Background: Eating disorders are commonly occurring illnesses that frequently cause substantial physical, emotional and psychosocial impairments (Fairburn, et al., 2008). The prevalence of this debilitating condition has led to substantial efforts by researchers and clinicians to search for different ways of understanding the illness for the sole purpose of increasing the presently poor treatment outcomes. Existing theoretical and research literature looking at the role of shame and guilt in eating disorders have put forward a convincing assertion that shame and guilt are poignant features in the psychopathology and symptomatology of the condition. However, these reports have not provided in-depth explanation into how people suffering from eating disorders experience shame and guilt and very little qualitative research has been conducted in this area. Likewise, the interwoven relationship and the differences between shame and guilt and their role in eating disorders psychopathology and symptomatology remain unclear. Aims and Method: The present study is an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) that recognises the uniqueness of an individual’s experience of complex phenomenon such as eating disorder. Thus it aims to explore the understanding and sense-making of shame and guilt experiences by listening to the voices of six people who have been diagnosed and treated for eating disorders using semi-structured interviewing method. The study also explores the role of shame and guilt in treatment particularly their implication in the disclosure of information in the course of treatment. Findings and Discussion: The analysis identified five main themes; the intensity of shame and guilt experience AND the pervasiveness of shame and guilt experience, Guilt and shame as integrated into all facets of the ED, Existential questioning of identity, shame and guilt lived out and developed in different context/ Locus of responsibility. Contribution to knowledge: The study provides deeper understanding of participants’ subjective experience of shame and guilt. The study highlights that shame and guilt are experiences that are intertwined with all facets of eating disorders as well as the individual’s identity. Finally, shame and guilt were described as experiences that negatively impacted on treatment process. The implications of this for counseling psychology practice are discussed, and suggestions for future research are made.

This thesis analyses women’s stories and experiences of living in a relationship with domestic violence. The study is done in order to gain a deeper understanding of what the retaining mechanisms are that prevents women from leaving their partner. The research is carried out by the usage of qualitative textual analysis of autobiographical novels. With the support of the theories of shame and the normalization process it is possible to accentuate how women are staying in their relationships because of the mental degradation caused by the man. The retaining mechanisms are numerous and complex and both socio-economic and psychological factors contribute to that women stay in the relationship, which previous research also has concluded. This research concludes that the retaining mechanisms evolve and change throughout the relationship. The women’s reason for staying in the relationship is in the beginning their love for the man but later on in the relationship it evolves further into embracing the reality of the man and making the reasons for the violence legitimate

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the degrees of proneness to the self-conscious emotions of nonruminative guilt, ruminative guilt, and shame and several indices of psychological functioning, including depression, narcissism, anger, dysphoric affect, cooperation, need for affection, and self-inspection, in a college population. Gender differences were also examined. A measure of psychological functioning (the Rorschach) and a measure of guilt- and shame-proneness (the Test of Self-Conscious Affect--Modified) were administered to 91 college students (43 males and 48 females). Females reported higher levels of all three self-conscious emotions. The only gender difference found among the psychological functioning variables was higher levels of narcissism for males. For the total sample, cooperation was related to nonruminative guilt, whereas an unhealthy level of need for affection was related to ruminative guilt and shame. When males and females were considered separately, depression was related to ruminative guilt in males, but not in females. Narcissism was related to all three emotions for males, but not for females. An absence of dysphoric affect was associated with nonruminative guilt in females. Cooperation and self-inspection both correlated with nonruminative guilt for females, but not for males. The predominant emotion related to unhealthy levels of need for affection was shame for males but ruminative guilt for females. Preliminary results from 21 subjects with positive DEPI scores differed from the results of the entire sample in the relationships between the self-conscious emotions and dysphoric affect, self-inspection, and cooperation. Study results were discussed in light of the different levels of awareness at which the Rorschach and the TOSCA--M assess emotions and psychological functioning. Socialization of gender differences in guilt- and shame-proneness was also discussed. Implications for treatment, future research, and creation of future assessments of guilt- and shame-proneness were examined.

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No / This article draws on findings from a three-year project to develop and deliver culturally appropriate support group materials for South Asian and Eastern European family carers of relatives with dementia living in the UK. Analysis of interview and field note data revealed insights into how understandings of dementia in different cultural contexts can become operationalized through stigma processes and in turn influence the ways in which people with dementia and their family carers engage with formal and informal support.

