The social side of shame: approach versus withdrawal

ABSTRACT

At present, the consequences and functions of experiences of shame are not yet well understood. Whereas psychology literature typically portrays shame as being bad for social relations, motivating social avoidance and withdrawal, there are recent indications that shame can be reinterpreted as having clear social tendencies in the form of motivating approach and social affiliation. Yet, until now, no research has ever put these alternative interpretations of shame-motivated behaviours directly to the test. The present paper presents such a test by studying the extent to which shame motivates a preference for social withdrawal versus a preference for social approach. Two studies (N?=?148 and N?=?133) using different shame inductions both showed people experiencing shame to prefer to be together with others (social approach) over being alone (social withdrawal). In addition, the preference for a social situation was found to be unique for shame; it was not found for the closely related emotion of guilt. Taken together, these findings provide direct empirical support for the idea that shame can have positive interpersonal consequences.     

Traditional Religious Doctrine and Women's Sexuality

Abstract

For many women the connection between sexuality and spirituality is frequently experienced in the context of their past or current religious beliefsbeliefs that privilege intercourse and male pleasure while ignoring much of what is rich and important in women's sexual experiencingresulting in feelings of shame, guilt and disconnection from a vital source of their power and pleasure. The focus of this paper is on the differences between religiosity and spirituality, and how women can be assisted to develop more positive and affirming sexual self constructions and nurture a more empowering sense of spirituality in their lives, in the face of sometimes oppressive religious teachings and beliefs. Suggestions are provided for helping women create more positive connections between their spiritual and sexual selves, irrespective of their religious affiliations and beliefs.     

“My graduation is my mother's funeral”: Transformation from the paranoid-schizoid to the depressive position in fear of success,and the role of the internal saboteur

Abstract

Freud's conflation of neurotic and existential guilt is challenged in this paper. A study of fear of success in a female analysand is presented that illustrates the resolution of this syndrome through a mourning process in which the neurotic guilt of Melanie Klein's paranoid-schizoid position is transformed into the existential guilt of Klein's depressive position. An evolution within the depressive-position existential guilt is seen as the analysand mourns and separates from an internal mother and father, who are hostile to her developmental needs. This evolution involves the transformation of an idealizing transference, symptomatically enacted through gradations of vicarious living through the analyst, being profoundly transformed into the analysand's active creation of an identity in the world. Simultaneously, the internal world becomes alive in psychic fantasy. This transformation also involves the modification of an internal sabotaging psychic structure, which had been compelled by the dissociated punitive reaction of an internalized angry mother of separation trauma, employing the unconscious re-enactment of an early infant illness. Split-off envy and split-off self-sabotage become consciously owned through the grieving of existential guilt, as visceral experience is converted into symbolization.

Susan Kavaler-Adler. “Meine Graduierung ist das Begräbnis meiner Mutter”: Transformation von der paranoidschizoiden zu der depressiven Position in der Furcht vor Erfolg – und die Rolle des innerenSaboteurs.

Freuds Verschmelzung von neurotischer und existentieller Schuld wird in dieser Arbeit in Frage gestellt. Eine Studie der Furcht vor Erfolg bei einer weiblichen Analysandin wird dargestellt und sie zeigt die Auflösung dieses Syndroms durch einen Trauer-Prozess in dem die neurotische Schuld von Melanie Klein′s paranoid-schozoider Position in die existentielle Schuld von Klein′s depressiver Position umgewandelt wird. Eine Evolution innerhalb der depressiven Position und existentieller Schuld wird gesehen als die Analysandin trauert und sich von der inneren Mutter und dem Vater trennt, die gegenüber ihren Entwicklungsbedürfnissen feindlich eingestellt sind. Bestandteil dieser Evolution ist die Umwandlung einer idealisierenden Übertragung, symptomatisch inszeniert durch Abstufungen vikariierenden Lebens durch die Analytikerin und gründlich umgewandelt in die aktive Schöpfung einer Identität in der Welt der Analysandin. Simultan wird die innere Welt in psychischer Phantasie lebendig. Diese Umwandlung involviert auch die Modifikation einer inneren seelischen Struktur, die durch die dissoziierte strafende Reaktion einer internalisierten ärgerlichen Mutter eines Trennungs Traumas aufgezwungen worden war, wobei eine unbewußte Reinszenierung eines frühen kindlichen Traumas eingesetzt wurde. Abgespaltener Neid und abgespaltene Selbst Sabotage werden dem Bewußtsein zugänglich durch ein sich Grämen in existentieller Schuld so wie viszerale Erfahrung in Symbolisierung umgesetzt wird.

