TED Community » Johanna Treweeke

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Gestalt therapy, narrative therapy, social psychology, post structuralism, meditation, neo-freudian psychology, psychotherapy, neuropsychology, metaphor, poetry.......it goes one...nature...

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• A comment on Conversation: Deepening the conversation & dialogue about shame with other interested folks.

  Apr 3 2012: Hi Sandy and all,
  
  Thank you for starting this thread - shame happens to be a very important topic to me as well. I would like to mention one interesting thing that Kaufman points out is that shame is a regulatory affect, which regulates in particular the interest/joy affects. Shame is meant to be triggered (in all of us) when there is insufficient support for a persons outgoing interest/joy/excitement affect, and its meant to pull a person back when shame detects insufficient support for ones excitement in the immediate environment. Everyday shame feels like shyness or embarrassment. It's primarily a *social reader/barometer* of ones immediate or anticipated surroundings. Kaufman also talks about *shame-binds*, which develop under conditions of repeated experience of non-reception, such as childhood neglect or trauma. Where ones joy/interests have been chronically unseen or shamed. with shame-binds shame attaches itself to the joy/interest affect and shame can in fact corrode the original excitement to such an extent one can no longer feel the original longing. The undoing of shame requires a receptive witness (usually a caring therapist) or a caring community of people who have experienced similar shaming experiences (such as men's groups). If you want to know more about this work I highly recommend any work by Robert Lee and Gordon Wheeler (Voice of Shame).