Sophisticated question

• Therapeutic Interventions with Shame by Ed Schmookler, PhD., 5/6/96
  
  

Like Jim, I'm fascinated by your question!! A few years ago, when we were beginning to develop the concept of the Compass of Shame, we kept wondering what further to do once we had identified the pole of the compass imvolved in a patient's presentation. But, as Jim indicates, merely to place the patient's experience in the matrix you describe (that action alone) is a powerful therapeutic intervention. One of the basic tennets of affect theory is that an affect is an amplifier of its stimulus situation---it turns the stimulus, however weak, into something that is intense, powerful, and that motivates us to do something about it. If, however, we ignore the amplifying, motivating message provided by the affect system (any one of the 9 affects), the amplification must be increased so that we will attend to the situation that triggered affect in the first place.

In other words, the intensity and discomfort of a negative affect is kept at a minimum by the act of recognition. We teach people the nature of shame affect as an amplification of an impediment to interest-excitement or enjoyment-joy, an impediment that is made into a far more unpleasant impediment because of affective amplification. As they come to understand this, they begin to recognize it everywhere. Furthermore, as they come to understand the range of shame, the implication of the idea that there are four ways we handle shame affect, they see it even more clearly and stop the scripted behavior that gave them even more trouble than the original incident that triggered the physiological affect.

So, you see, the therapeutic sequence you describe is far from primitive or elementary. It represents the highest form of what we have come to do in the treatment of this complex group of unpleasant experiences. Try it out on someone you like and report back to us what happened! And thanks for the carefully thought out question.

• Therapeutic Intereventions with Shame, Experienced by Ed Schmookler, PhD., 5/8/96
  • The good part of shame by Don Nathanson, 5/9/96
  • Bravo, Ed Schmookler! by Steven H. Shmurak, Ph.D., 10/15/97