Aan die hand van 'n literatuur- en empiriese studie is daar ondersoek ingestel na die fenomene skuld en skaamte. Vir diagnosering is daar onderskeid tussen die emosies gemaak. Dit blyk dat die belewing van skaamgevoelens direk met die self te doen het, terwyl skuldgevoelens fokus op die daad wat gedoen of versuim is. Aan die hand van 'n literatuurstudie is riglyne vir die hantering van skuld en skaamte voorgestel. 'n Vraelys is daargestel om skuld en skaamte te identifiseer, om die intensiteit van die emosies te bepaal asook om te onderskei tussen rasionele of irrasionele belewing van skuld en skaamte. 'n Empiriese studie is gedoen om kwalitatief na 'n paar gevallestudies te kyk om sodoende die effektiwiteit van die psigoterapeutiese model en die vraelys te bepaal. Bevindinge van die empiriese studie dui daarop dat die psigoterapeutiese model en die vraelys effektief vir die hantering van skuld en skaamte is. / The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the phenomena guilt and shame. For effective diagnosis a differentiation between the two emotions was made. It appears that shame feelings focus directly towards the self. Guilt feelings focus on "wrong" or neglected deeds. In view of literature and empirical investigations guidelines were set up for the handling of guilt and shame. A questionnaire was developed to identify guilt and shame, to determine the intensity of these feelings and to differentiate between rational and irrational guilt and shame. Results of the empirical study indicated that the psychotherapeutic model and questionnaire were effective in the treatment of guilt and shame. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Voorligting)

This study began testing the Sewell and Williams (in press) model that differing trauma types yield differing presentations in social versus event processing domains. Other hypotheses explored trauma type with levels of guilt, and shame-proneness with anxiety. Volunteers were 44 male combat veterans being treated for PTSD. Data analyses determined whether trauma type related to guilt and perceived social support and whether shame-proneness related to levels of anxiety. High shame persons may process anxiety and social support differently than low shame persons. Results can assist professionals understand how a person's functioning is affected by certain types of trauma. Future research should focus on increasing social support for persons who have experienced trauma.

Towards a mature shame culture seeks to identify new tools for social change through a deeper understanding of the social psychology of shame and guilt. The study takes as its starting point a suggestion by Richard Hauser and Hephzibah Menhuin-Hauser that many personal and social crises can be interpreted through the lens of a late 20th Century transition from a guilt culture to an 'infantile' shame culture. Implicit in this is the need to develop more socially mature forms.This idea is placed in the context of praxis for personal/social growth drawing on previously unpublished material from the Hauser's archive. The study then explores a theoretical framework for understanding the social psychology of emotions in general, and shame in particular. It draws on affect psychology, micro-sociology and social attachment theory. Shame is located primarily as a social emotion, with a normative function of monitoring social bonds between people - rather than, as it is usually framed, as a 'self-conscious', 'negative' and 'pathological'emotion. This reframing of the experience highlights the 'salutogenic' function of shame in building and strengthening relationships. In this frame much of what is commonly thought of as 'shame' can be seen to be the result of unacknowledged shame, where other emotions are bound to the sense of shame and carried as 'toxic' memories of unresolved shame experiences. This pattern of unresolved shame can be seen at the root of the personal and social pathologies of violence and alienation.The study charts how attempts to communicate this salutogenic perspective on shame led to an experiential education workshop Working with shame. It draws on the experience of participants in this workshop in a variety of settings (including anger management programs, workshops at men's gatherings, and community professional development training, and other group work). Interview data is used to illustrate how the masking of the physiological expression of shame, principally with anger and/or fear, interrupts the affective/emotional signals between people that would normally result in empathic responses an salutogenic outcomes. Finally, the study explores how this perspective on shame might inform social crisis-intervention programs at community level; and how it might be applied to the larger, and longer-term challenge of bringing about cultural change. It suggests key features that mark the transition from 'infantile' to 'juvenile' forms of shame and some of the factors limiting further growth towards shame-maturity. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (Ed. S.)--Miami University, Dept. of Educational Psychology, 2004. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 66-69).