeks to consider the theological and religious dimensions in pastoral psychotherapy. Using Erik Erikson's view of personality growth and development, the author presents a view of man as the basis for exploring the theological and religious dimensions of psychotherapy and offers five approaches to arguing for theological and religious significance in psychotherapy. The article then considers what the pastoral psychotherapist brings to this process.Dr. Jenkins is Director of Pastoral Counseling, Georgia Baptist Medical Center, 300 Boulevard, N.E., Atlanta, GA 30312. This paper was delivered to the Annual Meeting of the Southeast Region of American Association of Pastoral Counselors, October, 1980, Kanuga, North Carolina.     

Writing as an aid in pastoral counseling and psychotherapy

Summary A method of spontaneous note-writing has been presented. When the material is handled like any verbal associations in a therapeutic session, this technique has been especially helpful with the majority of patients in facilitating free association, overcoming resistance, gaining access to deep material more quickly, working through the positive and negative phases of the transference and promoting insight. It helps patients to expose themselves earlier in treatment, to express their conscious thoughts, and to furnish material for discussion. It is a form of mental catharsis.This technique aids in showing the progress, trends, and method of therapy, and to observe the needs and strivings of the patient. In a few instances, due to particular problems, the method was not advantageous. It means additional work for both therapist and patient. It cannot take the place of spontaneous verbalization in the therapeutic session; however, it can aid both patient and therapist in facilitating treatment, and provides another adjunct to the procedural psychotherapy.     

Shame On You,Shame On Me? Nussbaum on Shame Punishment

abstract Shame punishments have become an increasingly popular alternative to traditional punishments, often taking the form of convicted criminals holding signs or sweeping streets with a toothbrush. In her Hiding from Humanity, Martha Nussbaum argues against the use of shame punishments because they contribute to an offender's loss of dignity. However, these concerns are shared already by the courts which also have concerns about the possibility that shaming might damage an offender's dignity. This situation has not led the courts to reject all uses of shaming, but only to accept shaming within certain safeguards. Thus, despite Nussbaum's important reservations against shame punishments, it may still be possible for her to accept shaming within specific parameters such as those set out by the courts that protect the dignity of an offender. As a result, she need not be opposed to the use of legitimate shame punishment.     

Healing Shame

Contrary to what may be the commonly held belief, the worry is that, with almost negligible exceptions, the heavy preponderance of psychotherapists are essentially unable to give a fair hearing to revolutionary new ideas. And the charge is also leveled at humanistic psychotherapists. Because most psychotherapists would object to the charge, the purpose of the article is to invite psychotherapists to take a friendly little test of open-mindedness to revolutionary new ideas in psychotherapy.     

Shame regulation in personality pathology

Drawing on extant work on shame and emotion regulation, this article proposes that three broad forms of maladaptive shame regulation strategies are fundamental in much of personality pathology: Prevention (e.g., dependence, fantasy), used preemptively, lessens potential for shame; Escape (e.g., social withdrawal, misdirection) reduces current or imminent shame; Aggression, used after shame begins, refocuses shame into anger directed at the self (e.g., physical self-harm) or others (e.g., verbal aggression). This article focuses on the contributions of shame regulation to the development and maintenance of personality pathology, highlighting how various maladaptive shame regulation strategies may lead to personality pathology symptoms, associated features, and dimensions. Consideration is also given to the possible shame-related constructs necessitating emotion regulation (e.g., shame aversion and proneness) and the points in the emotion process when regulation can occur.     

Shame and Shamelessness

What is the relation between shame and shamelessness? It may seem obvious: shamelessness is simply the absence of shame. But on reflection, it becomes clear that the story is considerably more complicated. Michelle Mason's intriguing "On Shamelessness" prompts such reflection (albeit unintentionally). Mason argues that we should be mindful of the "moral importance of shame" and "unapologetic in its defense" (403), and she does so via an examination of shamelessness and an argument to the effect that shamelessness is (with some exceptions) a moral fault. The tacit assumption is that insofar as shamelessness is a moral fault, the value of shame is vindicated. I challenge that assumption.     

Shame,shame

The word shame, as discussed in the literature, is too general and vague. It should thus be restricted to problems caused by (1) faulty toilet training; (2) the consistent use of humiliation as a form of discipline; and (3) public humiliation. Therapists need to be both active in identifying shame, and in intervening therapeutically since patients tend to hide it. Group therapy along with individual therapy is especially helpful in reversing effects of public humiliation.     

Shame and Silence

Abstract

Samantha Vice’s proposal on how to live in ‘this strange place’ of contemporary South Africa, includes an appeal to the concepts of shame and silence. In this paper, I use Emmanuel Levinas and Giorgio Agamben to move the discussion of shame from a moral to an existential question. The issue is not about how one should feel, but about the kind of self that whiteness in South Africa makes possible today. Shame desubjectifies. Vice’s recommendation of silence is then taken as witnessing/listening, which I argue grounds the possibility of a recovery of the self.     

Shame and psychopathology

The origins of the word "shame" recall the concept of the infraction of integrity both as scandal and as individualization. The human experience of shame stretches along a continuum from modesty to disabling interpersonal terror. Unlike other basic affects, its emergence is a fundamental moment in the process of self-awareness and self-object differentiation. Neglected by psychiatry because it was regarded as a moral concept, today it is possible to hypothesize that it has a biologic basis that one can attempt to describe in terms of corticothalamic pathways. In this respect, like other affects, it could be considered as a cognitive shortcut to activate specific and evolutionally useful behavioral patterns, such as concealment or a request for affiliation. It is fairly ubiquitous in psychopathology, but is clinically much more structured in its abnormal expressions in anxiety disorders, particularly social phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders, body dysmorphic disorder, and even in bipolar mood disorder. In schizophrenia it has been described as being one stage in the construction of delusion. Its presence is connected to interpersonal relationship (altruism) though it seems absent in autism. The assessment of shame experiences in psychiatric patients could be useful for both pharmacological and psychotherapeutic strategies, and could provide a categorization of a new psychopathology based on abnormal affects.