Propose We Move Workplace Issues Out of This Forum

• Reintegrative shaming praised by Rich Kuyper, 1/30/97
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    • The Genesis? by Lee D. Downs, D.Min., 2/24/97
      
      

Hello Lee. Tompkins' affect theory, as (I understand it to be) interpreted by Gershen Kaufman, Don Nathanson and others gives an entirely different, penetrating and much more useful spin on shame and guilt (for example, sees guilt as a subset of shame) than you and I have been used to.

The Shame/Affect forum is a remarkable opportunity to learn this entirely new language that seems at times to oppose the old definitions, but to good purpose. I may have made a mistake introducing the idea of systems into this forum, especially if it sidetracks the main purpose, enhancing people's knowledge of the language of affect.

I simply wanted the risk-takers who are perfecting this language to know they are in effect "change agents," and that whenever they "go back home" and attempt to use Tompkins' language they can benefit by shifting into "intervention awareness" so as to be able to handle the inevitable "push back" responses of people in the system who will shame them to enforce the old norms (the old language) in order to keep the system homeostatic. Clever, considered application of "intervention awareness" can actually help bring the new language into old systems (like our own profession!) that have mostly impenetrable boundaries.

Lee, your (subtext?) question about how do you tell if a person is "work abused" or not is an opportunity to illustrate how the new language of shame is useful. Don Nathanson in this forum described his personal image of shame as a negative beam from a flashlight. Wherever it "anti-shines" everything withers and dies....that is, people can't reach joy and exhilaration where there is shame.

Don's image is extremely useful for me to understand why people feel abused at work. Research by myself and others (Rensis Likert's at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research being the most scientific) says that 95% of workplaces are authoritarian. This means these systems are bathed not just in a narrow (flashlight sized) anti-beam, but an all pervading negative anti-light (airfield beacon?) that destroys the spirit of everyone---everyone is walking around shamed and overly susceptible to shame.

I have lived in this anti-beam for more than twenty years as an engineer in a major oil company and suffered physical illness. In this all encompassing anti-beam people don't dare say the truth, they feel unheard, they act mechanically....and the negative anti-glow is literally causing more and more mental and physical illness. Beginning at age 50 I became a licensed family therapist and got an OD degree to work on this problem. I am pretty rabid about it (obviously).

More specific to your (subtext?) question, Lee. Naturally, anyone who has been traumatized in childhood and enters this negative glow (negative norm system) is going to be reinjured and likely act out. It would be much too easy and a gross mistake, in my view, to say that this person was not work abused. The same person entering a positive glow (collaborative, participative, non-authoritarian system), may have no problem and may even be assisted to heal. I have seen this happen, but rarely because there are too few positive norm systems.

A lot of negative norm systems---with the help of people from our own profession--- are expert in imaging the latest fad (diversity, total quality, organization learning, etc.) that pretends collaboration and health, but by actual experience of employees, remains authoritarian, entrenched and fundamentally unchallenged (system homeostasis reigns). Why this happens should be on our topic list in the general discussion forum where we are attempting to talk about EAP. I am feeling very uneasy (some shame is creeping in) taking up any further space in this forum on the topic of the workplace. Let's go to the general discussion forum. Thank you for reading this lengthy apology! Chauncey Hare. E-mail: workfamily@workmail.com

• No, Chauncey, Don't Go!! by Don Nathanson, 2/26/97