ana
31-07-16, 15:52
Hello everyone,
The following is a translation of a chapter from a book titled Emotion: Psychotherapy and the Understanding of Emotion by Dr. Zoran Milivojević.
A person very dear to me has found the extract quite useful and informative, so I'm hoping that some of you might do the same. It is worth mentioning that the translation is not a word-for-word one as I have summarised it myself, cutting out certain parts, but in case anyone is interested in finding out more, please feel free to contact me. I do not own the rights to anything; I just thought I'd share this information with the NMP community. :)
All credit goes to Dr. Milivojević.
--------
'Self-contempt and the feeling of inferiority are not a standard component to one's emotional make-up; there must be a prerequisite to them - an authority figure that was threatening to or has rejected and abandoned the subject in childhood. Usually, this is done by one or both parents who made the subject feel like they had to earn their love (or in order to be loved, they had to be something other than what they are to live up to the parents' expectations) and was left feeling not good enough, unworthy of love. It is a combination of love and loathing.
'I don't love and respect you, but if you are like this and if you do this and that, I will love you, and I will respect you.'
It is important to note that this is not done by parents on purpose, as such parents have the child's best interest at heart, but the parents who behave in this manner will make the child feel like they need to change in order for their love to be earned. This will, in turn, lead to the person to internalise the parents' attitude and direct it towards one's own person: they will only respect themselves if they have lived up to a certain standard and have accomplished something great. If not, they will loathe themselves.
The child identifies themselves with the authority figure, thus absorbing their thoughts and opinions; the child treats himself the way he would be treated by his parents. By doing this, the child is capable of creating new situations for himself in which he will be made to feel loathed and worthless.
The mechanism of projection is employed in cases such as these as the person attributes his own thoughts about himself to the other person, and believes they think about him the same as he thinks about himself.
Self-loathing is the closest in its structure to depression, the 'pity of the self-loathers'. Because of an event, or an experience, the person 'understands' that they are worthless and have no value, and so they feel sorry for themselves. In other words, when a personal finally realises that they will never accomplish what they want to accomplish for their life to have meaning, and that the system that's used to feel worthy and loved no longer works, something that the person has been trying to get away from up to that point gets activated: self-loathing and an extreme sense of worthlessness, which manifest themselves as depression.
Guilt:
A person who sees themselves as essentially good will punish themselves so that they don't repeat the behaviour they deem unacceptable. A person with low self-value won't react with anger or guilt to a behaviour of theirs that's unacceptable. Instead, the feelings of self-loathing are triggered as the person has got 'proof' that they are as worthless and as bad as they believe themselves to be. They don't punish, but reject themselves.
However, the self-loathing-worthlessness-guilt is always about the being of a person, and not their behaviour.
Shame:
The subject's shame is closely linked to their opinion that, with a behaviour of theirs, they have made themselves socially inadequate and less worthy in the eyes of a person they perceive as an authority figure. On the other hand, self-loathing is linked with a universal context which means that the person is, by default, convinced that they are less worthy regardless of the social setting they are in. Even though pathological shame and pathological self-loathing both refer to the feeling of one's inferiority, pathological self-loathing is a more serious disorder than pathological shame.
Social anxiety:
The subject, through contact with authority figures, individuals, or peers, displays strong feelings of shame and inferiority, and ends up avoiding social situations. In essence, the person feels that, if they're the centre of attention, they will do something wrong and will be 'unmasked', thus revealing to everyone how inadequate they are, which will lead everyone to reject them. In the system of a personality perceived as inferior, there is the facade that the person creates for themselves, and the inferior 'I' which the person perceives as their actual, true 'I'. The person deems themselves inadequate to competently and successfully function in a social context.
SHAME
Shame is a social, or better yet, public emotion, which means that, in order for it to manifest, someone else, a witness, is necessary. The more important it is for the subject to be perceived positively by someone else, the more the person assumes the role of a positive authority figure, the stronger the subject’s desire to be accepted. This ‘witness’ can be real or imaginary, or can be present in subject’s thoughts (for instance: ‘What would dad think if he saw me now?’)
The purpose of shame is to motivationally and emotionally support socialisation. The discomfort the subject feels whilst being ashamed will lead the subject to avoid situations that make them feel ashamed. The feeling of shame is always about the subject’s ego and is, by nature, a self-feeling, even if it is provoked by another person because the limit of the ego extends beyond one’s own person, and onto others. Socially expressed shame is a message to the other person that the subject perceives themselves as socially inadequate. Many people feel that expressing and showing shame equates with weakness, low value or immaturity. This can lead to the development of the same of shame, i.e. metashame.
