Shaming Systems

• Reintegrative shaming praised by Rich Kuyper, 1/30/97
  • The Purpose Of This Forum by Don Nathanson, 1/30/97
    • Shame and Systems Thinking in Criminal Justice and Mental Health *Systems* by c.h., 1/30/97
      
      

Hi Chauncey! I thought your publisher was going to send me a copy of the book so I could have it reviewed for The Bulletin of the Tomkins Institute." We look forward to reading it.

The chapter to which you refer is "Shaming Systems in Couples, Families, and Institutions" in my edited book "The Many Faces of Shame," Guilford, 1987, and still in print (praise the lord.) Incidentally, one of the worst places that shaming is used routinely with slim justification is in the prison system, where nearly everybody associated with the system is proud to shame inmates. As if it were not enough to be imprisoned, the guards and other members of the system take it upon themselves to humiliate everybody possible in every way. Remember that prisoners have to eliminate in full view of everybody else, are stripped of every vestige of dignity, etc. This is one of the reasons prison is so horrible an experience---prisoners have few ways of reducing their own rising tide of shame other than to humiliate (by using the attack other pole of the compass) each other and making the experience worse for the next guy. I suspect this is one of the reasons prison is not a very good way of stopping people from committing further crimes when they get out. They have been so much further isolated from society by the shame experience that they have no real connection to the world to which they return.

Your focus on shame in the mental health system is equally important, for therapists who know little or nothing about their own shame are doomed to replicate it in others who therefore remain isolated and unable to develop intimacy or even work well with others. And you are quite right that we are at the mercy of our supervisors, who, rather than teach us how to be better at our craft, often leave us so humiliated that all we can do to remediate or reduce our own pain is humiliate a patient.

Now do I get a review copy of the book?

• Thank You for the Response on Systems. Work Abuse Book Is at the Printers by c.h., 1/31/97