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Ethnic differences in expressions of shame feeling by mothers of severely handicapped children.

Shame on the part of parents of mentally handicapped children has pronounced effects on child-rearing practices. The aim of this study was to compare expressions of shame of different ethnic groups in Israel. The attitudes of 23 Western mothers and 26 Eastern mothers towards their moderately and severely retarded children were studied. Significant differences (p less than 0.05-p less than 0.01) were found, suggesting that the Eastern mothers strongly expressed their shame, whereas the Western mothers 'felt ashamed' to express it at all. The Western mothers felt that the social norms that reject feelings of shame and their own personal feelings of embarrassment were in conflict.

Attitude to Health

Shame and other anxieties associated with breast-feeding: a systems theory and psychodynamic approach.

It is easy to be over-simplistic about breast-feeding--what determines the choice of the breast; what causes rejection of breast-feeding as a feeding method; what determines success and what its failure? In fact, a bewildering range of factors, physical, psychological and sociological play a part. How can these be related to each other and ordered in general and for the individual? A general systems theory approach, in which the elements are envisaged as interacting dynamically, seems to offer a possible satisfactory explanatory model. Moving from social systems to the individual's intrapsychic system helps to understand the complexity of emotions aroused about the breast and breast-feeding. Shame and anxieties are seen to arise from the confluence of life history and current events. Intervention is necessary at many levels--societal, family and individual--if breast-feeding is to be re-established as the feeding method of first choice.

Adult

Guilt and shame.

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Guilt

Suicide--the other side. The factor of reality among suicidal motivations.

A prevalent feature of many investigations of suicide is a degree of recoil from true empathic closeness to a suicidal person. The motives for this lie within the investigator's own dynamics--they are anxiety over one's own suicide proneness, together with guilt, shame, contempt, and the avoidance of medicolegal involvement. These motives are not altogether unrelated to the suicidal motives themselves, and they hamper the capacity of objective, neutral assessment. With a recognition of these resistances, the seldomly mentioned realistic determinant of suicide becomes discernible, the act sometimes being a clever, courageous choice of death, and not, as usually diagnosed, a pathologically generated escape from life. All suicidal motives should be evaluated according to several concomitant ratings simultaneously, while emphasizing the realistic rating. A neutral, unbiased approach to suicide should reduce the dangerous false glory sometimes attributed to the act, thus contributing to the discrimination of sickness, therapy, and health.

Anxiety

Clinical implications of a simulation model of paranoid processes.

A shame-humiliation theory of paranoid processes embodied in a successful computer simulation model has clinical implications for the understanding, treatment, management, and prevention of paranoid disorders. The multiplicity and variety of these implications indicate that the theoretical model is more than ad hoc, since it potentially contributes new empirical content to existing knowledge about paranoid disorders. Among rival theories, a more acceptable one is that with a large consequence class, members of which turn out to be true, and that which most effectively serves multiple purposes.

Computers

Survivor themes in the supervision of psychotherapy.

Some themes of survivorhood are discussed in relation to their effects on the supervisory process. The focus of this paper is on the intrusive themes of survivor shame, survivor rage, and survivor panic. Three illustrative case examples are presented.

Emotions

A case study of embarrassment.

The psychoanalytic references to embarrassment are reviewed. Embarrassment, in the literature, is seen largely as an affect involving exhibitionistic and scopophilic conflicts and defenses against these. A case in which embarrassment was prominent is discussed. Embarrassment in the patient was an ego response which implied an external object for its manifestation. It involved exhibitionistic and scopophilic conflicts and projective defenses, but also operated in ego-gratifying and adaptive ways. Her embarrassment was understood through the analysis of an initial embarrassing dream of nakedness and other dreams and associated material as the defensive out-grouth of repeated exposures to the primal scene. Embarrassment was a resistance to remembering in the analysis, and the primal-scene experiences were partially reconstructed. The analytic situation was, in many ways, a symbolic re-creation of the primal scene, including the patient's response of embarrassment. The development of embarrassment in the patient's childhood was furthered and confirmed by its being an identification with the attitudes of both parents. Finally, some reflections on embarrassment and shame in its various forms are set forth.

Adult

Stage fright.

Stage fright is a universal human experience that occurs with varying intensity in everyone who stands before an audience. The anxiety generated in this situation stems from the re-emergence of certain key developmental experiences. The dynamics involved are related both to genital and to pre-genital conflicts. Shame arises from conflicts around exhibitionism, from concerns over genital inadequacy, and from the fear of loss of control. Guilt is produced from the aggression inherent in self-display and from the fear of the destruction of one's rivals, along with the dread of retaliation. A major portion of the stage fright reaction is the reactivation of the crisis of separation-individuation, which generates separation anxiety connected to the fear that asserting oneself as a separate individual will result in withdrawal of love and admiration by maternal figures, i.e. the audience. The various developmental experiences are differentially weighted in each individual's stage fright reaction depending on the vicissitudes of his early childhood experience. Perhaps it is fortunate that few performers ever completely master stage fright, for an intangible sense of communion between the performer and his audience might well be lost as a by-product of the mastery.

