On Shame pt 1:
I want to spend some time over the next four newsletters talking about an emotion and an experience that, in one form or another, shows up in almost every aspect of my work, whether that is in therapy rooms or in performance work.
That experience is shame.
Because it is both so pervasive and so frequently misunderstood, I am going to take this slowly and fully. This first piece is a deeper dive than usual, and it is deliberately more conceptual, because I want you to get a clear sense of what we mean by shame, psychologically speaking, and so that it becomes easier to recognise it accurately in yourself, and to feel more equipped in knowing what to do about it.
Shame as a Psychological Construct
Within psychological theory, shame is classified as a self-conscious emotion, which immediately sets it apart from more basic emotional responses such as fear or anger. What this means, in practical terms, is that shame requires a particular level of cognitive and social development: you need to have a sense of yourself as something that can be evaluated, you need to hold in mind a set of internalised standards or expectations, and you need, at least implicitly, to be orienting to how you might be seen or judged by others.
So when you feel shame, you are not simply reacting to an external event. You are engaging in a form of self-evaluation that is shaped by your history, your relationships, and the internal standards you have come to carry.
The crucial distinction here, and one that has been consistently supported across decades of psychological research, is the difference between shame and guilt.
Guilt operates at the level of behaviour. It is concerned with something that has been done, or not done, and it retains a degree of specificity. The internal narrative tends to take the form of “I did something wrong.”
Shame, by contrast, operates at the level of the self. It is not concerned with a discrete action but with what that action, or perceived failure, is taken to mean about you as a person. The internal narrative is something closer to “There is something wrong with me.”
That focus on identity (self-concept) rather than behaviour, is the defining feature of shame, and it is what gives it its particular psychological weight. Once the evaluation becomes global, internal, and relatively stable, it is no longer easily contained or resolved by addressing the original situation. Instead, it begins to generalise, influencing how you interpret other experiences, how you anticipate evaluation, and how you relate to yourself more broadly.
This is why shame often presents not as a fleeting emotional response, but as something more enduring, something that can underlie someone’s lived experience and as a result, influence their reality - from shaping their thoughts themselves, their emotions, their self-beliefs, and in turn their behaviour… how they live out their life.
Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.
What is important in that definition is not just the presence of pain, but the conclusion that is drawn from it. The experience is not only that something has gone wrong, but that the self, at some level, is fundamentally inadequate.
An Embodied and Neurobiological Process
It is also important to recognise that shame is not purely an experience of thought. Research in neuroscience has shown that shame activates neural systems associated with social pain, including regions such as the anterior insula and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. These are the same systems that are engaged when a person experiences social rejection or exclusion, and, notably, they overlap with networks involved in the processing of physical pain.
In practical terms, this means that when you experience shame, your brain is responding as though something about your social standing, your belonging, or your acceptance is under threat. And neurophysiologically you are experiencing pain, real pain, with the same networks firing as if you had just been hurt physically. So we have to reword the nursery rhyme to something like… “Sticks and stones may break my bones AND words can actually hurt me”.
The physiological responses that follow, the urge to withdraw, to hide, to reduce visibility, or in some cases to defend or counterattack, are understood as adaptive responses within a system that is undergoing experiences of pain and is attempting to manage perceived social risk.
The Etymology of Shame: A Clue to Its Nature
Interestingly, the linguistic origins of the word shame point very clearly in the same direction as the psychological and neuroscientific literature.
The term can be traced back through Old English and related Germanic languages to a root meaning “to cover.”
Across early cultures, the observable expression of shame was characterised by acts of concealment: covering the face, hiding the body, withdrawing from view.
What this suggests, and what is borne out by contemporary research, is that shame is fundamentally an experience of exposure, of being seen in a way that feels unacceptable, and the corresponding impulse is to reduce that exposure as quickly as possible.
Why This Matters for Understanding Behaviour
The distinction between shame and guilt has significant implications for how people respond to perceived failure or wrongdoing.
Guilt, because it is focused on behaviour, is consistently associated in the research literature with more adaptive, prosocial outcomes. It tends to motivate repair, accountability, and efforts to make amends.
Shame, because it implicates the entire self, is associated with a very different set of responses. It is linked to withdrawal, avoidance, defensiveness, and, in some cases, externalisation of blame or hostility.
This is not because people who experience shame are less motivated to do well or to act ethically, but because the experience itself is so internally consuming. When the focus is on protecting the self from a global sense of defectiveness, there is less capacity available for perspective-taking, for empathy, or for constructive behavioural change.
This is one of the reasons why shame, despite often being assumed to be a useful motivator, particularly in high-performance environments, tends in practice to undermine the very outcomes it is believed to support.
Looking Ahead
In this first part, the aim has been to clarify what shame actually is.
In the next part, I will take this further and look at how shame develops, particularly within early relational environments.
For You to Consider
As we move through this series, it will be far more useful if this is not just something you read, but something you begin to observe in your own experience.
You might start with questions like:
What does this feeling actually feel like for you, in real terms? If you had to describe it without using the word “shame,” how would you describe the experience?
Where do you feel it most strongly in your body? Is it in your chest, your stomach, your face, your shoulders? Does it feel like heat, tightness, heaviness, or something else?
How easy is it for you to notice it while it’s happening, versus only recognising it afterwards?
When it shows up, what do you instinctively do? Do you go quieter, pull back, try to fix things quickly, push yourself harder, become more self-critical or something else?
And once that feeling is there, what do you tend to do with it? Do you sit with it, distract from it, override it, or try to get rid of it as quickly as possible?
Awareness always comes first, so keep the focus there. You don’t need to change anything yet. For now, this is about getting to know the experience better.
And if anything here resonates, or if you notice something new as you reflect on this over the week, feel free to reply and share it. Questions, observations, half-formed thoughts, are all welcome.
You can reply directly or share your thoughts anonymously here.
Warmly,
Dr Matt
Dr Matt Slavin
Clinical & Performance Psychologist · Auckland · Online
If you recognise these patterns in yourself, your relationships, or your team's culture, this is exactly the kind of work that 1:1 support and consulting can help with.
Not sure where to start? Get in touch and tell me a little about what you're navigating. I'll point you in the right direction.
