Abstract
Lewis’s work on the role of shame and guilt in personality, psychopathology, and psychotherapy draws from psychoanalytic theory, experimental psychology, and a wealth of personal experience as a practitioner and teacher of psychotherapy. In this chapter, she begins by elucidating the long-standing problems in distinguishing between shame and guilt as separate and important motivational conditions. She shows how the problem began when Freud failed to distinguish between the ego and self and explained the superego solely in terms of instinctual drives (especially the working of the death instinct), emphasizing the role of the affective state of guilt. Within this framework, Freud saw no place for shame in superego functioning, nor did he see a role for shame in depression. Hartman included cognitive and social learning components in his conception of superego functioning, but the impact of his contribution on affect theory was simply to strengthen the role of guilt.
Did you feel horribly depressed? I did. I could not write, and all the devils came out—hairy black ones. To be 29 and unmarried—to be a failure—childless—insane too naive, no writer. I went off to the Museum to try and subdue them, and having an ice afterward, met Rupet Brooke with, presumably, a Miss Olivier. Her beauty was marred by protuberant blemishes; as she wasn’t beautiful, only a pretty chit, prehaps she wasn’t Miss Olivier.
Letter of Virginia Woolf to her sister, Vanessa Bell
Nicolson and Trautmann (1975, p. 570)
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Lewis, H.B. (1979). Shame in Depression and Hysteria. In: Izard, C.E. (eds) Emotions in Personality and Psychopathology. Emotions, Personality, and Psychotherapy. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2892-6_13
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