Primary and secondary sources of shame affect

• Welcome to the BOL Forum on Shame and Affect Theory by John Grohol, 2/10/96
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    • response to aad/adhd and shame by mike fabiani, 10/27/98
      
      

There is no question that the interactions you describe involve lots of shame, and that these experiences have a profound influence on the life of a growing child. Nevertheless, we consider this as secondary shame, shame triggered in response to experiences produced by what I have described as primary shame. Tomkins defined the affects as part of a system that controls and regulates all attention; for one who understands the innate affects, everything that has to do with attention must have something to do with one or more affects. I suspect that the basic lesion in ADD/ADHD involves the maintenance of the innate affect that covers the range from mild interest through wild excitement (formally labeled interest-excitement). Any impediment to the expression of positive affect triggers shame affect, which is an amplified analogue of the impediment. In my book Shame and Pride, I described the Compass of Shame, four patterns of reaction to shame affect. I know of no symptom of ADD/ADHD that does not fit into the Compass of Shame.

So although we agree that a great deal of the life experience of a child with this syndrome has to do with secondary shame, I would respectfully ask you to study some of our work on the logic of the affect system for another level of explanation of ADD/ADHD.

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