Self and Shame: A Gestalt Approach

Abstract

Shame, both a universal human feeling and also one of the most potentially disorganizing of all affect experiences, has been relatively neglected in clinical writing until recent years and even today remains in unclear focus in much of our dominant clinical tradition and thinking about self- models. Both this neglect and this lack of focus are much clarified by a Gestalt model Of self-experience and self-process, a perspective which raises paradigmatic questions for our thinking about human nature and relational process. Drawing on the tradition of affect theory and Goodman's radical revision of traditional self-theory, this article examines the terms of the underlying assumptions about self and relationship that have informed our traditional clinical models and offers a new model of shame, support, and their dynamic interplay in self-process and self-integration. Shame then emerges as a key signal affect in a field model of self, much as anxiety stood in this role in an older, individualist model. Implications for clinical practice are then with an examination of five thematic clusters Of possible therapeutic interventions, aimed at bringing shame issues to light in the therapeutic relationship itself, and offering the promise of transforming self-inhibition and disorganization into new self-development and growth.

Drawing on the tradition of affect theory and Goodman's radical revision of traditional self-theory, this article examines the terms of the underlying assumptions about self and relationship that have informed our traditional clinical models and offers a new model of shame, support, and their dynamic interplay in self-process and self-integration.