Interview with Sally R. Munt Munt, Sally R.; Merrick, Allison; Goldin, Daniel
Psychoanalytic inquiry,
04/02/2024, Volume:
44, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Sally R. Munt is best known for her work on shame, especially her book Queer Attachments: The Cultural Politics of Shame, published in 2007. Noticing that shame is a particularly relational affect ...Munt's work focuses in on and explores the politics of shame. What happens when we refuse to acknowledge shame's role in the production and creation of political subjects? Can bypassed shame be found at the root of fascist political movements? Might shame be used as a tool to further emancipatory political projects? Given our historical moment, these questions feel especially timely and their exploration existentially essential. That is what is why we are delighted that Sally Munt agreed to a dialogue in the form of an interview with the editors of this issue, Daniel Goldin and Allison Merrick. What follows is their e-mail exchanges.
This paper explores the thesis that individual, collective and iatrogenic shame might be the unacknowledged elephant in the room in couples therapy. A number of examples are cited of couples ...treatment where shame is either ignored or unintentionally encouraged. Reference is made to the author's earlier work (Shaddock, 1998, 2000) that cites shame, along with fears of abandonment and intrusion, as a powerful unconscious organizer of relationships. A discussion of the nonverbal origins of shame cites a consensus that it originates in the toddler phase, particularly in regards to derailments in the interpersonal regulation of states of heightened arousal. Attention is paid to the way couples' nonverbal communication can repeat or restimulate these mirroring failures. The paper then turns to an exploration of shame that is iatrogenic in the couples treatment process, in which telling or emphasizing the right way to relate or communicate ignores the shame inducing message that the couple is doing things the wrong way. Another source of shame in the treatment comes from the therapist adopting an expert or all-knowing attitude. The paper concludes with a case example of a couple whose conflict centered around how the wife refused to wear clothes that exposed her body. The key to the treatment was understanding the husband's shame as well as the wife's.
Virginia Burrus explores one of the strongest and most disturbing aspects of the Christian tradition, its excessive preoccupation with shame. While Christianity has frequently been implicated in the ...conversion of ancient Mediterranean cultures from shame- to guilt-based, and thus in the emergence of the modern West's emphasis on guilt, Burrus seeks to recuperate the importance of shame for Christian culture. Focusing on late antiquity, she explores a range of fascinating phenomena, from the flamboyant performances of martyrs to the imagined abjection of Christ, from the self-humiliating disciplines of ascetics to the intimate disclosures of Augustine. Burrus argues that Christianity innovated less by replacing shame with guilt than by embracing shame. Indeed, the ancient Christians sacrificed honor but laid claim to their own shame with great energy, at once intensifying and transforming it. Public spectacles of martyrdom became the most visible means through which vulnerability to shame was converted into a defiant witness of identity; this was also where the sacrificial death of the self exemplified by Christ's crucifixion was most explicitly appropriated by his followers. Shame showed a more private face as well, as Burrus demonstrates. The ambivalent lure of fleshly corruptibility was explored in the theological imaginary of incarnational Christology. It was further embodied in the transgressive disciplines of saints who plumbed the depths of humiliation. Eventually, with the advent of literary and monastic confessional practices, the shame of sin's inexhaustibility made itself heard in the revelations of testimonial discourse. In conversation with an eclectic constellation of theorists, Burrus interweaves her historical argument with theological, psychological, and ethical reflections. She proposes, finally, that early Christian texts may have much to teach us about the secrets of shame that lie at the heart of our capacity for humility, courage, and transformative love.
Objective
Shame is a transdiagnostic emotion of strong clinical and research interest. Yet, there is a lack of consensus on the definition and varying methods employed across self‐report measures, ...potentially affecting our ability to accurately study shame and examine whether clinical interventions to alter shame are effective. This paper offers a systematic review of self‐report measures of generalized shame.
Methods
PubMed, PsycInfo, and Web of Science were searched. Studies were included when they were available in English and the primary aim was to evaluate measurement properties of scales or subscales designed to measure generalized shame in adults.
Results
Thirty‐six papers examining 19 scales were identified, with measures of trait shame more common than state shame. Construct validity, internal consistency, and structural validity were relative strengths. Development and content validity studies were lacking and suffered from low methodological quality.
Conclusions
All measures evaluated needed additional research to meet criteria for recommended use.
In this book, first published in 2000, Stephen Pattison considers the nature of shame as it is discussed in the diverse discourses of literature, psychology, psychoanalysis, philosophy, history and ...sociology and concludes that 'shame' is not a single unitary phenomenon, but rather a set of separable but related understandings in different discourses. Situating chronic shame primarily within the metaphorical ecology of defilement, pollution and toxic unwantedness, Pattison goes on to examine the causes and effects of shame. He then considers the way in which Christianity has responded to and used shame. Psychologists, philosophers, theologians and therapists will find this a fascinating source of insight, and it will be of particular use to pastoral workers and those concerned with religion and mental health.
The Origin of Shame in Early Life Goldin, Daniel; S. Posner, Daniel
Psychoanalytic inquiry,
04/02/2024, Volume:
44, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Shame is the emotion that mediates the developing infant's sense of synchrony with their social world. Between the ages of 1 and 2, the social world of infancy is characterized by here-and-now ...enactive rhythms with others, and shame comes about through ruptures in those present moment interactions. Between the ages of 3 and 5, with increasing narrative fluency through conversations, the toddler develops an ability to reflect on past actions in the company of others. They now can experience shame for actions they performed (or failed to perform) in the past that didn't live up to the expectations of a familial community of minds. We understand both the purely enactive and the reflective versions of shame as operating on a continuum. On one end, shame functions as a signal to repair misalliances. On the other, shame can become a totalizing experience of isolation and self-consciousness. We use these ideas to explore, in novel ways, certain psychoanalytic phenomena such as dissociation, narcissism, PTSD and body-dysmorphia.
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