What are the earliest sources of shame? Does a newborn child enter the world genetically predisposed toward shame, or does shame begin with the first interactions between the infant and his parents?
We shall examine two theories about how shame develops.
1. Children have a biologically given predisposition toward shame.
This shows initially as the infant minimizes uncomfortable stimulation by looking away or losing energy. Researchers of this idea view shame as a universal emotion, with its roots in the human condition, not in specific events involving an infant and his family. Research on depression provides more evidence for the genetic and biological sources of shame. As we shall see, some kinds of depression seem especially related to shame.
2. Shame develops from verbal and nonverbal communications during the first two years of life.
Many theorists and clinicians trace the development of shame to verbal and nonverbal communication within the first two years of life. The emphasis of this theory is on the frustrations that lead to shame as a child struggles to achieve independence and positive attention from parents.
Both of these theories are valuable. We believe that children are born with different capacities toward shame, with some infants probably much more sensitive than others to those feelings. Then parents and caretakers influence the child by either shaming or appreciating her.
No real proof exists for the material we are presenting next. Nobody knows yet exactly how shame develops in infants, and babies certainly can’t tell us much about it themselves.
Research in the area of nonverbal communication has accumulated quickly in the last decade or so. Especially helpful to scientists has been the use of video equipment to study the signals people send each other with their faces and bodies.
A major contribution to this research has been made by Paul Ekman and his associates. In his book, The Face of Man, Ekman decided to learn if any emotions could be understood universally. For example, would a native of New Guinea, just by looking at a picture, recognize that a French citizen was angry? He discovered that many feelings do have universal features. Citizens of “advanced” and “primitive” areas alike recognized each other’s emotions with great accuracy simply by seeing pictures of each other.
Ekman studied six emotions in detail: happiness, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, and fear. He speculated that shame and embarrassment could also be universal experiences, noting that “we encountered its expression often enough…to feel confident that its manifestations are also similar across many cultures. One common sign of embarrassment is to turn away and cover the face with the hands.”
Another researcher, C. E. Izard, studied feelings of shame and humiliation. In the book, Face of Emotion, Izard states that people in most cultures could select the emotion shame/humiliation correctly from a group of photographs showing many emotions.
Silvan Tomkins, however, has made the strongest case for shame being a universal experience. He has been writing since the 1960s on how emotions are shown primarily in the face. Tomkins, in the chapter he wrote for the book titled, The Many Faces of Shame, states that shame diminishes interest and excitement. The person who hangs his head and lowers his eyes experiences less excitation. This need to dampen enthusiasm occurs in situations where too much pleasure would be socially unacceptable or would make a person feel too vulnerable, Tomkins writes.
Shame temporarily disconnects people from each other. For example, women in America and many other societies will often modestly look away when they notice someone showing sexual interest in them, even if they are interested in the other person. The message they may be giving (only under certain circumstances, of course) is that their sexuality is too powerful to express openly in public. Similarly, people will ordinarily avoid eye contact when a situation threatens to become too potent.
How soon does a child respond to overstimulation and discomfort by looking down or away? Donald Nathanson, in the chapter he wrote for The Many Faces of Shame, cites studies that document this by the time an infant is eight months old. He believes that infants are born with innate bodily mechanisms that prepare that child for what she will later learn to call shame. Nathanson notes that the more we study infants, the more we realize that we begin to interact with others at birth. If a child can connect with his mother or father from birth, then it is likely he can disconnect as well.
Many parents remember the first time they looked into their newborn infant’s eyes. That shared gaze is electrifying — the parent’s entire body responds as the physical effects of bonding with that child kick in. That look tells the parents that this child is theirs to love and protect, and it tells the child that she belongs in this world. Eye contact unites two human beings from the moment of birth on.
But the child who looks directly at his parents also looks away from time to time. These moments may be distressing to the parents. “I wish our baby would look at me as often as he looks at his mother,” a frustrated father might say. Later in life, either parent might tell the child: “Look at me when I talk to you. I hate it when you stare at the floor.” We believe that even a newborn child instinctively realizes that he can “lower the heat” in overly stimulating situations by breaking eye contact.
If babies are born with the ability to feel shame, then we must consider another important question. Is it possible that certain individuals are born with (or later develop) too much sensitivity to shame? In other words, are some people shame-based from birth because of physical characteristics that have nothing to do with the way that they are raised? Can some people be born ashamed? Do they feel deep, unrelenting shame because their brains send them messages that fill them with self-hatred and despair?
Research in this area has turned up no clear answers. But students of biochemically-caused depression have noticed that it is often accompanied by shame. A psychiatrist, Helen Block Lewis, and others have linked shame and depression. Donald Nathanson writes that certain antidepressant medications are effective in treating the shame that accompanies depression.
Guilt feelings have long been connected with depression. Depressed persons seem to blame themselves for everything that goes wrong, whether or not they are actually responsible. Shame-prone persons who become depressed attack their own personality and character. They, too, blame themselves for what goes wrong, insisting the problem lies in their defective personalities. They insist that they are incompetent, inadequate, and useless. They may believe that they have no reason to live since they are no good. Their unrelenting shame may drive them into contemplating suicide, the ultimate response to feelings of worthlessness.