Cultural and idiosyncratic shame
Seeing as shame is felt when the subjects perceives that they’ve reacted inadequately in a social setting and have not lived up to a personal criteria, we can talk about two different kinds of shame. The first kind is the cultural shame which is defined by the society the subject is a part of. By accepting the society’s norms, the subject socialises and becomes its part. Shame happens when the person feels like they’ve broken one of the society’s rules, and an example of social shame would be the subject getting caught or being seen urinating, defecating, or masturbating in public.
The other kind of shame is the idiosyncratic or atypical shame which is when the subject feels that they aren’t living up to their own standards and fear that others have perceived them as stupid, ugly, uneducated, uncouth, etc. Regardless of whether or not others have made fun of the subject, or gave them negative criticism, the subject will fantasise that they have perceived them in a negative light, and/or have found out what they are ‘really like’. It is because of this that one concludes that at the basis of shame is fear of rejection. In the psychological mechanism of shame, there is the process of projection. Whether the subject is ashamed or not depends not on the actual opinion and reaction of the other person, but on what the subject thinks the other person thinks about them. In other words, the subject projects their own opinion of themselves onto others, and this self-observation and projection originate from the psychological structure of ego-ideal, superego, and ‘critical parent’.
Self-acceptance is a characteristic of an adult, autonomous, and integrated personality. Even though many adults feel shame at least occasionally, ideally speaking, a psychologically mature person loses the ability to be ashamed. Such persons do not question their own value, but instead think ‘I’ve given this other person a reason to think about me that what I’m not’ and ‘I’ve made myself look a fool’ without thinking ‘I am a fool.’
A child has no a priori sense of worth. Instead, their self-perception entirely depends on the perception of others, most notably so, their parents. A child will understand their value if others show them value. Some parents will punish the child in an effort to make them give up on repeating unwanted behaviour by sending the following message to the child: ‘Shame on you. You should be ashamed of yourself!' This type of upbringing is effective short-term but it does not allow the child to differentiate themselves from their behaviour and to proceed on to the next stage of development in which the sense of guilt replaces the sense of shame. The child’s cognitive functions are not sufficiently developed yet (this is between the ages of 3 and 5), so they will perceive frustration and punishment as proof of their worthlessness. Based on the child’s fear of being unloved and abandoned, the criteria for the internalisation of shame gets established.
Shame and inferiority
Whilst with the feeling of shame the feeling of one’s own inadequacy isn’t internalised, but rather fixate on an outside authority for which the subject believes perceives them in a negative light, the feeling of inferiority is in a correlation with an inner, contemptuous authority which is a permanent ‘resident’ of their mental apparatus. Because of this, shame is only felt in those situations in which the subject and the outer authority cross paths, whereas inferiority can be felt at all times, irrespective of the situation or the presence of an actual authority.
If the child is raised in a way that they are made to feel inadequate, they are capable of developing the feelings of inferiority and self-loathing. When such a person feels inferior and loathes oneself, they will most likely suffer disproportionate shame. It is because of this that many authors wrongly pigeonhole self-loathing and inferiority into ‘shame’ or ‘shyness’.
More often than not, the person will externalise their feelings, project them onto others, and will thus start believing that other people have extremely negative opinions about them. Shame based on the feeling of inferiority can be recognised by the person’s inability to accept compliments and/or perceive one’s own value, for they judge that the praise and the honour of being praised and complimented are unwarranted.
Most neurotic disorders in whose basis is the feeling of shame are conventionally categorised as phobias, though their structure is that of obsessive neurosis. A typical example is social phobia for which it is typical for the subject to avoid public performances as other people might form a negative opinion of them, and the subject’s incompetence/stupidity/inadequacy would become apparent. However, the structure of social phobia is the structure of obsessive neurosis: the subject isn’t afraid of other people, but rather of saying or doing something that would provoke an unwanted reaction in others.
Interventions in psychotherapy
Typically, the subject is shown how to disassociate from their behaviour: i.e. to learn the difference between their being and their behaviour as well as to learn the difference between having value and being accepted. After the subject has learnt this, a specific technique can be used to aid treatment. One of the techniques is the so-called ‘shame attack technique’ developed by Ellis. The technique consists of giving the subject the assignment of, for instance, going to the shops with odd socks on, or without wearing any make-up. The purpose of such assignments is twofold: either the subject realises that their ‘inadequacy’ is not perceived by anyone, and there is therefore no purpose in feeling shame, or the others do perceive the inadequacy, but nothing disastrous happens anyway, other than the subject feeling mild to moderate discomfort. The therapist’s job is to make sure that the assignments are neither too easy nor too difficult, and is careful about avoiding the reaction to be too powerful, so as to not expose the subject to public ridicule.'
