The good part of shame

• Therapeutic Interventions with Shame by Ed Schmookler, PhD., 5/6/96
  • Sophisticated question by Don Nathanson, 5/7/96
    • Therapeutic Intereventions with Shame, Experienced by Ed Schmookler, PhD., 5/8/96
      
      

You sure do move quickly! Thanks for the kind words about our work, and my compliments on the well thought out intervention you describe. Lauren Abramson, Ph.D., an affect theory researcher now at Johns Hopkins, has often commented that shame affect, despite the label of a toxic state given it irresponsibly by Bradshaw, can actually be a benign and friendly affect because right behind it lurk the two positive affects. If the impediment can be undone, the good stuff returns.

Once again, the evolved function of all affect is to call attention to whatever has triggered it. Once we admit and accept the nature of the now amplified trigger, the intensity of the affect decreases markedly and we become available for the next stimulus and its triggered affect. Your case demonstrates this beautifully. Again, thanks.

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