Did you know???

Did you know that shame and guilt are the real causes underlying violent or criminal behavior? 

In the chapter “Shame and the Death of Self” in his book  “Preventing Violence” Harvard researcher James Gilligan writes:

 …the basic psychological motive, or cause, of violent behavior is the wish to ward off or eliminate the feeling of shame and humiliation - a feeling that is painful….- and replace it with a feeling of pride.” … “He dissed me,” was repeated over and over as the main cause of violating or even killing people. 

Emotional trauma, usually in the form of child neglect and abuse, is the cause of this need to ward off shame. About the most violent men Giiligan observed that “they had been subjected to a degree of child abuse that was off the scale of anything I had previously thought of with that term. Many had been beaten nearly to death, raped repeatedly, or prostituted, or neglected to a life threatening degree…”

“And … those who had not experienced those extreme forms of physical abuse …had experienced a degree of emotional abuse that had been just as dammaging…”

Re: Did you know???

It seems that those who don't turn to violent or agressive behavior after being shamed in childhood tend to drown their self hate and painful feelings in alcohol or numb themselves with other addictions.

In the chapter “Shame As The Core And Fuel Of All Addiction” recovery specialist John Bradshaw concludes: “The drivenness in any addiction is about the ruptured self, the belief that one is flawed as a person. The content of the addiction, whether it be an ingestive additction or an activity addiction (like work, buying or gambling) is an attempt at an intimate relationship. The workaholic with his work, or the alcoholic with his booze, are having a love affair. Each one mood-alters to avoid the feeling of loneliness and hurt in the underbelly of shame.”

Re: Did you know???

Hey Mikael -

Glad to see this Pod up and running again…

Yes, shame is crippling and so often the result of adult addictions. We have an epidemic in the world of the mistreatment of children - cycles of abuse that have been accepted throughout history. It seems we are just beginning to understand how destructive adult behaviors are formed in childhood - it’s a massive task and one that I fear may never be surmounted. To address this at a deep level would take each adult/parent to go within and examine thier own shame - not something many would (or even could) be willing to do.

I read an article in the Journal of Psychohistory some years ago called The History of Child Abuse by Lloyd DeMause. He talks about this idea of the child as “poison container” - the dumping ground for all of the unresolved conflicts of the adult. I didn’t agree with all of his points but it did shed some light on this very complex problem.

Thanks for breathing life back tino this Pod….

Melis

The History of Child Abuse

The mini-version is here: http://www.empathicparenting.org/poison.htm

And the full article here:

http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/05_history.html