The deeply shameful thoughts and feelings associated with clinical depression cannot be talked away no matter how caring or concerned other people are. The problem is medical. Shame of this nature is not caused by a person’s current relationships, family of origin, or even the individual himself. We want to emphasize one point here: you need to make an appointment with a qualified doctor or psychiatrist if you are burdened with tremendous feelings of shame that refuse to go away, especially if you have otherwise improved your life over the last few years. You might be suffering from a biochemically-linked depression that can only be treated with medicine. Please see the second exercise at the end of this chapter for a list of the common signs of depression.
Most writers and therapists have assumed until recently that shame could not exist until a child began to develop a distinct sense of self. Someone can only feel judged by others if he realizes others are separate from him. A child would not fear abandonment unless he knew it were possible to be abandoned.
Erik Erikson believes that shame develops in about the second year of life when the child is struggling to become independent. Ordinarily, a child at that time desperately wants her own way regardless of what her parents want. (This period is often called “The Terrible Twos” as children battle parents on almost everything.) Erikson believes that a child learns through these fights that she is separate, with her own mind and personality.
Shame can grow quickly in this stage. For example, the child’s parents might believe it is their job to control the child at all times. They may prevent him from doing anything by himself. This overprotectiveness, although intended as support, will undermine the child’s sense of autonomy. He may eventually conclude he is not good enough to stand up for himself. He may decide he is weaker and less competent than others, causing self-doubt. This doubt may not produce the strong feelings of worthlessness that shame does, but its effects can be enormous. The child who doubts his skills often grows to be an adult who questions the value of almost everything he does.
Erikson describes this time as the developmental crisis of “Autonomy” versus “Shame and Doubt.” Erikson believes that parents can help a child develop a sense of autonomy (independence) by gradually allowing her increasing responsibility to manage her own affairs. Shame and doubt are caused either by the parents unreasonably resisting the child’s autonomy or by a child’s demand for more autonomy than parents can safely allow. Power battles between child and parent can cause some shame. In extreme cases, a child can emerge deeply ashamed of herself.
Like Erikson, Heinz Kohut believes that shame begins around age two. Kohut, in The Search For Self, writes that a child has a natural desire to show off — what he calls “boundless exhibitionism.” The child expects his parents to pay a lot of attention to him just because he exists. He needs attention to grow emotionally.
Children start their lives feeling they are at the center of the universe. They have little understanding of boundaries between them and others. Only gradually do they realize that other people, especially their parents, lead separate lives in different bodies. The child who knows this also recognizes on some level that he could be abandoned by these people. The fear of abandonment is considered by many to be the core of shame. The shamed person feels he will be abandoned because he is not good enough to keep.
The child struggles for reassurance that she will not be abandoned by demanding constant attention. But no parents can always stop whatever they are doing to watch or praise their children. All children will occasionally feel frustrated when they cannot be the center of attention. This is normal. It even helps a child realize she is simply human. She learns slowly that she is important enough to get attention from others some, but not all, of the time.
But the outcome can also be negative. The child who gets too little attention and concludes that he is not worth his parents’ time may decide that nobody really cares or is very interested in him. He may decide he must be “nothing.”
When a child receives too much parental disapproval, it can devastate her, filling her with shame and driving her away from others. A child who receives disapproval messages too often may decide that there must be something very wrong with her.
Kohut also describes another possible unfortunate outcome of this attention-seeking stage of life. Children may develop strong narcissistic tendencies. These children may continue to expect and demand more attention than they deserve. They are considered spoiled as youngsters and egotistical as adults. Some fail to mature emotionally and become the shame-deficient adults described in Chapter Four. They have never learned the lesson of humility — that they are not better or worse than others.
Shame seems to be a universal experience. The physical response of looking down to break eye contact occurs around the world. One value of this kind of shame is that it diminishes interest and excitement — it slows down the contact between two persons before one or the other becomes too angry, happy, or involved.
Shame is connected with biochemically-caused depression. This is more evidence that shame is at least partly genetic. Certain people may be born with a tendency to develop unhealthy amounts of shame.
The kind of shame familiar to adults starts to develop by age two. This is when children begin to establish a separate identity. Excessive shame delays or distorts this process. The shamed child does not believe that he has a right to a separate life, or he concludes that he is a weak and flawed person. His failure to achieve a comfortable sense of autonomy leaves him full of excessive shame and doubt. His inability to resolve his need for attention makes him fear and expect abandonment or demand endless attention from others to reassure him of his worthiness.
The beginnings of shame are still quite mysterious. Genetics and biology appear to play a significant role in this process, but exactly how crucial they are is not yet fully determined.
One of the functions of shame is to lower the “charge” of powerful contact. Try maintaining eye contact for a longer time than you usually do with several other people. Make sure that you do not hold your breath while doing this, but continue to breathe deeply and gently.
If you feel stuck in shame, perhaps you have a biochemical depression. Answering the questions in the following checklist can help you determine whether you need outside help.
If you answered yes to more than two of these questions, it is important for you to make an appointment with a doctor or a counselor to be assessed for depression. Take your checklist with you if you are having trouble concentrating or remembering things.
As children, we need to learn two important lessons. One is that we are worth the attention of others just because we are unique human beings. The other is that we cannot have attention all the time, but we have to share it with others. As a child, how did you feel you were treated by your parents? Circle each term that fits your experience.