Susan Kavaler-Adler. “Mi graduación es funeral de mi madre”: La transformación desde la posición esquizoparanoide a la depresiva en el miedo al éxito, y el rol del saboteador interno.

La combinación de la culpa neurótica y la culpa existencial de Freud is puesta en duda. Se presentará un estudio sobre el miedo al éxito de una analizanda mujer para ilustrar la resolución de este síndrome a través de un proceso de duelo en el cual la culpa neurótica de la posición esquizo-paranoide de Melanie Klein se transforma en la culpa existencial de la posición depresiva de Klein. Como una evolución dentro de la posición depresiva la culpa existencial es vista mientras la analizanda hace el duelo y se separa de su padre y madre internalizados, quienes son hostiles hacia sus necesidades de desarrollo. Esta evolución involucra la transformación de una transferencia idealizada actuada sintomáticamente a través de gradaciones de formas de vida sustitutivas a través de la analista, para pasar a ser una de transformación profunda en la activa creación de la identidad de la analizanda en el mundo.Simultáneamente su mundo interno toma vida en la fantasia psíquica. Esta transformación también involucra la modificación de la estructura psíquica interna saboteadora, que había sido impuesta por la reacción punitiva disociativa de una madre enojada internalizada por el trauma de separación, empleando la reactivación inconsciente de una enfermedad de la infancia temprana. La envidia y el autosabotage escindidos se vuelven conscientes a través de la aflicción de la culpa existencial, así como la experiencia viceral es convertida en simbolización.     

GUILT AND THE SCIENCE OF EMOTION: HOW DOES PRAYER FIT?

This article engages sources regarding evolutionary development of guilt (Richard Joyce's The Evolution of Morality, Jesse Prinz's Gut Reactions, and others) and how they can be used to dialogue with material on the alleviation of guilt in the Christian tradition using examples in the work of Anselm of Canterbury and John Chrysostom. This raises a few key questions. If guilt is an evolutionary trait created to build reputation and relationship, how does this mesh with some theological approaches to solutions for guilt? To be more precise, guilt possibly evolved to create a motivation for beneficial communal actions, and necessitates belief in the authority of the rules that one breaks to induce it. That said, does religion play a role in awareness of one's guilt, while also providing a solution to that guilt? The possibilities are explored in this article as they relate to issues of repentance, atonement, and prayer.     

Double trouble: restrained eaters do not eat less and feel worse

Objective: While high levels of dietary restraint do not appear to reflect actual caloric restraint, it has been found to be a risk factor for a wide array of maladaptive eating patterns. These findings raise the question what, if not caloric restriction, dietary restraint entails. We propose that the very finding that restrained eaters do not eat less than they intend to do can provide an answer. Based on this disparity between the intention to restrain oneself and actual behaviour, we therefore hypothesised that high levels of restraint are associated with eating-related guilt.

Method: Three studies (N?=?148) using unobtrusive measures of food intake; different restraint scales; and different measures of guilt tested whether restraint is related to eating-related guilt.

Results: Results indicated that restraint was not associated with food intake, but instead was associated with increased levels of guilt after eating. Guilt was explicitly related to food intake. Moreover, the observed guilt could not be attributed to a general increase in negative affect.

Conclusion: The results of these studies suggest that restraint is not an indicator of actual restricted food intake, but rather a reflection concerns about food and eating manifested in eating-related guilt.     