Adolescent

Outcome following therapeutic abortion.

Psychological outcome of abortion was studied in 102 patients, measuring multiple variables over four time intervals. Five measured affects--anxiety, depression, anger, guilt, and shame-were significantly lower six months after the preabortion period. The following variables describe subgroups of patients with significant variations in patterns of responses as indicated by changes in affects: marital status, personality diagnosis, character of object relations, past psychopathologic factors, relationship to husband or lover, relationship to mother, ambivalence about abortion, religion, and previous parity. A complex multivariate model, based on conflict and conflict resolution, is appropriate to conceptualize, the unwanted pregnancy and abortion experience. Data suggest that women most vulnerable to conflict are those who are single and nulliparous, those with previous history of serious emotional problems, conflictual relationships to lovers, past negative relationships to mother, strong ambivalence toward abortion, or negative religious or cultural attitudes about abortion.

Abortion, Therapeutic

Analyzing affective responses to past events: women's reactions to a childbearing year.

Applied content analysis scales on the work of Gottschalk and Gleser (1969) to 200 women's recollections of four stages of a recently completed child-bearing year. On 11 of 13 affective indices, significant differences were found. Pregnancy was characterized by diffuse and cognitive anxiety and hostility directed inward, and labor by mutilation anxiety. During both pregnancy and labor, general anxiety, death anxiety, ambivalent hostility, and affective costs were comparatively high. Mothers revealed least affective arousal during hospitalization. Considerable guilt and shame anxiety were experienced in the months after the birth.

Anxiety

Therapy groups for women sexually molested as children.

A neglected class of sexual assault victims consists of women who were molested as children. In response to their unmet needs, therapy groups composed solely of women who were sexually abused in their childhood have been established. The goals of these groups are twofold: (1) the alleviation of sexual guilt and shame and (2) the clarification of emotional and behavioral consequences of molestation. Ten groups have been conducted, each containing four to six members, comprising an overall total of 50 women. In 97% of the cases, a prior relationship had existed between perpetrator and victim. Treatment consisted of a four-session format. During session I, each group participant described her molestation experiences in detail. Sessions II and III focused on how these experiences have affected the women. Session IV dealt with individual stages of recovery and further treatment plans. Clinical findings included feelings of guilt and depression, negative self-image, and problems in interpersonal relationships associated with an underlying mistrust of men, inadequate social skills, and difficulties in sexual functioning. Evaluations of the therapy groups by the participants indicated that the primary curative component was the sense of identification and emotional closeness instilled by a warm and supportive environment where a common bond was shared.

Adaptation, Psychological

Diogenes syndrome. A clinical study of gross neglect in old age.

A study of elderly patients (fourteen men, sixteen women) who were admitted to hospital with acute illness and extreme self-neglect revealed common features which might be called Diogenes syndrome. All had dirty, untidy homes and a filthy personal appearance about which they showed no shame. Hoarding of rubbish (syllogomania) was sometimes seen. All except two lived alone, but poverty and poor housing standards were not a serious problem. All were known to the social-services departments and a third had persistently refused offers of help. An acute presentation with falls or collapse was common, and several physical diagnoses could be made. Multiple deficiency states were found--including iron, folate, vitamin B12, vitamin C, calcium and vitamin D, serum proteins and albumin, water, and potassium. The mortality, especially for women, was high (46%); most of the survivors responded well and were discharged. Half showed no evidence of psychiatric disorder and possessed higher than average intelligence. Many had led successful professional and business lives, with good family backgrounds and upbringing. Personality characteristics showed them to tend to be aloff, suspicious, emotionally labile, aggressive, group-dependent, and reality-distorting individuals. It is suggested that this syndrome may be a reaction late in life to stress in a certain type of personality.

Age Factors

Psychological reactions to acute medical illness and critical care.

The psychological stresses evoked by acute critical illness and intensive care in both patient and physician are examined and certain approaches proposed which, in our experience, can alleviate these stresses. Admittedly, these psychological concepts may appear inconsequential at first glance. We have found, however, that such intervention may facilitate the physician's efforts to provide appropriate care for his critically ill patients, including those who must die, without experiencing the psychological reactions--the guilt, shame, anguish, and despair--these patients typically arouse.

Acute Disease