Chronic shame is painful, corrosive, and elusive. It resists self-help and undermines even intensive psychoanalysis. Patricia A. DeYoung’s cutting-edge book gives chronic shame the serious attention it deserves, integrating new brain science with an inclusive tradition of relational psychotherapy. She looks behind the myriad symptoms of shame to its relational essence. As DeYoung describes how chronic shame is wired into the brain and developed in personality, she clarifies complex concepts and makes them available for everyday therapy practice. Grounded in clinical experience and alive with case examples, Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame is highly readable and immediately helpful. Patricia A. DeYoung’s clear, engaging writing helps readers recognize the presence of shame in the therapy room, think through its origins and effects in their clients’ lives, and decide how best to work with those clients. Therapists will find that Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame enhances the scope of their practice and efficacy with this client group, which comprises a large part of most therapy practices. Challenging, enlightening, and nourishing, this book belongs in the library of every shame-aware therapist.

A book for psychotherapists and their clients - and for anyone who wants to make the journey from shame to unshame. Carolyn Spring, author of 'Recovery is my best revenge: my experience of trauma, abuse and dissociative identity disorder', documents in this, her second book, her journey through psychotherapy to heal and resolve trauma-based shame, which had resulted in a catastrophic mental breakdown in her early thirties and an eventual diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder (DID). She then embarked on a nearly ten year journey of psychotherapy through which she came to realise that shame had actually saved her life. However, the cost to this protective function is a life lived dissociated from feelings of joy, connection, love and belonging. This book explores Carolyn's pathway towards 'Unshame'. Suitable for both professionals and survivors alike, it is a fascinating insight into that most private and mysterious of places - the therapy room, and the mind. About the author Carolyn Spring helps people recover from trauma and to reverse adversity. She is author of numerous books and articles and has delivered extensive training throughout the UK for both dissociative survivors and professionals working with them. She set up PODS (Positive Outcomes for Dissociative Survivors) in 2010 to promote recovery from dissociative disorders. She now works more widely in the field of mental health and adversity and combines a wealth of personal experience with research in her writing and training, bringing a rare positivity and the belief that no matter what people have experienced, recovery is possible. For more information go to www.carolynspring.com.

Counselling Skills for Working with Shame helps professionals to understand and identify shame and to build shame resilience in both the client and themselves. Shame is ubiquitous in counselling where there is an increased vulnerability and risk of exposure to shame. While many clients experience feelings of shame, it is often overlooked in the therapeutic process and as a result can be left untreated. It is particularly pertinent when working with clients who have experienced trauma, domestic or complex abuse, or who struggle with addiction, compulsion and sexual behaviours. Written in an accessible style, this is a hands-on, skills-based guide which helps practitioners to identify what elicits, evokes or triggers shame. It gives a general introduction to the nature of shame in both client and counsellor and how these become entwined in the therapeutic relationship. It focuses on increasing awareness of shame and how to release it in order to build shame resilience. With points for reflection, helpful exercises, top tips, reminders and suggestions for how to work with clients, this is a highly practical guide for counsellors, therapists, mental health practitioners, nurses, social workers, educators, human resources, trainee counsellors and students.

Letting Go of Shame: Understanding How Shame Affects Your Life helps to explain the emotion of shame and its impact on our self-image and relationships. As we identify shame and use recovery skills to work through it, the authors offer us a way that we can personalize a plan of action to help build our self-esteem, and they suggest exercises to help us identify our feelings of shame.

This classic book, written 17 years ago but still selling more than 13,000 copies every year, has been completely updated and expanded by the author. "I used to drink," writes John Bradshaw,"to solve the problems caused by drinking. The more I drank to relieve my shame-based loneliness and hurt, the more I felt ashamed." Shame is the motivator behind our toxic behaviors: the compulsion, co-dependency, addiction and drive to superachieve that breaks down the family and destroys personal lives. This book has helped millions identify their personal shame, understand the underlying reasons for it, address these root causes and release themselves from the shame that binds them to their past failures.

This book discusses the pivotal role of shame in a wide range of mental disorders and as a driving force in societal polarization and escalating conflicts between nations and population groups. Exploring the phenomenology of one of the most vulnerable and painful of human emotions, shame, Jørgensen dives deep into its many facets and the ways in which it manifests in mental illnesses and everyday life. Delving into an in-depth discussion of the differentiation between the moral and ethical feelings of guilt and shame, he presses the need to distinguish between constructive and destructive feelings of shame. He examines how shame permeates societal and cultural expectations, on both individual and collective levels. Solution-centric in its approach, the author not only discusses the destructive feelings of shame particularly common among individuals with more severe mental disorders, but also offers specific advice to therapists on how to deal with it. The book will be an essential read for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, philosophers, and anyone wanting to understand the power of shame in our lives.

Excessive shame can be associated with poor psychological adjustment, interpersonal difficulties, and overall poor life functioning. Consequently, shame is prevalent among individuals undergoing psychotherapy. Yet, there is limited guidance for clinicians trying to help their clients deal with shame-related concerns. This book explores the manifestations of shame and presents several approaches for treatment. It brings together the insights of master clinicians from different theoretical and practice orientations, such as psychodynamics, object relations, emotion-focused therapy, functional analysis, group therapy, family therapy, and couples therapy. The chapters address all aspects of shame, including how it develops, how it relates to psychological difficulties, how to recognize it, and how to help clients resolve it. Strategies for dealing with therapist shame are also provided, since therapist shame can be triggered during sessions and can complicate the therapeutic alliance. With rich, detailed case studies in almost every chapter, this book will be a practical resource for clinicians working with a broad range of populations and clinical problems.

This volume reports on the growing body of knowledge on shame and guilt, integrating findings from the authors' original research program with other data emerging from social, clinical, personality, and developmental psychology. Evidence is presented to demonstrate that these universally experienced affective phenomena have significant implications for many aspects of human functioning, with particular relevance for interpersonal relationships. --From publisher's description.

A guide for dealing with the conditions that cause shame; written primarily for psychotherapists. -- Dust jacket.