Individual and institutional defences against primitive anxieties: Counselling in prison

Abstract

This paper describes a counsellor's attempts to understand the unconscious dynamics affecting the process of counselling women in prison. The social system of the prison serves to defend both prisoners and officers against powerful anxieties about the potential for sadistic attack originating from primitive states of mind, that is persecution, helplessness and destructiveness. The implications of the rigid means of defence are considered, and die role of unconscious guilt motivating the need for external punishment is briefly explored. Emphasis is placed on the role of splitting and projection in the management of potentially overwhelming feelings of guilt, and fear of punishment. The author develops the premise that there is in effect an institutional requirement that prisoners remain in the paranoid-schizoid position because of the feared consequences were they to experience depressive anxieties.     

Step into liquid: Rites,transcendence and transgression in the modern construction of the social sacred

This essay looks at the construction and transformation of the notion of sacred space in the twentieth century. The notions of transgression and lived moments (or everyday rites), as put forth by numerous writers and architects, are examined as an alternative vision of the sacred and spatial ontology that relies upon material conditions and relations as its source. In particular, it focuses on the emergence of this social spatial category through the work of the Collège de Sociologie a group of ethnologists, philosophers, writers and artists (Georges Bataille was a founder) who convened bi-weekly at a Paris café between 1937 and 1939 in the hope of constructing a sacred sociology. This group's activity provides the groundwork for understanding how the social sacred emerges as a category of spatial practice in the late twentieth century, and how the categories of events and rites are explored by the youthful avant-garde in architecture that emerge from the 1960s. In particular, the architect Bernard Tschumi's writings on transgression and event provide a direct link to the sacred sociology of the Collège as he is a close reader of Bataille's, and the work of the European radical avant-garde in architecture from the late 1960s and early 1970s helps to elucidate how the Collegians call for a sacred sociology is manifest in what I call the sacred social. I proposes this new category of the ‘social sacred’ to explain a spatial category which emerges in the twentieth century, and which we can use to understand how space, architecture, and urbanism help to define and engender this new sacred category.     

Understanding of moral emotions and social exclusion in pre-schoolers and third graders

Abstract

This study examined whether children use information about moral emotions when judging peer exclusion. Japanese pre-schoolers and third graders (N = 110) listened to stories featuring characters who felt happy or sad after engaging in immoral behaviour or avoiding immoral behaviour (pushing a child off a swing and stealing another child’s doughnuts). In study 1, participants judged the extent to which characters who felt happiness, guilt, and pride would be socially excluded. In study 2, participants judged whether characters who felt guilt, no guilt, pride, and no pride would be socially excluded. Participants believed that characters would be socially excluded based on moral emotions. Characters who did not feel guilt or pride were excluded more frequently relative to those who did; however, children found it easier to judge exclusion based on guilt rather than pride, especially in the case of pre-schoolers. Moreover, pre-schoolers had difficulty explaining their reasoning.     

CONSIDERATIONS ON DEPRESSIVE CONFLICT AND ITS DIFFERENT LEVELS OF INTENSITY: IMPLICATIONS FOR TECHNIQUE

This article considers the problem of depressive conflict (DC) and the difficulties that arise in integrating aggression towards the object of libidinal cathexis. This conflict results, in particular, from the destructive omnipotence that infantile fantasies attribute to the aggression. In order to better clarify Klein's very broad concept of the depressive position, three levels of severity of depressive conflict are proposed, depending on the type of fantasies concerning the loss of the object that predominate in the individual. These are: fantasies of catastrophic and irreparable destruction of the object ('parapsychotic' DC); fantasies of death and serious damage of the object ('para-depressive' DC); and fantasies of rejection and loss of the love of the object ('para-neurotic' DC). Having looked at these theoretical hypotheses, their implications for technique will then be considered, particularly the importance of focusing the interpretation on guilt feelings rather than on drives in the transferential relationship. A clinical example drawn from the work of Klein and a clinical vignette of a particularly difficult analysis illustrate this technical hypothesis.     

Loving the One You Hurt: Positive Effects of Recounting a Transgression against an Intimate Partner

Intimate partners described a past transgression in which one of them had been a victim and the other a perpetrator and then evaluated each other and their relationship. Participants had been randomly assigned to the perpetrator or victim role. Perpetrators described their actions as more justifiable, perceived greater improvement since the transgression, and were more optimistic about the future of their relationship than were their victims or control participants. The results support the authors' contention that temporal appraisals are an important mechanism enabling people to maintain positive images of themselves and their relationships.