How Shame Therapy Can Unmask Issues Surrounding Self-Esteem

In every episode of the classic cartoon Scooby-Doo, there is a supernatural monster that commits a crime and causes havoc in unsuspecting communities. A gang of young characters must follow the clues to solve these mysteries. They always end up exposing the villain to be an ordinary person in an elaborate costume. Similarly, shame therapy can expose the beliefs behind and beneath some of your greatest struggles and character flaws, if you are brave enough to allow it to do so.

Shame is one of the most complex emotions a person can feel, and it most often begins in childhood. No child can fully understand or process their emotions, even when they are pleasant, much less when they are attached to trauma, neglect, or abuse. People learn from a young age to push shame deep below the surface, out of sight, so that it won’t affect them.

Unfortunately, shame affects you potentially more than any other emotion, even when hidden behind a mask. It is only with shame therapy that you can begin to follow the clues that will eventually result in you unmasking and apprehending shame in your life.

Cracked Foundations

To use another metaphor, sometimes shame is like a seemingly harmless crack that appears in the walls of a building, spreading slowly across the entire wall over time. What might seem like a superficial problem that is easily covered with plaster and paint often tells of a more serious issue deep below the ground.

The appearance of a crack in the walls shows that the foundations have begun to shift or sink, potentially compromising the structural integrity of the entire building and signaling danger to its occupants. Similarly, a person’s behavior can show that they have an issue with their foundational self-beliefs and that their behaviors may be rooted in shame.

This is apparent in men who become violently angry at others for seemingly no reason. They move around life as balls of pent-up aggression and hostility, attacking anyone who dares challenge their identity or values. Like the crack that forms on the wall, their attitude and behavior suggest that they have some serious structural damage at the foundation of their identity.

Shame therapy might expose that they feel inferior because of an aspect of their personality that they feel helpless to resolve, like their height, weight, stature, or masculinity. These core components of their self-worth are so shrouded by guilt, shame, and fear that they default to displays of aggression and intimidation, rather than begin the difficult work of processing their damaged emotions.

How Shame Therapy Works

Shame therapy takes you back to your foundational experiences, to the times when you first felt cast aside, rejected, overlooked, bullied, or abused. These were the moments when your childlike mind could not understand why you were being treated a certain way and defaulted to taking the blame for the injustice.

You told yourself, maybe not with words but with beliefs, that you deserved the beating, that it was your fault the once-trusted adult did that to you, or that you were ignored all day by the parents who could do no wrong in your eyes. As a child, you were surviving.

There was no way you could understand any of these events, so you tried your best to forget them. Over time, their memory got buried underground, where you thought it would eventually be forgotten for good. What remained, however, was the narrative surrounding each of these moments. Kids might not be able to process complex emotions, but they do know how to tell a story. The stories you told yourself about the things you went through became foundational to your identity, and as foundational as the memories you buried. Shame therapy attempts to uncover and expose as many of these beliefs and stories as possible, to confront them, and to contradict them.

For example, you might have been punished by your parents when you were a child for being lazy. In a shame therapy session, you may relive that exact moment with your therapist and uncover the emotions behind the memory, even though they were buried because they were difficult to deal with. Now, in a safe place as an adult with a trusted friend, you can look at that memory again, confront it, and contradict it.

You might remember your father beating you because you hadn’t done your homework. He called you lazy, and you have had that memory in your head every time you relaxed or did not complete a task. Not only do you remember the words your father used in that moment, but you remember the fear you felt, the surprise at your father’s sudden aggression, and most of all, the guilt and shame you felt. Lazy became an identity marker for you after that because you believed what your dad told you, because, in your young eyes, he could not lie.

In shame therapy, you will be asked to think of all the times you were not lazy. You will recall each achievement, even if there are few. You will be asked if you think of other people as lazy when you see them resting, or if you would beat your own child for not finishing their homework. The likely answer is that no, you don’t think of other people as lazy, and you wouldn’t ever beat your child. Simply admitting this is a confrontation with a shame-rooted belief that has been affecting you your entire life.

By reliving painful memories like this, you are waking them and bringing them to the surface, where you can properly address them. Though they might cause you pain to remember them, or make you wince with embarrassment, those emotions begin to dissolve as you expose them to logic, truth, and self-kindness.

Sometimes your therapist will ask you to remember a powerful, emotional memory that contradicts the shameful one, such as a time when you were praised, celebrated, and felt loved. If the fruit of shame is low self-esteem, then the opposite of shame is self-kindness and self-acceptance.

A Safe Place

Everyone has unconscious beliefs about themselves and others that they have carried from childhood, sometimes into old age. You might not know that you have these beliefs, where they came from, or just how incorrect they may be. These are things that get exposed in shame therapy.

Somewhere in your youth, you heard something about yourself, you believed it, and you internalized it. It sank down to become a stone in the foundation of your identity. Now it lies there hidden, but an essential aspect of your identity and worldview.

Now you must learn that it is safe to disagree with these things, even if they have been a crucial part of how you understand the world. Sometimes in shame therapy, you will be guided through remembering a particular shameful memory, and your therapist will ask you to imagine having a friend there with you in that moment. Instantly, the idea of having a loved one there with you in that moment may flood you with warmth and a feeling of safety.

You will be asked to imagine your friend’s response to the situation, or what they would do to protect you. Ultimately, you will feel safe remembering that event because now you have attached that memory to someone who loves you, accepts you, and would protect you if necessary.

Shame is a complex emotion to process and a powerful emotion to harbor, but it is life-changing to overcome. There is no memory too deeply rooted or experience too traumatic to heal. You are not forever defined by the words someone spoke to you decades ago. When your tormentor is unmasked, you will find that you were an equal match for him the entire time.

You can find a counselor to process past trauma and shame with, if that is something you would like to do. You may consult the online catalog of counselors to find someone to meet with. The reception team can also help you if you would prefer. Contact the office today to learn more about how a therapist can help you overcome shame.