The following is a translation of a chapter from a book titled Emotion: Psychotherapy and the Understanding of Emotion by Dr. Zoran Milivojević.
A person very dear to me has found the extract quite useful and informative, so I'm hoping that some of you might do the same. It is worth mentioning that the translation is not a word-for-word one as I have summarised it myself, cutting out certain parts, but in case anyone is interested in finding out more, please feel free to contact me. I do not own the rights to anything; I just thought I'd share this information with the NMP community. :)
All credit goes to Dr. Milivojević.
--------
'Self-contempt and the feeling of inferiority are not a standard component to one's emotional make-up; there must be a prerequisite to them - an authority figure that was threatening to or has rejected and abandoned the subject in childhood. Usually, this is done by one or both parents who made the subject feel like they had to earn their love (or in order to be loved, they had to be something other than what they are to live up to the parents' expectations) and was left feeling not good enough, unworthy of love. It is a combination of love and loathing.
'I don't love and respect you, but if you are like this and if you do this and that, I will love you, and I will respect you.'
It is important to note that this is not done by parents on purpose, as such parents have the child's best interest at heart, but the parents who behave in this manner will make the child feel like they need to change in order for their love to be earned. This will, in turn, lead to the person to internalise the parents' attitude and direct it towards one's own person: they will only respect themselves if they have lived up to a certain standard and have accomplished something great. If not, they will loathe themselves.
The child identifies themselves with the authority figure, thus absorbing their thoughts and opinions; the child treats himself the way he would be treated by his parents. By doing this, the child is capable of creating new situations for himself in which he will be made to feel loathed and worthless.
The mechanism of projection is employed in cases such as these as the person attributes his own thoughts about himself to the other person, and believes they think about him the same as he thinks about himself.
Self-loathing is the closest in its structure to depression, the 'pity of the self-loathers'. Because of an event, or an experience, the person 'understands' that they are worthless and have no value, and so they feel sorry for themselves. In other words, when a personal finally realises that they will never accomplish what they want to accomplish for their life to have meaning, and that the system that's used to feel worthy and loved no longer works, something that the person has been trying to get away from up to that point gets activated: self-loathing and an extreme sense of worthlessness, which manifest themselves as depression.
Guilt:
A person who sees themselves as essentially good will punish themselves so that they don't repeat the behaviour they deem unacceptable. A person with low self-value won't react with anger or guilt to a behaviour of theirs that's unacceptable. Instead, the feelings of self-loathing are triggered as the person has got 'proof' that they are as worthless and as bad as they believe themselves to be. They don't punish, but reject themselves.
However, the self-loathing-worthlessness-guilt is always about the being of a person, and not their behaviour.
Shame:
The subject's shame is closely linked to their opinion that, with a behaviour of theirs, they have made themselves socially inadequate and less worthy in the eyes of a person they perceive as an authority figure. On the other hand, self-loathing is linked with a universal context which means that the person is, by default, convinced that they are less worthy regardless of the social setting they are in. Even though pathological shame and pathological self-loathing both refer to the feeling of one's inferiority, pathological self-loathing is a more serious disorder than pathological shame.
Social anxiety:
The subject, through contact with authority figures, individuals, or peers, displays strong feelings of shame and inferiority, and ends up avoiding social situations. In essence, the person feels that, if they're the centre of attention, they will do something wrong and will be 'unmasked', thus revealing to everyone how inadequate they are, which will lead everyone to reject them. In the system of a personality perceived as inferior, there is the facade that the person creates for themselves, and the inferior 'I' which the person perceives as their actual, true 'I'. The person deems themselves inadequate to competently and successfully function in a social context.
SHAME
Shame is a social, or better yet, public emotion, which means that, in order for it to manifest, someone else, a witness, is necessary. The more important it is for the subject to be perceived positively by someone else, the more the person assumes the role of a positive authority figure, the stronger the subject’s desire to be accepted. This ‘witness’ can be real or imaginary, or can be present in subject’s thoughts (for instance: ‘What would dad think if he saw me now?’)
The purpose of shame is to motivationally and emotionally support socialisation. The discomfort the subject feels whilst being ashamed will lead the subject to avoid situations that make them feel ashamed. The feeling of shame is always about the subject’s ego and is, by nature, a self-feeling, even if it is provoked by another person because the limit of the ego extends beyond one’s own person, and onto others. Socially expressed shame is a message to the other person that the subject perceives themselves as socially inadequate. Many people feel that expressing and showing shame equates with weakness, low value or immaturity. This can lead to the development of the same of shame, i.e. metashame.
