The first talk, on vulnerability, only lightly touches on shame, but it provides context for the second talk, without which the second talk will make less sense.
The second talk, on shame, explicitly gets into shame and guilt, the differences between them, and the difference between their effects on behaviour.
Hereâs the core distinction, which she gives in the second talk:
The thing to understand about shame is, itâs not guilt. Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is âI am bad.â Guilt is âI did something bad.â ⊠Thereâs a huge difference between shame and guilt.
And hereâs what you need to know. Shame is highly, highly correlated with addiction, depression, violence, aggression, bullying, suicide, eating disorders.
And hereâs what you even need to know more. Guilt, inversely correlated with those things. The ability to hold something weâve done or failed to do up against who we want to be is incredibly adaptive. Itâs uncomfortable, but itâs adaptive.
But most of the time people are saying âguiltâ when what theyâre talking about it shame â a focus on self. So, most of the problems people have with âguiltâ can actually be attributed to shame.
On the topic of shame and guilt, I really want to recommend what the emotions researcher Brené Brown says about the topic. The best, quickest way to understand what she has to say about shame and guilt is to watch her two TED Talks in release order.
The first talk, on vulnerability, only lightly touches on shame, but it provides context for the second talk, without which the second talk will make less sense.
The second talk, on shame, explicitly gets into shame and guilt, the differences between them, and the difference between their effects on behaviour.
Hereâs the core distinction, which she gives in the second talk:
I think thereâs probably such a thing as maladaptive guilt too. I vaguely remember BrenĂ© Brown briefly talking about this somewhere. If you feel guilt about something thatâs not your fault and you canât control, or if your guilt is way out of proportion to what you did wrong, then maybe those could be cases where guilt is maladaptive.
But most of the time people are saying âguiltâ when what theyâre talking about it shame â a focus on self. So, most of the problems people have with âguiltâ can actually be attributed to shame.
Further resources beyond the TED Talks:
-BrenĂ© Brownâs book I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isnât), about shame and shame resilience
-BrenĂ© Brownâs audio program The Power of Vulnerability (you can find it on Audible), in which shame and shame resilience are a major topic
-A more textbook-style book that BrenĂ© Brown recommends (and which Iâve only read a bit of but which seems good), Shame and Guilt by June Price Tangney and Ronda L. Dearing, if you are interested in a more quantitative or more academic dive into the research