Sunday 13th September
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been writing about some of the ways shame protects us.
Sometimes that protection is surprisingly physical. We lower our gaze, become quieter, make ourselves less conspicuous. As we discussed last week, researchers have proposed that some of these behaviours may help appease other people or reduce further social attention when our standing feels threatened.
But humans have developed considerably more elaborate ways of getting ahead of shame than looking at the floor.
We think. Review. Investigate. Prepare. Maintain standards. Anticipate what other people might need from us. We criticise ourselves before anybody else gets the opportunity.
I prefer to think about these behaviours as solutions (or, at least, as things that probably solved a problem once or twice) rather than immediately classifying them as symptoms, bad habits or evidence of poor self-esteem.
Take self-criticism.
We often talk about the inner critic as though it is an unfortunate psychological bully who moved into our head at some point, and now needs an eviction notice. But research on self-criticism has been interested not only in what self-criticism sounds like, but in what people believe it does.
Self-criticism can function as correction. It can be used to maintain standards, prevent future mistakes, motivate improvement or guard against complacency. And sometimes it seems to be doing something slightly more anticipatory.
I often hear some version of: If I can identify what is wrong with me before somebody else does, perhaps I can do something about it and avoid exposure or judgement.
There is a peculiar safety in already knowing the case against yourself.
If I have already identified every way in which I was inadequate, selfish, awkward, lazy or irresponsible, nobody can surprise me with the information. I can correct it before it becomes visible.
Self-criticism, in that sense, may be trying to get us ahead of shame.
Overthinking can do something similar.
Rumination is usually described in terms of its costs (and there are plenty), but from inside the process, thinking repeatedly about something often feels useful. Usually there is a question that still appears to require an answer.
What exactly happened?
Why did they respond like that?
Was I in the wrong?
What does this say about me?
What if I have missed something important?
If I think about it for long enough, perhaps I can arrive at the correct interpretation. And if I can arrive at the correct interpretation, perhaps I can establish whether there is actually something here that needs to be worried about, repaired or changed.
The difficulty with rumination is that the answer almost never arrives with the sense of finality it promised. There is almost always another angle from which the evidence could be re-examined.
You rarely feel finished. You feel nearly finished.
This is where some of what we know about OCD becomes particularly interesting.
We quite rightly understand a great deal of compulsive checking, reviewing and reassurance-seeking through the problem of doubt and uncertainty, and Just Not Right Experiences. Someone strives to achieve sufficient enough certainty whether the door is locked, whether they caused harm, whether they meant something, whether they are attracted to somebody, whether they acted immorally, or what physical sensations mean.
Some certainty may be established, until a technicality announces itself. It’s like clicking the little x on a browser tab and finding that the tab simply will not close.
But oftentimes certainty is being asked to do more than establish what happened. It is being asked to establish who somebody is.
What if I meant it?
What if I enjoyed it?
What if I was irresponsible?
What if this means I am capable of something terrible?
Not every presentation of OCD is organised around shame, and I don't think shame should become another universal explanation for compulsive behaviour.
But for some people, uncertainty is particularly difficult because what remains uncertain is not simply an event. It is a conclusion about the self. And shame is unusually sticky with conclusions about the self.
If I could know, completely, that I didn't mean the thought, that I would never cause the harm, that my motives were good, that I am not that kind of person, perhaps I could finally rule out the shameful possibility. I can finally believe that people are safe around me, I deserve good things (and a good life too).
And naturally, certainty is poorly suited to this particular assignment. There is no laboratory test for whether one is, in every possible circumstance, a good person. Still, we can spend an extraordinary amount of time trying to develop one.
And there are other methods of protection too.
Unrelenting standards can reduce opportunities for criticism.
Self-sacrifice can make accusations of selfishness less likely.
Being exceptionally easy, helpful or undemanding can protect connection.
Withdrawal can reduce the possibility of exposure altogether.
Achievement can provide evidence against inadequacy.
Meticulous preparation can make humiliation less likely.
And importantly, these methods can work.
Someone with punishingly high standards may produce extraordinary work. Someone who anticipates everybody else's needs may be deeply valued by the people around them. Someone who reviews every possible mistake may catch things other people miss. Someone who is careful about how they present themselves may, in fact, be judged more favourably.
I think this is where psychological language can become a little too eager to divide behaviour into healthy and unhealthy categories. A method can solve one problem while quietly creating another.
Self-criticism might help maintain standards while making ordinary mistakes increasingly difficult to tolerate.
Self-sacrifice might protect belonging while making it harder to know what, and when, we are allowed to need something ourselves.
Overthinking might occasionally produce an answer while strengthening the expectation that uncertainty about ourselves must eventually be resolved.
Unrelenting standards might earn genuine admiration while making anything less than exceptional feel dangerously revealing.
Withdrawal might protect us from being seen badly while also removing opportunities to discover what happens when we remain visible.
And being exquisitely attentive to other people's evaluations may make us socially perceptive while gradually handing those evaluations rather a lot of jurisdiction.
The fact that a method is protective does not mean it is protective overall.
Nor does understanding its function mean we need to be grateful for it, keep it, or assume it is the best method available now.
It simply helps explain why some of these patterns are extraordinarily difficult to relinquish, and what the underlying needs are.
We have looked at shame as something humans may have evolved partly in response to the problem of social devaluation. We have looked at the ways it can become difficult to recognise, and at some of the physical and psychological methods humans use to manage the possibility of exposure, rejection or loss of standing.
But protection always has a target.
Sometimes the target is making a mistake. Sometimes it is criticism or loss of status. Sometimes it is needing too much from somebody. Sometimes it is uncertainty about our own morality. Sometimes it is allowing another person to form an unfavourable opinion of us that we cannot immediately correct.
Importantly, those targets did not self-assemble. What counts as humiliating, successful, or selfish, or wrong, or weak, or desirable, or normal is not produced solely inside an individual's head.
What a person learns they must conceal, correct, achieve, apologise for or never become is shaped by families, relationships, institutions, communities and cultures. Shame may be experienced in private, but the standards against which we evaluate ourselves are very often social.
Which means that eventually, if we are going to talk seriously about shame, we have to leave the consulting room.
That is where I think we need to go next.
As always, stay curious.
Shoni
Dr Shoni Marshall-Edwards
Clinical Psychologist · AHPRA PSY0004030165
Alba Psychology · Online · Australia and New Zealand