Cultural and idiosyncratic shame
Seeing as shame is felt when the subjects perceives that they’ve reacted inadequately in a social setting and have not lived up to a personal criteria, we can talk about two different kinds of shame. The first kind is the cultural shame which is defined by the society the subject is a part of. By accepting the society’s norms, the subject socialises and becomes its part. Shame happens when the person feels like they’ve broken one of the society’s rules, and an example of social shame would be the subject getting caught or being seen urinating, defecating, or masturbating in public.
The other kind of shame is the idiosyncratic or atypical shame which is when the subject feels that they aren’t living up to their own standards and fear that others have perceived them as stupid, ugly, uneducated, uncouth, etc. Regardless of whether or not others have made fun of the subject, or gave them negative criticism, the subject will fantasise that they have perceived them in a negative light, and/or have found out what they are ‘really like’. It is because of this that one concludes that at the basis of shame is fear of rejection. In the psychological mechanism of shame, there is the process of projection. Whether the subject is ashamed or not depends not on the actual opinion and reaction of the other person, but on what the subject thinks the other person thinks about them. In other words, the subject projects their own opinion of themselves onto others, and this self-observation and projection originate from the psychological structure of ego-ideal, superego, and ‘critical parent’.
Self-acceptance is a characteristic of an adult, autonomous, and integrated personality. Even though many adults feel shame at least occasionally, ideally speaking, a psychologically mature person loses the ability to be ashamed. Such persons do not question their own value, but instead think ‘I’ve given this other person a reason to think about me that what I’m not’ and ‘I’ve made myself look a fool’ without thinking ‘I am a fool.’
A child has no a priori sense of worth. Instead, their self-perception entirely depends on the perception of others, most notably so, their parents. A child will understand their value if others show them value. Some parents will punish the child in an effort to make them give up on repeating unwanted behaviour by sending the following message to the child: ‘Shame on you. You should be ashamed of yourself!' This type of upbringing is effective short-term but it does not allow the child to differentiate themselves from their behaviour and to proceed on to the next stage of development in which the sense of guilt replaces the sense of shame. The child’s cognitive functions are not sufficiently developed yet (this is between the ages of 3 and 5), so they will perceive frustration and punishment as proof of their worthlessness. Based on the child’s fear of being unloved and abandoned, the criteria for the internalisation of shame gets established.
Shame and inferiority
Whilst with the feeling of shame the feeling of one’s own inadequacy isn’t internalised, but rather fixate on an outside authority for which the subject believes perceives them in a negative light, the feeling of inferiority is in a correlation with an inner, contemptuous authority which is a permanent ‘resident’ of their mental apparatus. Because of this, shame is only felt in those situations in which the subject and the outer authority cross paths, whereas inferiority can be felt at all times, irrespective of the situation or the presence of an actual authority.
If the child is raised in a way that they are made to feel inadequate, they are capable of developing the feelings of inferiority and self-loathing. When such a person feels inferior and loathes oneself, they will most likely suffer disproportionate shame. It is because of this that many authors wrongly pigeonhole self-loathing and inferiority into ‘shame’ or ‘shyness’.
More often than not, the person will externalise their feelings, project them onto others, and will thus start believing that other people have extremely negative opinions about them. Shame based on the feeling of inferiority can be recognised by the person’s inability to accept compliments and/or perceive one’s own value, for they judge that the praise and the honour of being praised and complimented are unwarranted.
Most neurotic disorders in whose basis is the feeling of shame are conventionally categorised as phobias, though their structure is that of obsessive neurosis. A typical example is social phobia for which it is typical for the subject to avoid public performances as other people might form a negative opinion of them, and the subject’s incompetence/stupidity/inadequacy would become apparent. However, the structure of social phobia is the structure of obsessive neurosis: the subject isn’t afraid of other people, but rather of saying or doing something that would provoke an unwanted reaction in others.
Interventions in psychotherapy
Typically, the subject is shown how to disassociate from their behaviour: i.e. to learn the difference between their being and their behaviour as well as to learn the difference between having value and being accepted. After the subject has learnt this, a specific technique can be used to aid treatment. One of the techniques is the so-called ‘shame attack technique’ developed by Ellis. The technique consists of giving the subject the assignment of, for instance, going to the shops with odd socks on, or without wearing any make-up. The purpose of such assignments is twofold: either the subject realises that their ‘inadequacy’ is not perceived by anyone, and there is therefore no purpose in feeling shame, or the others do perceive the inadequacy, but nothing disastrous happens anyway, other than the subject feeling mild to moderate discomfort. The therapist’s job is to make sure that the assignments are neither too easy nor too difficult, and is careful about avoiding the reaction to be too powerful, so as to not expose the subject to public ridicule.'