Coping with Shame

Learning How the Emotion of Shame Manifests Itself

A common topic I have been having in DBT group with pretty much ALL my groups is the emotion of shame. As my clients grow in emotional health, they get better at labeling their emotions and thoughts. It is much more frequent to and easier to label more common emotions such as: depression, anger, anxiety, and fear. However, shame is more complicated. It's not an emotion people are used to to talking about. But it is often the root of the other emotions, such as anxiety and depression. Therefore, it is a really important emotion to understand and learn to manage.

I am seeing so many of my clients grow in their awareness of shame, how it manifests itself and what is sounds like in their thought lives. I am often the one giving feedback and pointing it out at the beginning, but after a while, they see it in themselves.

Common thoughts associated with shame include:

--"I am unloveable." --"I am not enough."

--"I am worthless."

--"Something is wrong with me."

--"I don't fit in."

--"I am inferior compared to others."

--"If people saw who I am really am, I would be rejected."

How shame can show up in people's behaviors can be anything from not being vulnerable, avoiding new things where fear of failure is present, withdrawing from others and over-functioning in relationships due to fear of being rejected. These are just several. The real work in therapy is to figure out how and when did the emotion of shame first start to manifest itself, how does it show up in your thinking patterns and beliefs about yourself, and how does it cause problems in your behaviors? There is a high chance the shame has led to self-protective coping mechanisms that you have normalized.

This blog post is just scratching the surface of the topic of the emotion of shame. The process of doing the work in DBT to manage the emotion of shame requires the ability to identify and label the emotion, the thoughts behind it, understand the vulnerability areas to feeling the emotion of shame, and understand how to use skills to manage it cognitively and behaviorally so that it doesn't lead to more problems.

And based on brain science and research, one of the most significant ways to manage the emotion of shame is to "out" ourselves and talk about what we feel ashamed about in front of safe and supportive people. This is one reason why I value group therapy. In my DBT Advanced Groups, group members are with the same 4-5 group members where they know each other's story, the issues they struggle with, and they can talk openly about the emotion of shame and how to fight it together.

How are you doing recognizing how the emotion of shame shows up in your life?

Do you see how the behaviors you engage in to cope with the shame lead to more problems?

Who are the safe people in your life you can talk about these issues with?